TL;DR
The A.V. Club has announced it will end full-time gaming coverage, effectively killing its Paste Games vertical and leaving a significant hole in independent games journalism. This matters because Paste Games was one of the few remaining outlets dedicated to long-form, critical gaming coverage outside the major corporate-owned sites, and its closure continues a brutal consolidation trend that has already claimed Kotaku's editorial independence and dozens of other outlets.
What Happened
Paste Games is dead, and the gaming journalism landscape is worse for it. On Friday, May 1, 2026, The A.V. Club — which acquired Paste Magazine's gaming vertical in 2023 — confirmed it is pulling away from dedicated gaming coverage to refocus on what it calls its "core strengths" in film, television, and music. The decision, reported by Kotaku, ends a three-year experiment that saw Paste Games operate under The A.V. Club's banner after Paste Magazine itself shuttered its games section in 2023. The closure eliminates a stable of freelance critics and long-form features that had become a rare refuge for thoughtful, non-algorithmic gaming criticism.
Key Facts
- Paste Games was acquired by The A.V. Club in 2023 after Paste Magazine ceased its own gaming coverage, bringing with it a dedicated readership and a library of thousands of reviews and features.
- The vertical employed approximately 12 regular freelance contributors and published an estimated 200+ game reviews and features annually before the shutdown.
- The A.V. Club's parent company, G/O Media, has overseen a series of cost-cutting measures since acquiring the site in 2022, including the gutting of Kotaku's editorial staff and the shuttering of Deadspin's original sports coverage.
- The closure comes three years after Paste Magazine itself abandoned gaming coverage, marking the second death of a once-respected games outlet in less than half a decade.
- The A.V. Club's remaining editorial staff will be reduced to fewer than 20 full-time employees across all verticals, down from a peak of over 50 in 2020.
- Kotaku's own reporting on the closure cited internal memos showing that Paste Games generated less than 5% of The A.V. Club's total web traffic in Q1 2026.
- The decision leaves no independent, non-YouTube-based gaming criticism outlet with a dedicated editorial budget for long-form game reviews in the United States, outside of The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Breaking It Down
The death of Paste Games is not a surprise — it is the logical endpoint of a decade-long erosion of dedicated games criticism. When Paste Magazine originally launched its games section in 2009, it was part of a wave of independent outlets — including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and Kotaku itself — that treated games as a legitimate cultural medium worthy of the same critical rigor as film or literature. By 2023, most of those outlets had been acquired by media conglomerates, gutted by layoffs, or pivoted to video-first content that prioritizes SEO keywords over editorial voice.
"Paste Games generated less than 5% of The A.V. Club's total web traffic in Q1 2026" — a figure that, while small, ignores the structural problem: The A.V. Club's parent company G/O Media has systematically starved its properties of editorial investment, then used the resulting traffic declines as justification for further cuts.
The traffic argument is a convenient excuse that obscures a deeper rot. G/O Media acquired The A.V. Club, Kotaku, Deadspin, and Jezebel in 2022 with a strategy of aggressive cost reduction and ad-based monetization. The company slashed editorial budgets, replaced experienced editors with junior staff, and demanded volume over quality. Paste Games, which relied on thoughtful, lengthy criticism rather than rapid-fire news aggregation, was never going to thrive under that model. Its audience was small but loyal — the kind of readership that doesn't generate massive page views but does generate cultural influence. That influence is now gone.
The timing is particularly brutal. The closure comes during a period when AAA game development costs have soared past $300 million per title, and the industry is simultaneously grappling with mass layoffs at studios like Microsoft Gaming, Electronic Arts, and Ubisoft. The outlets that once held these companies accountable through rigorous criticism are being systematically eliminated. Paste Games was one of the last places where a writer could spend 2,000 words unpacking the narrative failures of a blockbuster or the quiet brilliance of an indie title without worrying about click-through rates.
What Comes Next
The immediate future for Paste Games' former contributors is grim. Freelance game critics already operate on razor-thin margins, with rates averaging $0.10 to $0.25 per word at surviving outlets. The loss of a consistent paying home for long-form work will push many toward Substack newsletters, YouTube channels, or Patreon-based models — none of which offer the editorial support, fact-checking, or audience reach of a traditional publication.
- June 2026: Expect a wave of Paste Games contributors to announce independent Substack or Patreon projects, mirroring the exodus of writers from Defector and Aftermath after their respective parent company implosions.
- Q3 2026: The A.V. Club will likely announce further editorial consolidation, possibly merging its remaining gaming coverage into a single weekly column written by a non-specialist staff writer — a move that will functionally end any pretense of dedicated criticism.
- Late 2026: Watch for G/O Media to explore selling The A.V. Club outright, following the pattern set by its divestiture of Jezebel to Paste Media Group in 2023. A sale would almost certainly involve further staff cuts.
- Ongoing: The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice may face renewed calls to investigate media consolidation in the gaming press, though no formal action is expected given the current regulatory climate.
The Bigger Picture
This closure is a symptom of two converging trends. First, Media Consolidation and Algorithmic Homogenization: The same forces that killed Vice Media, BuzzFeed News, and The Verge's long-form ambitions are now eating the gaming press. When a handful of conglomerates — G/O Media, Vox Media, Hearst — control the majority of digital publishing, editorial diversity dies. Paste Games was one of the last outlets with a distinct voice; its replacement will be more SEO-optimized, more listicle-driven, and more interchangeable.
Second, The Platform Shift from Text to Video: Gaming coverage has increasingly migrated to Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok, where personalities like Asmongold, MoistCr1TiKaL, and Dunkey command audiences larger than any written outlet. But these platforms reward spectacle and personality over criticism. A 10-minute video essay cannot replicate the depth of a 3,000-word review that engages with a game's themes, mechanics, and cultural context. The loss of Paste Games accelerates the devaluing of written criticism as a cultural artifact.
Key Takeaways
- [Paste Games is dead]: The A.V. Club has ended dedicated gaming coverage, eliminating one of the last independent outlets for long-form game criticism in the U.S.
- [G/O Media's strategy is to blame]: The parent company's cost-cutting approach starved the vertical of investment, then used low traffic as justification for its closure — a predictable cycle that has already killed Kotaku's editorial independence.
- [Freelance critics lose a crucial home]: Approximately 12 regular contributors and hundreds of annual reviews are now without a paying outlet, accelerating the migration of game criticism to low-revenue platforms like Substack and Patreon.
- [The trend is accelerating]: This closure is part of a broader collapse of text-based games journalism, driven by media consolidation and the platform shift to video, leaving fewer and fewer outlets dedicated to rigorous cultural criticism of games.
