https://kotaku.com/polygon-sold-vox-media-valnet-layoffs-digital-gaming-1851778655
The video game website Polygon has been sold to click-farm 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.
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Vox SVP Chris Grant, who was Polygon’s founding Editor-in-Chief, shared insight into the deal and is apparent frustration with it on Bluesky. “14 years ago I pitched what would become Polygon to a startup called Sports Blogs Inc on the unfurnished third floor of a DC townhome,” he wrote. “I held a laptop on my knees and went through a deck. Today that same company—now called Vox Media—sold Polygon to Valnet.”
He continued, “Their press release proudly calls Polygon a ‘premium gaming publication’ but Valnet literally refused to meet with me or answer a single question of mine throughout this process. They were wildly incurious about how a gaming publication even becomes ‘premium.’ I really, truly (!) hope that the remaining Polygon team gets a chance to continue the work we all cared about so much! But somehow this is the end of my journey with the thing I created.”
“My most heartfelt thanks to the entire team, I’m so sorry things ended this way.”