Ex-Polygon Games Journalists Have a Fundraiser Live Now. Join Me and Help My Colleagues Out

On May 1st, digital media network Valnet announced its purchase of Vox’s Polygon. Valnet CEO Hassan Youssef took a victory lap over the acquisition, welcoming Polygon “with immense pride and gratitude.” The press release failed to mention a simple fact widely reported across games media: Polygon was hit with massive layoffs in conjunction with the deal. The site lost some of the biggest names in games journalism during the purchase, including Polygon EIC Chris Plante, eight-year mainstay Cass Marshall, and reporter Nicole Carpenter.

Like my fellow Waypoint writer Anthony Franklin II, I do not have high hopes for Polygon in the era of Valnet. Polygon co-founder Chris Grant said Valnet “literally refused to meet with me,” and that the company was “wildly incurious about how a gaming publication even becomes ‘premium.’” I shudder to think what Polygon will become in the near future.

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The wheels are off in games journalism

Valnet x Polygon promo image — Screenshot: Valnet

Polygon is a loss that affects me deeply. I always praised the site in the same breath as Kotaku. To me, Polygon represented what games media should be: Opinionated, journalistic, unique. Polygon set a high standard by embracing topics no one else discussed and publishing investigative pieces that would set the agenda for the news cycle. It pains me that the reward for all that hard work is, for many, a layoff with the complete and utter vibes of a businessman saying, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

I have a lot of empathy for Polygon’s former staff, because they are walking into a torturous landscape that I just meandered through. To be transparent, I used to work at GAMURS, a company similar to Valnet in scope and approach. I left the company after feeling burnt out by the work environment. I didn’t land a new job in the industry until 14 months later, when I came on board as a contributor to Waypoint in March 2025. In the interim, there were months when I had to beg for donations to pay rent. If it wasn’t for VICE, I… don’t know what would have happened to me. And a lot of games journalists are asking that same question right now. “What’s going to happen to me?”

I’m not exaggerating. I’ve stayed in touch with many of my GAMURS colleagues since February 2024, and the feeling from them and others in games journalism is, well, things are not great. Opportunities are evaporating. Investigative journalism is disappearing. Publications are being sold off to major media networks focused on squeezing out all the SEO output they can muster. And jobs? None. Even freelance opportunities are slim. All the while, the clock is ticking, and bills are coming due. That was my experience for a year. I do not believe anyone should experience that in this industry, especially folks who set the standard for an entire decade and a half.

In games journalism, we need to look out for each other

At the end of the day, games journalism isn’t just an industry. We are also a community. A community of people invested in gaming and invested in the people who report on it. Many of us are former coworkers, if not friends. And even if we’re not, we share like-minded values and goals. We look out for each other. And part of looking out for each other means making sure all of our colleagues have the resources they need to weather the storm, both short-term (i.e. layoffs) and long-term (i.e. the instability of the industry).

There’s no better example of how to do just that than the Polygon layoff fund. Several members from the Vox Media Union are running a GoFundMe dedicated to supporting Polygon games journalists laid off last week. The union promises to distribute all money raised “in equal shares to those who opt-in to receive funds.”

“The organizers of this fund will be reaching out to those impacted by the layoffs in the coming days with details about how to sign up for their share of the funds,” the GoFundMe states. “Our union is committed to standing together in support of our colleagues who were laid off. And will hold management accountable for how these layoffs were conducted. With these funds, we hope to ease the financial burden that these layoffs have placed on our colleagues, some of whom are pregnant or currently out on parental leave, in a time of historic inflation and swirling economic uncertainty.”

the creatives who made polygon what it is deserve better

I cannot stress enough how important this fundraiser is. So, I’ve decided to do my part to help as well. In an effort to boost the GoFundMe’s visibility, I’m hosting a donothon on Twitch across three days.

From today, May 5th, to Wednesday, May 7th, I’ll be performing a “Yap-a-Thon” that encourages viewers to donate to the Vox Media Union’s GoFundMe. Across each stream, I can only talk about one topic at any given time. If chat wants me to talk about Team Fortress 2? Everything I utter has to be about Team Fortress 2. If my stream wants me to talk about Chainsaw Man? Well, I’m talking about Denji, Makima, and Yoru, I suppose.

The topic changes with every $100 threshold reached, and I’ll be playing games like Valorant and Touhou while I stream. It’s just as much a rhetorical challenge as it is a skill-based one. Can I clutch up in Val while chatting about monster girls? Will talking about giant women make me completely bottom in Touhou? Tune in to find out.

If you’d like to watch my “Polygon Yap-a-Thon Donothon” stream? You can catch me this Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at 6pm EST daily on my Twitch. But honestly? You don’t need to watch me do silly stuff to help out some of the people who built up this industry. If you’re eager to donate, even if it’s just a dollar or two, please head on over to the Polygon GoFundMe and give a couple dollars.

Our industry is highly unstable. Increasingly, it’s falling into the grips of media networks only interested in SEO slop. If you’ve enjoyed Polygon writers’ work for years, please join me in paying them back for all the incredible work they’ve done.

(Disclosure: Ana Valens previously contributed to Polygon. She is friends with, and a former coworker of, Nicole Carpenter.)