It’s a double whammy for one of the world’s most hated professions: games journalists. Following the 2024 United States election, which saw a triumphant victory for Donald Trump, G/O Media, parent company of several journalism outlets has once again swung the axe, with Kotaku bearing the brunt of the latest layoffs.
G/O Media has been gutting its underperforming publications over the past year. In November 2023, it shut down the feminist Jezebel outlet and in March, pressured Kotaku staff to resign voluntarily. The directive to Kotaku’s writers, including figures like Alyssa Mercante, was clear: drop the pro-queer, pro-diversity rhetoric that’s earned gaming journalists a bad reputation, and instead focus on game guides and actual gameplay.
Now, Kotaku has been hit with another round of cuts.
Moises Taveras and Willa Rowe, one of Kotaku’s prized transgender writers, barely had a year at the notoriously woke rag before getting axed. Naturally, they ran to social media to whine about their sudden firings, but they dodged Twitter to avoid the watchful eyes of gamers who’d laugh in their faces.
Instead, they tucked themselves away in the politically correct echo chamber that is BlueSky, letting loose their frustrations in a safer space.
Kotaku Australia, a joint venture between G/O Media and Nine Entertainment’s Pedestrian Group, was shut down in July, leaving David Smith, known for advocating HWID bans against gamers who use offensive language towards protected groups in video games to look for a new job.
Kotaku, like nearly every other mainstream gaming journalism outlet, has fallen out of favor with consumers. Much like the Western AAA gaming industry, the entire gaming media landscape has become dominated by activists, from LGBT advocates to feminists.
Publications like IGN, Eurogamer, and especially Kotaku are now seen as hostile to their audience, pushing progressive agendas that align with corporate ESG-backed diversity and inclusivity efforts, to the detriment of the gaming experience.
These clowns pump out propaganda to shield companies like Ubisoft, who’re rewriting history with bullshit “inclusive” agendas like slapping a fictional samurai motif on Yasuke, a historically insignificant Black man in feudal Japan.
Ubisoft claims to care about historical accuracy, but gaming journos must depend the message, labeling anyone who calls them out as racist bigots. Meanwhile, these same hypocrites cheer on unhinged online mobs trying to cancel Genshin Impact for supposedly “whitewashing” characters in the Natlan region, showing just how selective their outrage really is.
Let’s not forget these hacks are always pushing rage-bait propaganda, demonizing any video game with fan service or content aimed at heterosexuals as misogynistic, sexist, and vile. Meanwhile, they’re religiously promoting games tailored to queer audiences, who make up a tiny fraction of the gaming community.
It’s all about pushing their agenda, not actually reflecting what the majority of gamers want.
Remember when IGN claimed Capcom couldn’t remake Resident Evil 5 because its setting in West Africa was “too racist”? The game takes place in a region that, surprise, surprise, has Africans, so of course, you end up fighting Black enemies.
Never mind that it offers a unique co-op experience with Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar, a African woman. But nope, according to these “critics,” shooting zombified Africans as an African in Africa is somehow racist. The mental gymnastics are insane.
Journalist publications are always quick to defend any product that aligns with their radical progressive agenda. Take Concord, for example. Gamers tore it apart for its $40 price tag and those god-awful, politically correct character designs complete with pronouns.
But, of course, the journos rushed to defend it, insisting gamers should “give it a chance.” And when the overpriced slop inevitably flopped, they were downright furious, like we’re forced to endure and purchase woeful products to sedate and fund their ideology.
And let’s not ignore the fact that these journalist outlets are practically in lockstep, defending and gaslighting consumers over Sweet Baby Inc’s shady influence on game development.
This consultancy, co-founded by Kim Belair, a mixed-race woman in North America is hired by developers to have her so-called “elite writers” give their games a makeover.
That makeover usually involves ticking off a bunch of woke ESG checkboxes: everything from story narration to character design gets “improved” to make the game more inclusive.
But in reality, it’s just an excuse to race-swap White characters to Black and shove in identity politics, resulting in a mess of political jargon and downright ugly “female” characters that look masculine.
Consumers started to catch on to the collusion between woke journalists, shady corporations like Sweet Baby Inc, and game developers who openly despise their own audience.
But conveniently, they left out the fact that one of Sweet Baby Inc’s own employees, Chris Kindred, tried to kick off a cancel culture campaign against someone.
All because that person used publicly available info to create a curated list on Steam, tagging games made in collaboration with Sweet Baby Inc and dropping negative reviews to warn other consumers. Basically, exposing games tainted by this consultancy company known for injecting progressive activism and pandering into their projects.
The article from Kotaku was written by none other than Alyssa Mercante, or as some like to call her, Merchant or Mercunte who conveniently left out the fact that a Sweet Baby Inc employee had incited their Twitter mob to target and report a Steam group and user for simply creating a curator listing games made with Sweet Baby Inc.
But, of course, Alyssa wasn’t interested in the truth. No, she wanted her five minutes of fame, so she instead made the ridiculous claim that it’s “impossible to be racist towards White people,” completely ignoring the shady shit going down because her friends and allies at Sweet Baby Inc tote the same political agendas as she does herself.
During her article, she claimed to have “infiltrated” a Discord server filled with “anti-woke” gamers, all while attempting to play journalist and harass people for interviews.
She even went as far as to question why anonymous individuals on social media weren’t using their real names, because, of course, if they did, they’d be doxxed and viciously attacked by the outraged, delusional mob that’s desperately trying to defend politically correct ideals, such as mutilating children and enforcing societal degeneracy, all while pretending to be the victims.
Over the course of many months, Alyssa, a queer bisexual prostitute, has made a name for herself for all the wrong reasons. Despite managing to secure a gig at Kotaku and somehow avoiding G/O Media’s previous round of layoffs, she never stopped acting like an attention-seeking whore on social media.
She’s spent her time berating gamers with her activism and writing rage-bait articles that twist and distort narratives, like when she bashed Stellar Blade for having an attractive female protagonist, all while hypocritically drooling over queer-friendly alternatives that sexualize women, such as Hades 2.
Alyssa was humorously put in her place by Thomas Mahler, CEO of Moon Studios, the creators of Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps. The incident unfolded when she rudely interrupted a conversation between Mahler and a woman who had tried to claim credit for working on Ori, only to be called out by its actual creator.
Alyssa, not missing a beat, insulted Mahler by calling him a “dickhead” before doubling down with a hit piece article, accusing his studio of discriminatory work practices, based on claims from former employees.
The response back from Mahler is absolutely hysterical.
Alyssa Mercante is also infamous for mocking the failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump back in July. She made light of the situation on Twitter, joking that the shooter was a “stormtrooper” for missing, followed by another tweet suggesting the shooter “didn’t use VATS.”
It’s almost poetic, really, how after it was announced that Donald Trump would become the 47th president of the United States, a number of gaming journalists were laid off after sulking, but apparently not Alyssa. She’s proven herself to be a resilient figure, thriving not only on drawing attention and hatred her way but also deluding herself in ways to one-up critics.
Up until this round of layoffs, Alyssa Mercante was a senior editor at the publication, but like many others, she was ultimately let go by G/O Media. However, in true Alyssa fashion, she tried to spin her departure as a victory.
She made a social media post claiming she had “voluntarily” decided to leave before the layoffs hit, a convenient narrative that she chose to announce just as several of her now-former colleagues also declared their exits. It almost seemed as if she was trying to one-up “the haters” by framing herself as the one in control of her departure, despite the timing raising some eyebrows.
Needless to say, claiming you “left voluntarily” while several others were fired isn’t exactly the “own” she might’ve hoped for. If anything, it just highlights the lack of accountability some like Alyssa Mercante seem to have, always portraying themselves as innocent, virtuous victims while refusing to face reality.
Proclaiming her voluntary exit also suggests she could’ve sacrificed any severance pay from G/O Media, especially considering the company had previously tried to force Kotaku employees into resigning by piling on an unsustainable workload in exchange for no severance.
Given that context, Alyssa’s claim rings as far-fetched and frankly unbelievable. But then again, I wouldn’t believe the words of a whore.
Carolyn Petit, an editor for Kotaku and the former pet transgender woman of Anita Sarkeesian’s Feminist Frequency, was once again throwing a fit, criticizing G/O Media for the layoffs and proclaiming that the company can’t manage its workers properly.
While it’s true that G/O Media has had issues with managing its workforce, it’s telling that individuals like Carolyn and Alyssa Mercante were ever hired in the first place. These propagandist troglodytes seem to despise consumers and gamers, yet they’re paid to subvert the industry and push politicized narratives.
They show favoritism to games drenched in radical woke ideology, all while demonizing games that are deemed “problematic” or that cater to straight men. It’s clear they’re more focused on pushing a political agenda than serving the interests of the gaming community.
They’ve hijacked the industry, and their only goal seems to be making you feel helpless, powerless, angry, and disconnected from the medium you once loved.
I’ve spent several years moonlighting as a journalist to better understand how they operate, and let me tell you, journalism is a complete sham. What passes for journalism today is just a thin veil for PR firms that market and advertise products, pushing narratives instead of providing honest coverage.
They’ve corrupted the very idea of journalism, using outlets as a platform to promote agendas rather than report meaningful truths or do actual investigative work.
The rage-bait articles they churn out are deliberately designed to provoke consumers, like when they falsely accused a game of featuring a song with a disability slur simply because they “misheard” the lyrics.
Instead of questioning the company behind the game, they write hit pieces to stir up controversy, only to release a follow-up article admitting they were wrong, yet they keep the original piece up, letting it continue to incite hatred and rake in revenue.
G/O Media has clearly demonstrated a pattern of hiring terrible employees and overseeing large-scale layoffs. The people they hire don’t report on video games; they collectively berate and push false narratives, spewing propagandist drivel.
Instead of reporting apolitically on the medium, they complain about the “objectification” of women while forcing radical queer ideology down the throats of their readers, all while accusing gamers of being “horny” for a fat brown blob in a wheelchair, as if that somehow sums up the complexities of gaming culture today.
It’s a blatant attempt to politicize everything and ignore the actual merit of games and gaming communities.
G/O Media’s recent termination of Deadspin, their sports-focused publication, is just the latest example of how these media outlets are driven by agenda over genuine journalism. At one point, Deadspin published an article written by a Black man who absurdly tried to frame a child attending a sports game and wearing face paint in team colors as racist.
The piece shamed the child for showing support for their team, reducing it to an act of racism, a clear example of the kind of baseless, inflammatory propaganda that drives readers away from such outlets.
This kind of nonsense isn’t isolated to sports journalism. Gaming journalists have been irrelevant for years, and the anniversary of Gamergate this month, marking ten years since the event serves as a painful reminder of the rot at the core of this industry.
What started as a movement focused on ethics in games journalism was twisted by journalists themselves into an “unrelenting hate campaign” targeting women, a narrative pushed by those who were unwilling to face their own ethical breaches.
The situation with Zoe Quinn and Nathan Grayson, involving sexual relationships for exclusive press coverage, only further exemplified the nepotism and corruption that plagues the industry.
Gaming journalism’s credibility has been shattered, and instead of reporting on games fairly, activist writers have used such platforms to shove their political agendas down readers’ throats, berating consumers at every opportunity. These journalist outlets have formed incestuous relationships with developers, gaining exclusive interviews, coverage, and access to preview builds, all while alienating their audience with biased, propagandist content.
The industry has become little more than a PR extension for game developers and publishers, with no real accountability.
This past week has been a tough one for some of the worst offenders in the media, the political activists who somehow managed to secure jobs in journalism. These people have shown nothing but contempt for the newly elected president of the United States, and it’s no coincidence that they were laid off just days later.
Writers like Carolyn Petit have tried to point out management’s failures, like the misguided push for “service” content that ultimately couldn’t sustain the business. But it’s the PEOPLE that make journalists shine.
Not their management. The layoffs, combined with Mercante’s sudden departure, paint a picture of a company floundering, desperate to survive while completely missing the reasons for its downfall.
The entire industry is drowning, and that’s because it’s been overtaken by political correctness, social justice issues, and rampant feminism. Kotaku, in particular, is likely next on the chopping block, possibly to be absorbed and salvaged by IGN, who’s been swooping in to pick up the pieces of other failing outlets.
These layoffs, along with the looming death of Kotaku, have been a long time coming, and for many gamers, it’s a reason to celebrate. Seeing these propagandists out on the streets with no job to fall back on would be poetic justice, after all, they have no intrinsic value in the world and nobody would shed a tear if they fucked off.
