“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.
There was a brief period of time on the internet between the late 2000s and early 2010s where gaming journalism was genuinely decent because it was driven by passionate people who were trying to appeal to the gaming communities they were apart of. They were there to provide the community with good info and honest opinions first, and any money made was just a bonus. At some point, these priorities flipped, and internet journalism became job and then it became an industry that’s soulless, faceless, and driven by endless greed.