Venerable video games media site Kotaku has introduced the appointment of Rebekah Valentine as Senior Reporter, the model’s first important rent because it was bought from G/O Media by French agency Keleops Media in July 2025. Valentine’s arrival is the primary of a number of deliberate by the site, which Keleops says has grown quickly post-acquisition. Valentine beforehand labored at IGN and earlier than that GamesIndustry.biz.
“We acquired Kotaku lower than a yr in the past and are genuinely pleased with the place issues stand,” Managing Director for Kotaku and Engadget Mylène Poncet tells GamesIndustry.biz. “The model is transferring in the best route, the viewers is there, the site visitors goes up – it is doubled since we acquired the workforce – and we’re now at a stage the place we are able to carry within the form of senior skills that takes issues to the subsequent stage. That is what this rent is about.”
Interim EIC Ethan Gach highlights Valentine’s “sturdy background in enterprise reporting and highlighting the obsessive communities round indie hits like Blue Prince and Baby Steps,” however stated that “what’s thrilling about Rebekah becoming a member of the workforce is the prospect to develop recent beats.”
“As a substitute of scoops and unique reporting being merely aspirational and good to have, it needs to be the spine of Kotaku and what our readers come to the site for,” he says. “I believe the video games business has by no means been extra secretive and Rebekah might be an unimaginable asset for serving to us demystify its inside workings for our readers.”
“I am stoked to develop my writing expertise with the assist of among the greatest,” Valentine informed GamesIndustry.biz, including that whereas her work can be “centered on writing very easy information” with a “steadier move of longer investigative experiences… Kotaku is well-known for permitting writers a bit extra freedom to play with voice and tone and magnificence of their day-to-day protection. And I believe there could also be extra alternatives to dabble in criticism or different kinds of writing I have not finished as a lot of earlier than.”
Gach informed GamesIndustry.biz he feels “extremely fortunate” to be able to increase, which he attributes to “having ownership like Keleops that understands what makes Kotaku useful and distinctive and is keen to make strategic investments to meet its potential.”
“Personal fairness almost killed Kotaku,” he says. “To be not solely alive however rising in 2026 seems like a miracle, regardless that it is truly the results of a devoted, gifted, and extremely hardworking workforce that by no means misplaced religion within the site, its mission, and what it may obtain post-G/O Media.”
“Funding additionally comes with a accountability to make use of these sources correctly and proceed holding ourselves to greater requirements. Readers wish to be told and entertained, however sturdy unique reporting and evaluation are additionally essential to the broader gaming business. If you happen to’re able to be telling the tales nobody else is telling and simply not doing it, I believe you are failing in your editorial mission regardless of how good issues are in any other case going.”
“With Rebekah becoming a member of our newsroom, as effectively as our different upcoming hires, it gives extra reporting muscle to capitalize on the business ideas we get in our mailbox or drag a narrative over the end line that may have in any other case languished under the chaotic day by day churn of writing on-line. We frequently consider reporters as lone wolves chasing down ledes in darkish parking garages, however in my expertise, it is a deeply collaborative course of that pays dividends far past the sum of the components.”