Clickout Media is a gaggle that buys up gaming websites after which forces them to host countless unmarked advertorial content material for playing websites and casinos. Now the proprietor of The Escapist, Journey Players, and Esports Insider is, in response to reporting by Insider Gaming, going to “pivot to AI,” and naturally which means firing swathes of workers and demolishing the stays of all of the websites it’s ruined.
“Unhappy to say that my position at The Escapist is up for redundancy,” wrote that web site’s contributing editor Lloyd Coombes on BlueSky. On LinkedIn he added, “which means a variety of issues that I’m nonetheless not fairly getting my head round.” Coombes is only one of many people who find themselves dropping their jobs because of ClickOut’s ridiculous folly. Insider Gaming reviews, “It was stated that Clickout Media might be sustaining a skeleton crew of ‘AI Editors.’”
“That’s me and my crew gone from VideoGamer,” says Cat Bussell. “Very unhappy day. I’ll most likely do an even bigger publish on this in a while down the road. Nonetheless reeling.”
Plainly all these websites could be fully worn out with so many job losses, all to get replaced by the phantasm of AI.
ClickOut is a peculiarly shy firm, describing itself as a “PR and advertising company” regardless of its acquisition of gaming websites, and concentrate on crypto and internet 3. It’s so shy, in actual fact, that it retains its firm’s title off the websites it buys, and goes out of its technique to disguise its possession, as we found final 12 months when the corporate purchased the beloved Journey Players and diminished it to shilling for on-line casinos. The positioning is sort of deserted now, after 27 years of passionate journey gaming protection, with the final couple of tales from mid-2025 sitting ghost-like on the high above “opinions” of on-line slot machines.
The identical is true on The Escapist, a web site that’s been by means of many iterations from its intellectual beginnings as a web-based journal, by means of its grim pro-GamerGate period, to its most up-to-date kind as a stable, well-written gaming information web site from individuals who genuinely care. The workers has demonstrated a particular knack for overlaying lesser-known video games among the many large hitters, albeit one that’s consistently undermined by the enforced inclusion of “guides” for on-line playing that each one learn suspiciously like a robotic may need helped. The identical is true yet again on Esports Insider, which continues to place out stable journalism in regards to the esports world, in between wildly incongruous articles about inventory costs of betting companies. After which there’s the esteemed VideoGamer, which has battled on regardless of being plagued with on line casino advert shite.
It’s not simply gaming websites to which ClickOut commits this vandalism. ReadWriteWeb was as soon as an online tech web site, launched in 2003 and well-respected, however now it’s only a web site pushing sports activities betting, casinos and poker. It additionally spent final 12 months shopping for many, many poker websites, in addition to Playing Insider.
We’re not capable of affirm how many individuals have misplaced their jobs at present, as a result of as Insider Gaming reviews, these affected have been required to signal NDAs with the intention to guarantee they obtain their severance. We’ve reached out to ClickOut, however primarily based on earlier expertise, their shyness appears to forestall them from replying to emails, too.
We want all one of the best to everybody affected, in a continuingly grim period for video games journalists.
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