[Fireborn] The Human Cost of GameRant and ScreenRant

[kyo2004]

View: https://youtu.be/9rcTi54dlTg?si=epHHLq0grDZfIop2

So... A couple weeks ago, fireb0rn, a Hollow Knight speedrunner posted a video relating/denouncing the awful tactics some media conglomerates runs their articles.

What was the response of the media conglomerate? Abuse the DMCA YouTube mechanism to take down the investigation (that's why, the first video is a re-upload in another channel, since the original video was blocked/hidden/deleted)


View: https://youtu.be/RNnUZvG7DyA?si=X5Zcn0NiFfkVX2-T

I originally wanna post the first video when I saw first weeks ago, but many real life things happened and forgot to do it. Today, the YT algorithm put me the follow up and searching in ERA, saw no one talking about that, so here it is.

 

[Doskoi Panda]

Genuinely wouldn't have watched this video if it hadn't been taken down

Keep playing yourselves, brands

 

[platypotamus]

I don't know much about either of these sites except that suddenly when I search for help of any sort with a game, Gamerant is usually one of the top results, and I've stopped clicking on any of their links because they are never helpful.

 

[TheEchosOfTheCyborg]

$20 per 2,500 word articles? What the fuck?

Didn't know about this video but dear Lilith that is so depressing, the SEO isn't surprising and as pointed out, it's hard to blame the writers when their forced into those situation and those workloads. I really wish their was regulations for this shit.

 

[SuperBanana]

GameRant and ScreenRant are two of the absolute shittiest click bait sites. I've blocked them showing up on any news feeds. They constantly post fake or misleading articles like "Hollow Knight Silk Song release date announced!" then the article is something like "While we don't know the release date, we expect it to be within 2024 or 2025.".

I'm pretty sure some are AI generated.

 

[ket]

Idk about screenrant but gamerant will literally post any random gaming reddit rumour. Im not surprised that their writers have crazy daily news quotas.

 

[Kyrios]

I hid the "Rant" sites from my news feed. Just endless clickbait or flat out wrong articles.

 

[ThereAreFourNaan]

I'm pretty sure some are AI generated.

Click to shrink...

Even if it's not officially planned to be, when you squeeze people so hard they're working unreasonable hours for pennies, they'll take any shortcut they can.

 

[Zealuu]

These sites are absolutely symptomatic of the kind of AI+SEO slop that infests Google these days. If it's written by humans, god help us all

 

[Fat4all]

journalist flophouse sweatshops

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

This is why I can't ever direct anything resembling anger towards game journalists.
Opportunities for actual paying work are as rare as winged unicorns.
Then you've got complete and utter shitholes like the -rant sites that demand 75-100 articles a week.

It's a miserable fucking job, and 99% of the time it doesn't even pay.

 

[Tofd]

Blacklisting those sites for sure now.

 

[Gamer @ Heart]

Reddit user posts a thread for something mildly amusing they noticed in a game

2 hours later: REDDIT USER DISCOVERS SECRET USE FOR ITEM EVERYONE MISSED

 

[Reizzz]

I was a news writer for gamerant and was super excited as it was my first job in games media and worked my ass off. L The amount of money and first come first serve on articles really put a damper on it. Literally felt like scraps. I still link to my articles though lol.

 

[oty]

watching this video and the xbox news and i'm reminded how utterly dystopic our life is.

capitalism won a long time ago didnt it. feelsbadman

 

[Mivey]

I'm pretty sure some are AI generated.

Click to shrink...

that is the likely end goal for Valnet. Much cheaper, since they don't have to pay ChatGPT 20 bucks per prompted article. They already dont care for actual quality writing, and want instead content thats SEO optimised to the max and rife with tons of hyperlinks to other Valnet content. Pretty sure that modern LLMs can do most of that, they just need to get better at sourcing current Reddit sites for the base content too plagiarise. This RAG stuff AI companies keep hyping should do the trick