By Patrick Garratt

The development and publishing industries aren't the only videogame sectors being adversely affected by the current business climate. Adjacent fields such as videogame media are also suffering layoffs and apparently endless upheaval as online advertising and search traffic continue to decline, leaving a void small media owners are now trying to fill with reader-sustained outlets.

Last week, Andy Robinson, editor-in-chief and founder of VideoGamesChronicle (VGC), wrote publicly about the irony of large publishers and developers continuing to court the game press for coverage while refusing to support it financially. The post provoked reactions from other independent media owners in the shape of Chris Dring, co-founder of B2B publication The Game Business, and Alex Donaldson, co-owner of B2C websites RPG Site and the recently launched Respec.

"My post was intended to drive attention to an issue I think the wider games industry is largely unaware of," Robinson tells Knowledge.

"It’s grim out there right now. Virtually all of the major media owners have cut editorial staff in recent months, and many teams are suffering in silence. VG247 has quietly been put to rest. Metro’s games team has been gutted.

"Mastheads across the industry have been slashed significantly, and unlike layoffs in game development, those jobs aren't going elsewhere or coming back. According to Press Engine data, 25 per cent of journalists regularly covering games have left the field."

Donaldson concurs that the videogame media landscape is tough globally, pointing a finger at the never-ending pursuit of reader numbers.

"It's grim, definitely," he says. "Some of it is out of our control. Some of it, if we're being honest, may have been of our own making in terms of growing too much, too fast, and in the wrong way.

"As with many businesses, there's always an impetus towards ceaseless growth at any cost. The last ten years have been pretty lucrative on that front, with plenty of 'cheat codes' and shortcuts to massive revenue cropping up. I've been on brands that have enjoyed those sorts of rocket boosters. But it's not untethered. These shortcuts are on a rubber band. They eventually retract back to shape or snap."

The Game Business co-founder Chris Dring, previously a long-term lead at MCV and GamesIndustry.biz, notes that while B2B publications have "never really been about traffic or SEO," and instead focus editorial on the companies and personalities that traditionally fund this side of the game press, there's now no escaping the need for revenue diversification.

"Having a hybrid model is important for any modern publication," he says. "Our subs business is about 15 per cent of our overall revenue right now. It's not insignificant but it's not defining, either. The dream is to get it to a level where it ultimately covers most of the cost of the publication.

"I think we'd all feel more comfortable if our success were defined by our ability to do a good job, as opposed to what the ad market is doing. At one point on GamesIndustry.biz, job advertising was, I think, 40 per cent of the ad revenue on the publication. And then the job market imploded. It was one of the most miserable moments of my time doing this, and it was completely out of our control."

Robinson, too, says that reader support delivers not only more reliable funding but also real validation of a publication's output.

"VGC wouldn’t exist in its current form without our Patreon members," he adds. "They pay monthly to support our work in exchange for ad-free browsing and exclusive content, and a not-insignificant portion of our annual revenue now comes from those subscriptions. That figure has grown by 20 per cent over the past year. 

"It’s still a long way from funding an entire editorial team, but it provides a meaningful and increasingly important foundation for the work we do. 

"Patreon has also meant we’ve never been more engaged with our readers. For me, it feels like going full circle back to my magazine days: writing for a tangible audience who actively care about our coverage, rather than throwing articles into the ether and hoping something sticks. There’s something incredibly rewarding about that relationship, and it’s a big part of why we’re so determined to make this model work."

In light of the current situation, the future of the independent game media is cautious, sustained audience-building, according to Dring.

"The shift back towards people paying is theoretically a good thing. The customer becomes the reader… I think subscription is the ideal. People paying for their media is what we want. It should lead to a more stable and reliable business, plus, frankly, better-quality media. However, I am really not convinced it'll be enough on its own. I think the reality is it'll be about subs and advertising together, which is how it used to be."

Robinson adds that independent media owners that want to survive should proceed cautiously.

"Start small, stay small, find your niche, and create original content that will get noticed," he says.

"Building an audience is important, but don’t become fixated by followers and traffic. Making great content is equally essential, and you won’t build an engaged community of readers without it."

Donaldson, too, points to a hybridisation with an onus on reader participation as the core of a sustainable future for independent game media.

"I want to see new sites," he says. "I think there's loads of runway and room if you're building at a sensible scale and for today's weather. The biggest challenge is startup costs. Building those organic audiences, plus the authority to do well in search, takes time, which in turn means money. With Respec, we are lucky – we can take our time and slowly build that startup because its overheads are covered in the profit margins of a long-established, defensively budgeted business.

"But my worry is that a lot of great, talented people and institutional knowledge will be lost among those who don't have that option, who need a new job tomorrow. Other than angel investors – and no serious one would be too excited to invest in an industry with such generally narrow margins – I'm not sure what the answer is there, other than to drive home to people that if they don't use it, they will lose it.

"For readers, that means diversifying their reading habits, turning off adblock on their favorite sites, or supporting them directly. To the industry the argument is simpler still: sites that are well supported by development, publishing and comms apparatus in terms of opportunities and spend will thrive. As imperfect as games media can be, the old adage is true: you don't know what you've got until it's gone."