IGN editor Rebekah Valentine recently announced on social media that she will be leaving the gaming media after many years of service. She posted several tweets on BlueSky, expressing her sadness for her colleagues and recommending interested people to apply for her position. Valentine said she was leaving for "new challenges, new adventures and personal growth," calling it the hardest decision of her career.
In 2023, Valentine jointly published an investigative report on Game Science, the developer of "Black Myth: Wukong", accusing many of the company's employees of making sexist and inappropriate remarks on social media. The article combs through the timeline of these remarks in detail, and also discusses the issue of gender discrimination in China’s gaming industry and technology circles.
After the report was released, Game Science has not officially responded to the report or its past remarks. During the 2024 Summer Game Festival, Valentine was invited to try out "Black Myth: Wukong". She described being told that Game Science would issue a statement on "reports of sexism" when invited, but when asked after the trial, the PR representative said they would "only answer gameplay-related questions." She also noticed that there were no female characters in the demo and confirmed this to the developer.
Valentine wrote in her resignation statement: "In this general environment of the media industry, it is a rare and precious thing to be able to leave a place on your own terms for new challenges and personal growth." She called working at IGN a "joy and an honor" and felt extremely reluctant to leave her colleagues, saying "I will cry five hundred times in the next few days."
She also strongly recommended that interested people apply for her position at IGN, calling it a "great job (and unionized)" and praising her co-workers as "really great."
Valentine said she won't be too far away and more details will be released in about a week or so.