this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2026
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Fuck AI

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AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.

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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 191 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (13 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

[–] PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

I always liked polygon…

[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 17 hours ago

XDA

Holy fucking shit no wonder it appears that they sold out

Cause they DID.

[–] despoticruin@lemmy.zip 12 points 17 hours 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.

[–] jtrek@startrek.website 65 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] raman_klogius@ani.social 39 points 22 hours ago

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

[–] DevDave@piefed.social 42 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] thenoirwolfess@fedinsfw.app 26 points 22 hours 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 8 points 19 hours ago
[–] Dhs92@piefed.social 9 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

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

[–] grue@lemmy.world 27 points 21 hours 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 5 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

Camera: broken

Wifi radio: broken

Accelerometer broken: WIP no ETA.

Bugs: you tell me

Think this is what they meant

[–] DevDave@piefed.social 7 points 19 hours 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.

[–] FiniteBanjo@feddit.online 0 points 13 hours ago

Meh, the scene for custom softwares on PS2s, phones, psps, PS3 Emulation, etc are still going strong. We only really just figured out how to emulate the PS3 a couple of years ago.

[–] ignirtoq@feddit.online 21 points 21 hours ago

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

That sounds flat out illegal.

[–] LePoisson@lemmy.world 9 points 18 hours 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.

[–] Grass@sh.itjust.works 2 points 14 hours ago

is this why xda became shit?

[–] QuandaleDingle@lemmy.world 3 points 17 hours ago

I had to double take at freaking XDA!!! I had no idea.

[–] kazerniel@lemmy.world 6 points 20 hours ago
[–] Turret3857@infosec.pub 3 points 20 hours ago

XDA ? Do they run the forums as well or?

[–] not_IO@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 16 hours ago (1 children)
[–] rainwall@piefed.social 2 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

Its a qoute from the link in my comment under "reception."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valnet