Journalists at a leading popular culture publisher have reacted with “anger” and “confusion” to news their pay has become entirely dependent on the amount of traffic they personally drive.
Valnet, a “digital media investment company” which publishes prominent game sites such as Polygon and GameRant as well as cinema sites such as Screenrant and Movieweb, issued new terms to 30 freelance writers on The Gamer late last month.
The new “Pay Per Session” rules mean that freelances are only paid per click, rather than there being a base fee. Press Gazette understands that writers who upload their own articles are paid $8 per thousand clicks. The Gamer attracts some nine million website visits per month, with 1.8 pages per visit, according to metrics company Similarweb.
Valnet boasts that it operates 27 media brands attracting 300 million monthly visitors.
At least 25 staff were laid off at Polygon following its 2025 acquisition by Valnet and all of UK tech site Pocket-Lint’s staff were made redundant when it was bought by the company.
In total, around 30 journalists are believed to work on The Gamer, including ten in the UK, but all are believed to be on freelance contracts.
In the wake of the move, writers for the site posted on social media saying they were no longer being paid a living wage and asking for help.
Former The Gamer editor Lex Luddy told Press Gazette that the new terms meant writers would effectively take home half what they were previously paid, depending on department.
Writers were previously paid based on volume of output, with minor bonuses for articles which attracted large amounts of traffic.
Luddy said: “Almost everyone at The Gamer and other Valnet sites are technically freelance. We would colloquially call them ‘permalancers’; freelance contacts with no employee benefits/support, but with a workload/quota that means no human would have time to freelance other places.”
Luddy describes the reaction among staff to the latest changes as “confusion, anger and extreme frustration” with The Gamer’s UK-based staff not informed in advance about the new contracts, including the site’s editor-in-chief.
Luddy said: “Getting hold of and getting straight answers out of Valnet employees is an intentionally difficult process. This is far from the first worker-unfriendly move made by Valnet over the years but the swiftness and brutality of this one felt different. It felt like a considered hostile move, so unworkable for most people that it could have only been designed to reduce headcount.”
New contracts for Valnet freelances sent out at 11pm UK time
The new contracts were sent from Valnet’s headquarters in Canada late in the afternoon and arrived around 11pm for workers in the UK.
The pay structure cuts off after 15 days, so that (for instance) writers are no longer paid for the performance of articles which might deliver clicks over the longer term.
Luddy said this is “exceptionally poor form in games media”, which often relies on evergreen guide-style pieces.
Luddy said: “Capping the payout at 15 days is clear a kneecapping of the rewards that Valnet claims this new system will motivate.”
Luddy said: “Even in a space that has seen a near-endless parade of layoffs and site closures in the last two years, this particular news brought out a level of open vitriol and bad mouthing towards Valnet that you rarely see in a business where finding work is so hard.”
Under the new contracts, editors are paid as little as $3 per 1,000 clicks generated. Press Gazette understands that editors receive payments for other tasks.
Writers who have access to the CMS and can self-publish articles are paid $8 per 1,000 clicks.
An email from Valnet management said: “We are writing to inform you of a new and exciting, performance-based bonus system coming to The Gamer.
“The new system, effective May 22, will replace all current compensation structures including base payments and pay-per-post.”
Low pay attracts writers from low-wage economies
Valnet is a Canadian media business founded by Hassan and Sam Youssef, who initially made a fortune through online pornography via the company Brazzers, linked to Pornhub.
Valnet has since acquired multiple ‘geek’ websites.
A class action lawsuit in the US alleges that Valnet misclassifies staff as freelances.
When Valnet took over popular British tech site Pocket-Lint, it made all UK staff redundant, with former staff suggesting it was because they did not like the red tape that came with British employment contracts.
Another freelance said that in 2023, pay stood at $10 for a 500-word story.
The freelance said: “They expect freelances to work like salaried staff”, and said that staff were made to sign NDAs before leaving.
Another freelance described a previous pay cut of between $300 and $500 per month early last year, and structural changes which saw around 400 contributors having contracts ended without warning – along with ‘unsustainable’ quotas and targets.
Freelance tech and culture writert Art Anthony said: “If the plan is to charge by the view, what’s to stop a writer bombarding their articles with bot traffic or spamming views via Reddit or X? Although the latter might (at least in part) be the point of the move, I’m not sure it’ll bring in quality traffic that will read long enough to click ads or affiliate links.
“Maybe they’re just banking on being the only game in town hiring junior writers.”
Suspicion over writers with no social media presence
Matthew Evans, former writer at Valnet-owned comics site CBR, said that he suspected that some of his ‘colleagues’ did not exist.
He said: “Not too long after my round of layoffs there was a couple of writers who I couldn’t find any social presence for, and you know this, with what we do for a living whether we like socials or not you kinda have to have one, so I suspect fake profiles”.
Evans said that “everyone was freelance” bar certain tiers of management, and that he was let go without warning. He said that standard rates for list-based features were $30 and non-list features $15.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, another former Valnet worker told Press Gazette: “When I worked there, editorial management made a huge effort to change how things worked. Valnet was paying contributors something like $20 for a feature, promising more based on performance.
“Not only was this unfair on the contributors, but it caused them to rush assignments to try to make a living wage. Editors were tied up rewriting poor copy that was rushed and generally not very good (there was no time to teach or give meaningful feedback).
“It was something like 40 news posts or 20 features per day [for each writer]. Ridiculous. That’s the driving force behind the terrible pay. They churn out slop and buy out sites to churn out more slop so they can dominate the top page of Google across the network. And they burn out new talent. “
Press Gazette sent has sent a detailed memo setting out the various highlighted concerns to Valnet’s PR department. We have not received a response.
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