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Mass Layoffs At Polygon, Major Gaming News Outlet

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In what seems to be a recurring story these days, yet another gaming news outlet has hit rocky times. In 2023 iO9/Gizmodo shuttered its tabletop gaming coverage, and ComicBook.com follow suit last year, as did Dicebreaker. The latest in this list is Polygon, a site which--amongst many other things--covered a wide array of tabletop gaming news stories.

Polygon has been acquired by The Valnet Group, which owns outlets like Game Rant, Comic Book Resources, and others. Polygon founder Chris Plante posted on Bluesky -- "I'm no longer with Polygon. If you're hiring, please consider the many talented writers and editors now on the market. 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."

Many Polygon staff members have publicly posted, saying that they have lost their jobs.
  • “I’ll say more later, but I no longer have a job. 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.” - Nicole Carpenter, Senior Reporter.
  • “I had a great time working at Polygon. Please let me know if you have any cool job openings!” - Michael McWherton, Senior Writer.
For those of us in the TTRPG industry, we'll be most familiar with the work of the senior editor for tabletop games, Charlie Hall, who said "I am no longer with Polygon, my home for nearly 13 years. I am proud of what my colleagues and I have accomplished over that period, and I am especially proud of the role the [Vox Media Union] and [Writer's Guild of America] played in it all. Organize. Now. I am immediately available for hire."
 
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Morrus

Morrus is the owner of EN World and EN Publishing, creator of the ENnies, creator of the What's OLD is NEW (WOIN), Simply6, and Awfully Cheerful Engine game systems, publisher of Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, and co-host of the weekly Morrus' Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk podcast. He has been a game publisher and RPG community administrator for over 20 years, and has been reporting on TTRPG and D&D news for over two decades. He is also on the socials.
Umbran said:
I'm so sorry, but you have it backwards.

EN World was established as a news site back when 3e was the news. To this day, the news pages get far more traffic than the forums.

So, you have it backwards - this is a news site, complete with writers and editors, that happens to have a place to talk tagged onto the side of it.
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Can confirm. I remember! Many of us do. This is where I got ALL of my news about the upcoming release of 3E in 2000.
 

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All joking aside, some of my fondest memories from my darkest times were from Polygon's video content. Even when they dialed that back I still followed the works of some of the folks from that time (Chris Plante, Brian David Gilbert, Ashley Oh, the McElroys). Even Charlie Hall, who ended up being the occasional straight man/ringer ("He actually plays ARMA! For fun!") on Awful Squad, was the funniest stuff.

I never actually visited their site much so I can't speak too much on their actual written content, except that I know Plante spilled a lot of ink hyping up 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, the Best Video Game, so it can't be all bad. Sure, like Kotaku, it has a very clear and specific point of view. But in their defense, it's the correct point of view. Not that I particularly mind it when people openly express distaste for that point of view; lord knows I can appreciate a proudly open and obvious red flag.
 

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All these outlets have either closed or shuttered their TTRPG coverage in the last year or two.

I can remember when nobody was covering TTRPGs (except us and a handful of blogs). Looks like those days are coming back. :(
 


Morrus said:
I can remember when nobody was covering TTRPGs (except us and a handful of blogs). Looks like those days are coming back. :(
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YouTubers (and folks on TikTok) get a lot of crap here, but I think the best of them are doing their best to cover at least D&D news. Their approach isn't always traditionally journalistic, which I would prefer, but I think a genuine effort is there in many cases.
 


Morrus said:
View attachment 404282

All these outlets have either closed or shuttered their TTRPG coverage in the last year or two.

I can remember when nobody was covering TTRPGs (except us and a handful of blogs). Looks like those days are coming back. :(
Click to expand...

One site that’s worth noting is Rascal News - they’re still providing TTRPG coverage, and still independent.
 

Umbran said:
I'm so sorry, but you have it backwards.

EN World was established as a news site back when 3e was the news. To this day, the news pages get far more traffic than the forums.

So, this is a news site, complete with writers and editors, that happens to have a place to talk tagged onto the side of it.
Click to expand...
Wasn't Eric Noah's website the news and forum website for the buildup before the release of 3e, while Morrus website (enworld) was the rpg books review with a fancy formula for the average score ?

Then when Eric stopped covering the news Morrus took over the responsibility IIRC
 



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