this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2026
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Fuck AI

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If they go this far, it won't be a surprise if all of their articles is AI garbage

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[–] rainwall@piefed.social 222 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (18 children)

Gamerant is owned by Valent, which bought out and owns all the following:

Android Police, Comic Book Resources, Collider, Hardcore Gamer, MovieWeb, OpenCritic, Screen Rant, Game Rant, DualShockers, TheGamer, XDA Developers, How-To Geek, GiveMeSport, And Polygon

All of the above, and I mean all of them, had huge layoffs and pivoted to AI articles and adhoc underpaid contractors:

previous and current Valnet employees claim the company prioritizes "mass quantity over quality to churn out mind-numbing SEO bait." Once websites are acquired by Valnet, the permanent staff are usually replaced by contractors, who are paid significantly less (reportedly around $19 for 1000 words at GameRant[3]) than the former tenured staff. One former contributor described Valnet website Collider to TheWrap as "a content mill, borderline like almost sweatshop-level", while another writer suggested that Valnet forced contractors to create "junky clickbait" content. Valnet writers who complain about payment, working conditions, or reveal payment rates are alleged to be blacklisted by the company

[–] jtrek@startrek.website 79 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You shouldn't be allowed to own that much stuff. Simple solution.

[–] raman_klogius@ani.social 52 points 2 weeks ago

Thankfully there's the FTC and its antitrust law! /$

[–] DevDave@piefed.social 47 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

ah man that sucks. I kinda like XDA and polygon.

[–] thenoirwolfess@fedinsfw.app 30 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Yeah XDA is (or I guess, was) invaluable for custom ROMs for Android. There's a huge modding/coding community on XDA.

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 weeks ago

Which has always been funny to me because they started as a Windows Mobile modding site.

[–] Dhs92@piefed.social 9 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Sadly the wild west days of custom ROMs is mostly over :(

[–] grue@lemmy.world 32 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

You say "wild west" as if they were doing something uncivilized, but running the code you choose is nothing more than exercising your property rights.

The marginalization/destruction of custom ROMs isn't civilization catching up, it's totalitarianism closing in.

[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Camera: broken

Wifi radio: broken

Accelerometer broken: WIP no ETA.

Bugs: you tell me

Think this is what they meant

[–] DevDave@piefed.social 11 points 2 weeks ago

Another way of viewing the use of "wild west" was exactly that, the lack of over regulation and a more hands off government. In reality it wasn't the utopia some want to make it out to be as slang like "snake oil salesmen" alludes.

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[–] ignirtoq@feddit.online 27 points 2 weeks ago

Valnet writers who [...] reveal payment rates are alleged to be blacklisted by the company

That sounds flat out illegal.

[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 2 weeks ago

XDA

Holy fucking shit no wonder it appears that they sold out

Cause they DID.

[–] despoticruin@lemmy.zip 18 points 2 weeks ago

XDA has gotten so much worse in the last 6 months it is astounding. Some unreal work is being done to kill custom android ROMs.

[–] LePoisson@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago

Oooh that's why all their articles in my feed are utter garbage, made the mistake of clicking a few and my god my phones built in feed is now inundated.

Like I mean easy to ignore and I don't even know if video game "journalism" even counts as something worth reading most of the time anyways not that kind of blows.

[–] kazerniel@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago

poor Polygon

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[–] vala@lemmy.dbzer0.com 111 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

This would have been some Photoshop 101 shit.

Why has everyone forgotten how to manually manipulate photos?

The AI version is obviously not better.

[–] Dima@feddit.uk 39 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

It was probably quicker to ask an AI to edit it than to make the edit personally and the writers for these sites are paid very little to churn out multiple low effort articles a day

[–] jve@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago

Nailed it.

Their boss probably wants to replace them with an agent too.

[–] bold_atlas@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Any amount above $0.00 is WAY TOO much money to pay these "writers" to spend half-an hour a week hitting CTRL+X and CRTL+V.

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[–] OldChicoAle@lemmy.world 15 points 2 weeks ago

I don't think the "reporters" are paid enough to care

[–] SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The "6 finger thing" has also been mostly trained out of modern models and it's such an old meme it's the first thing anyone looks for in any sort of review.

Not only can they not photoshop, they can't even AI properly.

That or the 6 fingers were a deliberate choice. Trying to associate palworld with AI and therefore copyright infringement?

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Trying to associate palworld with AI

Which is even more stupid considering that Pocketpair publicly stated that they don't use AI

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[–] CoryCoolguy@lemmy.myserv.one 58 points 2 weeks ago (20 children)

The news blogs have not been kind to Palworld in general. The Verge posts headlines like "Pokemon rip-off Palworld removes features due to lawsuit they deserve to lose"

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 48 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

"Doom clone features guns" this is how these titles should be read. Or for a more modern example, calling Terraria "2d Minecraft" (derogatorily).

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[–] LostWanderer@fedia.io 51 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Hmm, not a good look for Gamerant, looks like I can safely ignore them and the numerous associated sites that Valent acquired.

[–] PhoenixDog@lemmy.world 17 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

looks like I can safely ignore them

Way ahead of you.

[–] binux@sh.itjust.works 22 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Continuing the tradition of superfluous one-upping from Reddit I see

[–] LostWanderer@fedia.io 19 points 2 weeks ago

I didn't realize that Gamerant was part of a dark web of bullshit, strings being pulled by Valent until I looked deeper due to this post. I never fully trusted most of the listed sites anyway because sometimes there was something off about their articles, as if they missed the point or were deliberately trying to steer the conversation in a bad direction. Should've opened my eyes a lot sooner.

[–] FiniteBanjo@feddit.online 31 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

If I were Palworld I would be suing the pants off of GameRant and Valent. Textbook defamation with serious monetary and reputation damages.

[–] becausechemistry@piefed.social 29 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Gamerant and all of its sister sites are just the worst writing on the internet. Shitty takes and shitty business practices.

[–] whiskybourbon@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago

And some of the most egregious and misleading click bait titles for their articles as well. I can often spot a Gamerant article just from the title before I even see the URL.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 21 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

lol wtf the six finger thing isn't fixed?

[–] ceenote@lemmy.world 32 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Maybe nobody knowing how the thing works makes it hard to fix.

[–] Lumidaub@feddit.org 9 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

More like nobody noticed, as usual with people using genAI.

Edit: wait, you're saying they can't fix the AI so that it doesn't do the 6 finger thing. Carry on.

[–] snooggums@piefed.world 14 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Is there any legit reason gamerant couldn't just use the thumbnail from the video?

Obviously they did it to change it to a pokeball, wondering if there is any other reason.

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[–] Sunshine@piefed.ca 10 points 2 weeks ago

Imagine cheering for Nintendo to sue….

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