A network of prominent gaming sites has fired multiple human staff in recent days and misleadingly replaced them with AI writers, complete with fake pics and biogs.
UK-based The Escapist, Videogamer and Esports Insider were taken over by SEO agency Clickout Media in recent months, with up to 20 staff believed to have been fired.
Videogamer staff and freelances, who did not want to be named and said the company still owed them money, said late last year the new owner began to load the sites with AI-written stories about casinos.
Then this year, budgets were frozen and staff were told to reapply for new roles where they would be training AI ‘writers’.
Videogamer has been in business more than 20 years. At the top of every story is the following statement: “You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you’re reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original.”
New writer on the site Brian Merrygold has a byline picture which is AI generated (according to checking service IdentifAI). His biog is also entirely AI generated (per text checking service Pangram), as are his articles.
His biog states that he is “an experienced iGaming and sports betting analyst” and a “lifelong gamer at heart”.
Another ‘author’ Callum Mercer has a fully AI-generated picture according to Identifai, and his copy is fully AI-generated according to AI text detector Pangram.
The reaction from staff to the changes has been “abject disgust”, according one well placed source.
Esports News UK is another gaming site which is believed to have been taken over by Clickout Media with writers replaced by AI. He said on X: “There aren’t really the words to describe how frustrated and upset I am that writers have been let go by the current owners of Esports News UK.”
Lloyd Coombes, a contributing writer on The Escapist wrote: “Sad to say that my role at The Escapist is up for redundancy. Looking for further roles in games media or PR, and am also very available for freelance opportunities and mock reviews!”
AI-created author Brian Merrygold posted a review of the game Resident Evil Requiem on Videogamer, generating controversy after it featured on the gaming review aggregator Metacritic.
Like Rotten Tomatoes for film, Metacritic is a key barometer for the gaming industry – and the site moved rapidly to delete the review after it was pointed out that it bore multiple hallmarks of AI.
Marc Doyle, Metacritic co-founder, told Press Gazette: “Metacritic has been a reputable review source for a quarter century and has maintained a rigorous vetting process when adding new publications to our slate of critics.
“However, in certain instances, such as a publication being sold or a writing staff having turned over, problems can arise such as plagiarism, theft, or other forms of fraud including AI-generated reviews.
“Metacritic’s policy is to never include an AI-generated critic review on Metacritic and if we discover that one has been posted, we’ll remove it immediately and sever ties with that publication indefinitely pending a thorough investigation.”
Clickout Media describes itself as a “PR and marketing agency” but has a history of acquiring gaming and tech sites including Techopedia and Adventure Gamers, firing staff and replacing them with seemingly automated content around casinos and cryptocurrency.
Gaming site Kotaku describes Clickout Media as a “peculiarly shy” company.
Clickout Media’s name rarely appears on the sites it acquires, and previous reports have accused the organisation of ‘parasitic SEO’, by buying domains with high reputations to use them to push crypto and casino content.
Other reports have suggested that a conglomerate involving Clickout Media has links to offshore cryptocurrency and poker sites, many licensed in Anjouan in the Comoros Islands.
Their sites are monetised through links to online casino sites.
In recent months, Clickout Media has bought multiple cryptocurrency news sites, poker news sites, and tech news sites, in each case turning them into AI-powered sites creating content around cryptocurrencies and casinos.
Press Gazette attempted to contact Clickout Media by available email addresses and via a form on its website but has heard nothing.
Patrick Garratt, editor-in-chief of Future’s B2B game industry newsletter Knowledge, said this is not an isolated incident.
He told Press Gazette: “As in all media, the current watchword is ‘survivability’. Precarity in this environment has been steadily worsening for many years, and generative AI, as evidenced by the Videogamer announcement, is becoming too tempting for some to ignore in the name of ‘efficiency’.
“This downscaling of staff in the game media is widespread, and we’ve seen several large American operations hit hard in recent years.”
Read more of Press Gazette’s ongoing Reality Wars investigation into fake AI-generated news content.
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