When I first joined Valnet as the General Manager of the company’s gaming division, Odyssey Group, we operated three large-scale gaming publications: GameRant, TheGamer, and DualShockers.
Each publication focuses on specific aspects of the gaming industry. GameRant is known for providing extensive coverage of the gaming industry’s most essential and breaking news, along with reviews of the most talked-about games and exclusive features related to the gaming industry. Conversely, TheGamer has built a reputation for providing the industry’s most extensive walkthrough guides for the industry’s largest games. Lastly, DualShockers has always leaned heavily into gaming culture and gamers’ love for anime.
While there are some crossover in coverage, Odyssey Group has always prided itself on running independent editorial teams that feature their unique practices, and editorial voices.
As a leading media investment company, Valnet has long focused on finding and acquiring businesses that deliver consistent scale with sound fundamental business practices. While we could add more large-scale publishers to our ranks, we always aim to find complementary publications and technologies that offer something different. At our core, we want to avoid the “sameness” of publications.
Odyssey’s acquisitions journey over the past two years has been centered on developing a well-rounded gaming ecosystem that covers all bases.
Building Gaming-Focused Tech
In 2023, Valnet acquired the longstanding website HardcoreGamer.com. We immediately fell in love with the website’s brand and the longstanding staff, many of whom have been with the publication for more than 15 years! With their dedication to gaming, we knew this team could help us build a missing component for our sites: gaming databases and tooltips.
We began with a straightforward database, combining Google Sheets and a Zapier integration. This approach allowed us to create the content we needed while seamlessly pushing the finalized HTML to the HardcoreGamer domain. It was a simple yet effective method that enabled us to quickly deliver our content. One of my favorite things about working at Valnet is the encouragement to experiment and test new ideas, with a strong emphasis on developing product MVPs.
Within the first month, we launched our inaugural database for Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which became an immediate success. Site traffic surged, confirming our belief that gamers desired easy access to a comprehensive, user-friendly database while enjoying their favorite games.
Once our MVP proved successful, our IT team began integrating HardcoreGamer into Emaki, Valnet’s proprietary content management system (CMS). Over the following year, we hired additional database editors and established HardcoreGamer as a premier destination for database-driven gaming information.
With robust game databases in place, we turned our attention to developing tooltips for gamers. Created in-house by Valnet’s DevOps team, these tooltips allow readers to highlight weapons, items, and characters directly within the articles. Gamers can access a wealth of game-related information—such as cooldown durations or attack power—displayed instantly on their screens without navigating away from the page. This innovative feature was first introduced on HardcoreGamer. It has been so successful that it has now been rolled out across Valnet’s portfolio, including Game Rant, TheGamer, DualShockers, and Screen Rant.
Our goal? To add new layers of information that keep our readers engaged with our content for longer, while creating a cohesive content ecosystem that provides all the information they need within our owned and operated properties.
Although tooltips were initially designed for our gaming division, the underlying technology is now available to all Valnet websites. We envision a future where our auto portfolio offers tooltips for vehicle information, and our Entertainment teams at ScreenRant.com, Collider.com, CBR.com, and MovieWeb.com leverage the same technology to provide insights on celebrities, TV shows, movies, and more. While each general manager at Valnet manages their portfolio independently, we focus on providing a shared set of tools whenever it makes sense.
Valnet Welcomes OpenCritic To It’s Gaming Portfolio
In August 2024, we announced our acquisition of OpenCritic.com, a leading video game aggregation platform. OpenCritic’s goal is simple: to collect review data from nearly hundreds of the top gaming websites and provide game scores and critic recommendations.
Well-established as a fan favorite, we focused on acquiring OpenCritic because it serves as the final destination for many gamers in their game-purchasing journey. Gamers turn to OpenCritic when they want to decide if spending $50, $75, or even $100 on AAA games is worth the investment.
We recognized the value of simply providing information, but we also saw an opportunity to enhance our offerings by utilizing OpenCritic’s API. This integration allows us to showcase game scores and relevant information across our gaming vertical at Valnet. As a result, many of our articles now feature review data directly within game info boxes, giving readers additional context at all points of interaction.
While we could continue to operate OpenCritic in its current form, we have plans to transform it into the ultimate social network for gamers. Our upcoming features will focus on boosting social interaction, enhancing community engagement, and facilitating library building for our user base.
The OpenCritic API
I’m very excited about the future of OpenCritic’s integration with third-party platforms. The website API enables our new partners, including the Epic Games Store and Gog.com, to display critic scores and concise overview snippets from top critics on our platforms. This includes insights from renowned publications like IGN, GameSpot, Eurogamer, and others. OpenCritic’s API is free to use and highly customizable, thanks to our in-house development team that is now leading the future of OpenCritic’s technology. The OpenCritic API is now integrated into our tag system, provide real time aggregated review scores for our readers.
Over the past two years, the gaming team has doubled down on enhancing content value for our users to offer a more holistic content experience. We continue to examine new acquisition opportunities within our gaming division, focused on other unique technologies that will further enhance our readers’ experiences. In the months and years ahead, our goal is simple: to provide a gaming ecosystem that touches every aspect of a gamer’s journey.
The Future Of Gaming At Valnet
Exciting new features are on the horizon for our flagship brands, including user reviews and premium customization options. These upcoming enhancements will allow our audience to tailor their experience, making each visit to a Valnet gaming site uniquely personal and engaging.
While we are proud of our advancements and impact on the gaming community, our journey is far from over. We are constantly looking toward the future, innovating and expanding our offerings to ensure that every gamer feels at home on our platforms. We’re committed to staying at the forefront of the industry and can’t wait to share what’s next.
You can learn more about our publications at Valnetinc.com/Odyssey.
