I’ve now sat down several different times to express my thoughts on running a small, independent gaming outlet for the past decade. Each time I’ve gotten a few sentences in and walked away. It’s not that I don’t have anything to say. Rather, it’s that I feel such a strange disconnect in how I feel about gaming itself versus the gaming industry overall that it becomes challenging to dissect.
I’ve written many times about what gaming means to me. How it has sustained me through very dark times. How it has brought together communities of geeks who had no other outlet. How it was once the niche, under-appreciated medium in the shadow of the music and movie industries. And how I founded Seasoned Gaming as an attempt to share some of the joy that comes with simply appreciating gaming in that vein – SEO and profits be damned.
I suppose, with that criteria, I should feel a sense of pride. After all, SG has grown exponentially since it began as an idea on a car forum’s “off-topic” section. Many of the crew have been with me for several years now, and I’m not afraid to say I’ve curated a tremendous group of individuals. The outlet continues to grow with 2025 representing our most successful year of traffic since inception. We’ve developed excellent partnerships with PR across the industry and I feel extremely fortunate for our team to have been involved in so many amazing experiences over the years.
And yet, my general feeling about gaming in 2026 is…melancholy. What used to feel like a niche hobby with a community that was unified in their rebellion against the “norm”, has been systematically and effectively scrapped and sold to the highest bidder. What we’ve seen in the gaming industry over the past few years, with parallels to many industries, sadly, is a consolidation of IP ownership and development talent huddled under executive leadership that shares very little of the history and certainly no appreciation for it, despite what the PR statements may say.
That said, I have to also recognize that 2025 was an incredible year for games. Fortunately for us, the gaming industry has grown so large that, despite the egregious consolidation, and thereby talent retraction that’s occurred, new studios with new (or re-aligned) talent have taken up the mantle in areas. And it’s the promise shown in those areas and the hope it represents where I see parallels in gaming journalism.
You see, 2025 was also a challenging year for “traditional” gaming coverage. While the arc of the changes is unique in circumstances, with different underlying factors that we don’t need to weed through here, traditional, long-tenured outlets either shuttered or were consolidated into major media corporations. As we enter 2026, Polygon, The Gamer, Collider, IGN, Game Rant, Eurogamer, FextraLife, OpenCritic, DualShockers, Hardcore Gamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, VG247, Humble, and GamesIndustry.biz are all owned by two parent companies. That’s certainly not to say there aren’t fantastic journalists continuing to produce meaningful content at those outlets. Some of my favorite people in the industry are huddled under that umbrella including, of course, my Bitcast co-host and good friend, TieGuyTravis. However, it’s still disconcerting having so much of the industry’s coverage being overseen by a handful of companies and executives.
Back in 2020, I wrote this five-year reflection on running a gaming site in the social media age. While a lot has changed since then, the core remains the same: more than ever, it’s a challenge for traditional media to exist without taking avenues that I would describe as less than ideal.
Circling back to the parallels I see between gaming coverage and the industry itself, 2025 was also a year with several bright spots led by independent creators. Giant Bomb continues to carve out their own space free from “traditional media.” Writers like Stephen Totilo have stood up substacks or independent sites such as Game File and Aftermath that provide incredible insight into the industry that you can’t get anywhere else. Game Informer, an outlet many of us have cherished for decades, was completely shuttered by Gamestop, only to (thankfully) return bigger and better, and even put a physical magazine back in my hands where it belongs! And, of course, shout out to the crew at Six One Indie producing The Indie Game Awards, showcases, and standing up an independent publishing arm.
And on a smaller scale, of course, there are peer outlets and channels to Seasoned Gaming who work endlessly to provide quality coverage you can’t find elsewhere. My friends at Xbox Expansion Pass, The Trophy Room, Lords of Gaming, The Outerhaven, and many more creators producing unique interviews, articles, and discussions purely out of passion.
I suppose all of this could be viewed as a natural evolution of a rapidly growing, global industry whose roots were nothing more than groups of disparate geeks attempting to define a new medium. Sadly, from a media perspective, it’s certainly not unique to gaming, though.
So where does that leave Seasoned Gaming as we celebrate a decade of coverage and look to the future? Perhaps ironically, much in the same place as where we began. We report to no one, and we cover the industry the way we believe it should be covered: celebrating the amazing, global talent that brings us the experiences we cherish. And we do that without forcing our community to bear the burden of endless ads or publishing for SEO.
It always comes back to purely and simply the love of gaming. And for me, that’s all it will ever be.
That very last line will always be the most real sentiment at the centre of it all. “The love of gaming.” Gaming entered my life seriously quite late in my years, and initially for some very personal reasons and a need to escape my reality. Over the years as i started playing catch up with games and news, i realised i wanted to learn, and listen to conversations and read articles connected with gaming. One of the outlets i came across was yours Ains, and it has been a staple of my viewing ever since even though i have mostly remained silent.
From my viewpoint gaming has certainly changed over the years. The industry, the communities, the games themselves. But to keep this short, i simply love the world of gaming and how it allows me to still escape and find a variety of forms of enjoyment, whether it is to be a hero i cannot be in real life, become creative in some kind of simulation game, craft and forage in a large open world full of intrigue, or even visit a little platforming nostalgia in todays modern gaming. Side by side with my active adventures will always be gaming journalism and podcasts, and i will always be grateful to platforms like yours, and genuine folk like your good self. Thank you.
Thank you so much for the lovely comment. We appreciate it!
You are so very welcome. (Think i finally worked out how to comment under my actual account instead of anonymous. A good start to my day.)