A Fond Farewell To Polygon, From The People Who Worked There. “It was a good website. I doubt I’ll ever find a place like it for the rest of my career”

49 Comments

  1. BagadonutsImposter

    I’m still mad that History of Fun never came back. What a great podcast that was

  2. Juan20455

    You won’t be missed.

    Like, at all. 

    And congratulations. You got what you wanted. You wrote articles saying “gamers are dead. They don’t have to be your audience” and hundreds of articles insulting gamers, and you got your wish: Gamers left you alone.

    Article written by Nathan Grayson, the same one that was fucking a developer while praising her game. LMAO 

  3. PogChampHS

    When youtubers are able to get similar access and produce higher quality content, it’s no wonder these gaming websites are dead in the water.

  4. FixTheFernBack616

    The only people bidding it a ‘fond farewell’ are the ones who were getting their paycheck from the company.

  5. Main-Leg-4628

    An obsession with identity politics drove away readers who wanted game-centred coverage. Fewer readers made the business untenable, hence the fire sale.

  6. MidWestMind

    Gaming journalism is dead. If you look at the timeline of their popularity the downhill started with Gamer Gate.

    Put the fries in the bag.

  7. NaCl_Miner_

    They played themselves. Nothing of value was lost.

    /cue the down votes

  8. My sympathies to all the employees that worked there, they seemed to really enjoy what they did, at last the ones involved with their youtube channel.

    But, I’d be lying if I said I have watched anything from them in the past couple years other than BDG’s Unraveled.

    At last he found a home at Dropout.

  9. Protoman89

    They won’t be missed, most of their viral articles were clickbait nonsense from an annoying political angle

  10. frenchezz

    Didn’t take the poor souls still suffering from gamergate to get here. /s

  11. cloudcity

    Quality had nose-dived in the last few years, I would say 60% of the articles were no longer about gaming in any regard. Bummer because they started strong.

  12. badwithnames

    The gloating and celebration on this sub around polygon’s demise surprise me. I’ve been a reader for years. I don’t agree with everything they write, but enjoy criticism around my favorite art form.

    Media literacy is obviously dead. We go to places like Reddit where we expect to only get exposed to stuff we agree with, and despise an editorial perspective that’s different from our own. I draw a straight line between this and the outsized influence social media and propaganda like Fox News has on our political and social culture. Oh well.

  13. NothingWrong1234

    So what you’re saying is I won’t be able to continue staking pol for the next 50 years so I can become even again before selling? Damn lol

  14. groovybear

    Once Griffin and Justin McElroy left I stopped paying attention to Polygon

  15. Nightmannn

    People will definitely dance on the grave of this website, and tbh I’ve never liked their editorials. I remember reading about how misogynistic the Witcher 3 was because they dared to show a misogynist world… or how partnering with nypd during spider-man 1 on the ps4 was deeply immoral. Or lots of other nonsense.

    That said this outlet was just not for me, and while it’s sad for people to lose their jobs, it seems clear this outlet was actually not for anyone.

    The GCJ crowd is not a profitable audience to cater to.

  16. TequilaShirtless

    they had an excellent video team, i hope they all can land on their feet

  17. Biggest thing I’m worried about is how high of a status they hold for game ratings and reviews for things like Metacritic or marketing. Whoever bought them might just sell out high reviews to high bidders now.

    People in the know will ignore it, but a ton of people won’t know (especially judging by the surprise even in r/gaming)

  18. Flemtality

    It’s so fitting that this happened right as new Doom game came out.

  19. MallocArray

    I never knew who Polygon was until Brian David Gilbert videos hit and I haven’t been aware of the site since he left.

  20. Games journalism is such a dumpster fire nowadays. I hope they all land on their feet and find success

  21. Embarrassed_Till5579

    So what happens to griffins amiibo corner??

  22. BlargerJarger

    My recollection was Polygon was a bunch of people who defected from some *other* website, so maybe they can just make a new, new website until that gets sold, forever.

  23. PMme_cat_on_Cleavage

    Gaming journalist died when activists took over.

  24. Implosion-X13

    Yeah polygon turned to shit at some point so one less abysmal journalism site is alright by me.

  25. I mean it is really bad for online gaming journalism.

    At the same time the writing was on the wall. Maybe focus more on games and game related stuff because thsts what your base wants?

  26. Got mixed feelings. The site was just not great. Most of the reviews they posted were just…wrong. I played a few games they said were incredible only to find them mediocre at best.

  27. Media has just really gone downhill. People use AI to generate word articles, slap ads every two sentences, and then move on to the next takeover.

    With YouTube and Short Form like TikTok, people don’t wanna sit and read anymore. They want bite-sized media bits and background noise while they scroll on their phone. I think most of us, including myself, are all guilty of that. However, it’s older people (millennials and up) who seek out good news or infotainment on subjects we do like and get engaged.

    Since anyone can start a channel, rattle off the same old facts off Wikipedia, use Reddit as a source, and sit back… I mean, there just isn’t any hope anymore for this stuff.

    The whole point of online websites like this one eventually became “squeeze in as much ad space as you can.”

  28. Chris_P_Lettuce

    I only ever went on polygon for guides, and they fucking sucked so bad. I will not miss it.

  29. Their longform articles a decade ago were incredibly well done and worth the read. I don’t know if it was personnel changing over time, some editorial change in priorities by management or something else entirely, but the tonal shift in their writing over the years just gradually made me lose interest until the site just fell out of my news rotation.

    At the end of the day it is nothing more than another website tossed into the graveyard, but personally I feel this was a very self-inflicted chain of events that led them to this point.

  30. BlearySteve

    Only thing good about polygon was there guides.

  31. Sucks for the hard working people but it’s no surprise. Incredible game reviews like DOOM (2016) was what started their downward spiral along with click bait articles.

  32. KN_Knoxxius

    Rest in shit polygon. May all the political writers find jobs at fast food joints, best of luck.

  33. tastyugly

    Polygon was my go-to site for entertainment news. It wasn’t about reviews and what’s the hottest (they had that too obviously), but they took editorial risks covering oddball topics and experimented with how they approached the industry. Sadly my understanding is their guides get SUBSTANTIALLY more clicks than anything else. In a web space dictated by click-through rates, sadly the thoughtful stuff don’t always win, especially in the entertainment biz

  34. AnyImpression6

    Polygon: “Gamers are dead”

    Gamers: “Uno reverse card”

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