“For quality games media, I continue to believe that the best form of stability is dedicated reader bases to remove reliance on funds, and a hybrid of direct reader funding and advertisements. If people want to keep reading quality content from full time professionals, they need to support it or lose it. That’s never been more critical than now.”
The games media outlets that have survived, except for Gamespot and IGN, have just about all switched to this model. It seems to be the only way it survives.
No, they shouldn’t have started businesses to chase ad money and convince people to work for you in a market that was saturated.
The OG magazines didn’t sell that much back in the day but enough to be a stable business due to its format and brief writings.
Then again who wants spoilers to anything? Same thing happened with movie critics. We all know too much, too quick, too soon. There’s no surprise or open expectations like there once was. You just need an announcement and a date. You know what you like.