Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Big Trouble At Giant Bomb & Polygon - Kinda Funny Games Daily 05.01.25 Part 2
Thu, 01 May 2025
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Chapter 1: What happened with Polygon's sale and the layoffs?
Get the kind of funny membership to get the show's ad free. You know that. Shout out to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs and MegabustardsLady20. Today we're brought to you by Imperial and Aura Frames. But back to it. Story number two. Bless. This is a big one. This is a shitty one. I hate doing this, but we gotta do it together. Polygon sold to Valnet and hit with massive layoffs.
This comes from Ethan Gotch at Kotaku. The video game website Polygon has been sold to ClickFarm Powerhouse Valnet, and much of its masthead has been laid off, Kotaku has learned. The sale was subsequently announced in a press release. Multiple staff members have posted online about losing their jobs or about colleagues now being out of work. Quote, I'm no longer with Polygon.
If you're hiring, please consider the many talented writers and editors now on the market. Posted Polygon co-founder in EIC, Chris Plant. Every one of them deserves a spot on your staff. I won't be talking more about the sale because I wasn't involved. Going to hang out with my kid, taking wins where I can. The sale was confirmed in a press release, which did not mention the layoffs.
The price of the deal was not disclosed. Sources tell Kotaku that deputy editor Maddie Myers and games editor Zoe Hanna are among those that remain at Polygon. Vox Media did not immediately respond to a request for comment. I'll say more later, but I no longer have a job, shared senior reporter Nicole Carpenter. I'm looking for work, as are so many of my amazing colleagues.
I have lots of ideas and things I'd like to write. I'm really in shock. I had a great time working at Polygon, posted senior writer Michael McWhorter. Please let me know if you have any cool job openings. In a report earlier this year by The Wrap, many former contributors accused Valnet's current media holdings of being exploitative content mills.
Quote, in journalism, there are really bad jobs, and then there's a place like Valnet. a former Collider contributor told The Wrap. It's one of the worst places I've ever worked and is probably one of the worst journalism publications I've ever seen. Let's just start here. Bless. Thoughts on Polygon?
I mean, this is heartbreaking, right? Like, we've heard bad things about Valnet. We've, I mean, we've heard...
bad things about the state of games media for a very long time this is i think the moment where it does officially feel over you know like i think we say that a lot of like oh man it's over oh man it's so done uh today feels like a day where it's so done of course like the giant bomb thing is also going on as we speak where uh i mean it's been ongoing for the last week of what the fuck is happening over that giant bomb of course i was in in tokyo hanging out with dan reichert for a week and so i've been going back and forth with even him talking about like yo what is happening and he's been filling me in and of course that's like
that's their story to tell so I'm not gonna say like anything that's not mine to say right but like you go online right now you go on blue sky and Jeff grub is even tweeting out uh about uh he tweeted uh just not that long ago I think of like half an hour ago uh well that was a dream come true knew it wouldn't last though out of the job uh out of a job at the moment but I'll always be doing patreon.com slash game mess um I think lumping these two together is a little bit necessary because yeah I when I
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Chapter 2: How does the gaming media landscape change after Giant Bomb's challenges?
There are other people posting online talking about them being out of the job, right? I saw a post from Callie Plagey just earlier as well talking about it. Like, this is so...
fucking heartbreaking um and there are a million a million things to say about this right like we can talk about support independent media support of course support these people wherever they go whether they start their own thing whether they want to go in uh on a solo venture you know pair up with each other and do like a group ventures but i think the even more heartbreaking thing beyond this is that there are the names that we know that we're like
I look at a Dan Riker and a Janet Choa and like a Mike Minotti and like those names that we know and go, all right, they're hopefully they start something together. And I have full belief in whatever they end up doing. That's not the case for everybody.
The unfortunate thing is that to be as renowned as those names that I just said, it's such a blessing and a rare thing in this side of the industry. Most people don't have that luxury. And that is the truly heartbreaking thing about this is the fact that like, Once a lot of these sites are gone, that stuff is just gone.
A lot of those folks aren't going to be able to continue making that content elsewhere necessarily, at least on the same level with the same consistency, with the same luxury of having it be a job for them. You're going to get less video games media content because of this. And I'm blabbering, but it fucking breaks my heart.
It fucking breaks my heart. It's heartbreaking, man. It's a great way to put it. And I think you really nailed it for how important Polygon and Giant Bomb are to the gaming media landscape for incredibly different reasons. But it's so sad to just one by one look at so many sites go down and incredibly important voices be lost.
And in terms of Polygon, putting out such thought-provoking journalism and thought-provoking think pieces, handling games differently than anyone else was doing. And the Giant Bomb, obviously the personality-based stuff that...
um got so popular over the years like they're the originators of that like them and one up right like thinking back in the day to the the one up uh podcast and all that like they defined what video game personality podcast could be and then you know here's kind of funny right we're so lucky being able to grow up in a a world where a standard was kind of set in the early days of what even a premium uh video game media video based
website could look like. Right. And not even thinking about this is pre-Patreon and all of that. So it's like so much was learned there, but we're talking about two stories that are completely different. Right. But at the same time, I think it all comes down to, you have to trust the team that is making the content or else you're It's not going to work.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of corporate ownership in gaming media?
When I would go to PAX in 2011, I remember hanging out with her so much. And to see the journey that she's been on from Destructoid all the way up to
running video I think it was at Polygon and the amazing stuff that they would put out like this just really really sucks and obviously the Giant Bomb side like them being so close to us and so many of those people whether it's the GameSpot side or Giant Bomb side and however ways those interacted like we're talking about some of our closest friends in the industry and they were just straight up disrespected
Disrespected, you know?
And these are very different stories, but I think the thing they have in common is terrible parent organizations. Like, you look at Giant Bomb, right? And like, one of the, so they had 888 episodes of the Giant Bomb cast. And like, keep in mind, that's a weekly podcast. Think about the longevity there. As far as 888 episodes, you've been going for that long as a company.
But in one of the recent episodes, they made a whole bit about brand safety and kind of made fun of the fact that seemingly their parent organization tried to make a shift as far as trying to have more brand-safe content, make their content PG-13 in order to appease polymarketing ads, all that stuff, right? And that is such a misread on what...
giant bomb is like imagine thank god we're independent right but like imagine that like kind of funny like sells to some organization and they want to come down and be like kind of funny you guys we all have to be pg-13 no more live streams no more live streams like we wouldn't be able to exist as a company like that's the totally totally intense this is i mean i cannot stress this and make this any more clear than the fact that every decision we make
is to be able to survive like to be able to talk about games and to have conversations and talk about the news or our opinions or just stupid fun stuff and fighting gorillas and shit like we make the decisions we make business wise to be able to thrive, thrive is even a big word, but like, again, survive in this world.
And it's like being kneecapped and told that, hey, like your live streaming efforts, which are clearly where this industry is currently and where the audience is, like to take that away from Giant Bomb, you're killing Giant Bomb. And the people that work at Giant Bomb know that because they're trying their best to just make this stuff work.
And it gets so scary to look around and see stories like Game Informer last year go down, right? Or was that this year? I don't even know when it was. It could have been next week. It could have been last week.
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Chapter 4: How can listeners support independent game journalism?
In some ways, not expected. I think, you know, I didn't expect Polygon to be sold and be all fucked up today, right?
But it's like, what happened to these? Sights and personalities get put into the machine, right? Of, hey, how can we try to make a buck off this? How can we make a buck? You know, there's a lot of great takes going on. Imran, Don Khan is out there, right? And one of his that I really appreciate.
We'll catch you on the mic. one of the ones I really appreciated from him was, Hey, like we're on the eve of like the biggest console launch of all time. Games are more popular. It seems like a great time to fuck all this up. Like, why would you do, you know what I mean? People, how can you not make money off of this?
It's supposed to come out this year.
The answer is it's incredibly tough as we know. It's kind of funny, but we figured it out on how for us to make it work and go right. But that also means that like, this is the company. This is the product. This is what we're doing. And we're happy with that. Right. We're not the venture capitalists coming in to buy this thing, trying to turn it and like, well, let's get four times the profit.
Let's get five times the profit. Let's hire, let's hire seven more people to spin up this thing just about e-sports. Oh, that didn't work. Fuck cancel that. And we have to lay people off from the regular publication. Like that's what it is. Right. And then you have the, stuff breaking right now, uh, you know, with like, uh, grubby over there.
I just, I, I was blue Scott and right now you want to host games daily tomorrow. We'll see if your response of like, you know, once again, Hey, you got a, a corporate overload, overlord running a personality driven thing. What is that? That's going to butt heads with something eventually. Right.
They just want the churn. They just want the review, the preview, the thing, like not necessarily you. Yeah. We got out. But, bless you, you're still in it. Never forget it. Still in what?
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Chapter 5: What is the future for former Polygon and Giant Bomb staff?
This, man. Okay. Don't piss me off. All right?
What does that mean? I don't know what you're doing. What it means is very simple.
What it means is very simple. Again, I talked about this yesterday on Happy Hour. Not as a competitor, but as the CEO, I did broker a deal with Andy to get his game showdown star, and you have to honor that deal.
I don't have to honor anything. I'm the commissioner of the show. I'm the host of the show. I'm the producer of the show. I run the show. I can do what I want. Deep sigh.
Real quick, I saw in the chat, this is a minor thing, but I really like the Imperial ads. That's a perfect sponsorship in my opinion.
it's hard to, there's always that balance of getting like two behind the scenes and just like two navel gazey is the word that we used to use so much back in the day, talking about kind of funny talking about the inside baseball stuff of how things are made or whatever. It's just important to talk about that stuff. And again, Imperial is a perfect type of ad for us.
And it's, I wish we can get more things like that. I wish that we could support indie games, smaller games, getting, pushing wishlisting and all that stuff. But we're trying our best out here to survive and to be able to keep doing this. And it's, Hard for us. It's hard for everyone. And I appreciate all the support out there from each and every one of you.
But when we look at whatever this group of people, these people are going to do next, like try your best to support them in whatever way you can. But the corporations out there are making it harder and harder to even have ways to support.
The thing I'll say, right, is that I think this has a lot in common with the first story we talked about on the previous part one episode of Games Daily, talking about how Microsoft's raising the prices and all that stuff, and I referenced the video from Alana Pierce, right, and, like, a lot of it coming down to how much the ecosystem is changing and how much, like, people are in, these companies, video games are in competition with
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Chapter 6: Why is the relationship between media and audience important?
Like, there's so much value there, and y'all, like, if y'all appreciate that shit, like, you need to go out and support it, right? And I don't know where that stuff goes from here. I think a lot of it ends up independent, but I think
Not that I worry about the independency of it, but I think that stuff needs to be funded in some way that we're not going to see it come and go once all the independent sites go away or whatever it is. There needs to be actual funding behind it. And that's the thing that I want to see and the thing that I worry about.
Unemployed Jeff Grubbs is going to host tomorrow with you, Tim.
Fantastic. Love that. Yeah, Noah Bless, you're really nailing it there. I think that there has to be weight behind your words when it comes to stuff. I feel like me and you and Raj had a great time in New York and had a lot of great conversations, and I feel like something we kept talking about is –
How we talk about covering games and how we talk about our review specifically of like our individual thought process on our reviews and how much effort we put into our opinions and why that matters. And I think that those are things that like everyone has an opinion. Everyone's entitled to an opinion.
But when you put your opinion out there the way that we do, there's a weight to it that we need to have responsibility for, you know? And these people have that. And there's so many different weights on them. And I want to shout out Giant Bomb in particular because there is a unique set of obstacles when you are a brand that is based on personalities and then those personalities change and shift.
And what this... current slash last iteration whatever you want to say of Giant Bomb did something so incredibly special and so incredibly different while also respecting the legacy that came before and they pulled it off and they weren't the first group to do it like there was many different waves of Giant Bomb and there might be more waves
You don't know what's going on. And yeah, I think what Jan had going, what Grubb had going, what Minati had going, what Dan had going there, I think is very special. And like, I want to see that continue. And I think there's a future there, even if it's not called Giant Bomb. Even if they like start something new and they call it something else.
Like, I think that there's something there that could be special that is going to continue that legacy.
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Chapter 7: What lessons can we learn from the current state of gaming outlets?
And I'm really into that stuff personally as well, but they put up a video in the last couple of days about Dude Perfect, who are those huge, you know, trick shot YouTubers. Like they are started as a small YouTube channel and now that they're a corporation to themselves, right?
But in this video, they were talking about how Disney had a methodology where it all started with this drawing of what the company is and all of the different ways that they can make revenue and continue to exist as a company. And we're talking about Disney, one of the biggest companies in the world, and yes, what their IP can make movies and TV and Disneyland and et cetera, et cetera.
Dude Perfect did the same thing in this video of trying to take their company and distill it down to what is it and how can they survive for the next 15 years and how can they grow and continue to make sure that it's not just big now, but that it'll be able to survive forever. And a quote that I wrote down from it because I just it resonated so hard with me is what they drew wasn't just a company.
It was a belief system. And I think that's why Kind of Funny has been able to survive as long as we have. And it feels like, I mean, anything can happen, but it feels like we're okay. And it's because our belief system is in the strategy of the content and the people and in not doing more, more, more. It's doing what is working. What do we want to do?
And what do we want to continue doing to make that happen? And I believe that the team over at giant bomb believes in their plan. And when their plan that they believe in is taken from them, there's nothing. So I'm hopeful for those, the boys and girls over there. And I, it's going to be real tough, but if anyone can pull this off, it's them polygon. I don't know a lot of those people as well.
And I think that it's going to be a lot harder for them because the traditional games media landscape is gone.
Yeah.
at this point gone yeah gone yeah and this thing is like it's somebody who knows those names right like I like I I think Chris Plant is is he's like I think he's on the besties I know Andy listens to the besties more than me but I'm pretty sure Chris Plant does the besties with like Griffin McElroy and then yeah thank you um and like I think I I could I could see Chris Plant doing a number of things right like and I know Nicole Carpenter and Michael McWhorter like
The names that we see that, like, everybody listening might not be familiar with, but, like, they're talented people that I could see, even in this shrinking industry, maybe find spots doing stuff at IGN, maybe find spots elsewhere. But, again, like, even if you're that level. For how long? Yeah, for how long?
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