🙃 [Update: 🤔]

It was only in May--just two months ago!--that Polygon, once one of the internet's most prestigious and successful video game websites, was sold to Valnet, a media company that runs publications that can generously be called content farms.

It hasn't taken long for the latter's influence to start showing on the former.

This is the first story published under the tag "Advertiser Content", but you can bet it won't be the last. And while stories like this are nothing new--sponsored content has long run on many other sites, like PC Gamer--efforts are normally made to either make the stories look different to a site's regular content, publish it under a collective byline like 'PC Gamer Staff' or, in the case of the ad I just linked to, be about something that's clearly not written by the outlet's regular team.

This Polygon piece looks just like a regular news item, and is worded exactly like you'd expect something appearing on a Valnet site to be worded, the only points of difference being that tiny (though brightly coloured) "Advertiser Content" badge and the ghastly sentence "This content was produced in collaboration with Valnet Inc. and the sponsor, Gunzilla Games."

Fun fact: the game being advertised here, Off The Grid, is from the same company that now owns Game Informer. 

UPDATE 12:40am ET, July 18: A very similar piece, though with different wording, was also published on Kotaku, and has also been published under a writer's byline.

UPDATE 2, 7:20pm ET, July 18: OK, on further inspection the Kotaku piece doesn't have entirely different wording. The second paragraph of the Polygon post reads:

The free-to-play title has steadily gained popularity since that time, thanks to its fluid third-person, fast paced gameplay, vast array of looting possibilities, and consistent, thoughtfully crafted updates that keep the in-game experience fresh. Players are especially drawn to Off The Grid’s unique mechanic of switchable cyberlimbs, which grant special abilities and make each session feel completely different from the last. These cyberlimbs can be looted from the map, stolen from other players, or purchased through the player-to-player marketplace — offering a wide range of distinctive abilities and customization options.

The second paragraph of the Kotaku post, meanwhile, contains the following passage:

The free-to-play title has steadily gained popularity since that time, thanks to its fluid third-person shooter gameplay, vast array of looting possibilities, and consistent, thoughtfully crafted updates that keep the in-game experience fresh. Players are especially drawn to Off The Grid’s unique mechanic of switchable cyberlimbs, which grant special abilities and make each session feel completely different from the last. These cyberlimbs can be looted from the map, stolen from other players, or purchased through the player-to-player marketplace, offering a wide range of distinctive abilities and customization options.

A similar sponsored post (again under an individual byline) has also been published on The Gamer, where the disclosure that it's sponsored is even more difficult to find, buried at the very bottom of the ad. Like Polygon, The Gamer is also owned by Valnet. Meanwhile Game Informer--which is owned by the same company that is releasing Off The Grid--has updated an old news piece on the game to reflect its Steam release, adding "Gunzilla Games is the parent company of Game Informer Inc.. All editorial coverage is selected and completed by our content team, without influence from owners or other outside parties."

All this for a game that looks like complete dogshit!

UPDATE 3, 11pm ET, July 20: Given there's been some discussion about this story, I just want to make it absolutely clear I cited the authors here because I think it's bullshit that ownership/management have passed off what's clearly pre-written sponcon under a specific writer's bylines, not because I wanted to pick on those affected. Their names have now been removed.