Welcome to Rogue
A detailed FAQ to answer your biggest questions about Rogue
Hi, we’re the writers behind Rogue, a new website about video games.
Below, we've put together a short FAQ where you can learn all about Rogue, who is behind it, what our goals are, and how you can support us.
Who is Rogue?
Rogue is a worker-owned cooperative business that features several former Polygon writers. We are:
- Alice Jovanée, owner and founder
- Cass Marshall, owner and founder
- Jeffrey Parkin, owner and founder
- Ryan Gilliam, owner and founder
- Clayton Ashley, contributor and founder
- Pat Gill, contributor and founder
- Toussaint Egan, contributor and founder
When we first imagined coming together with our former co-workers to build something new, everyone wanted to help, but couldn’t necessarily commit to the project full-time. That's where the "owner" vs "contributor" distinction comes in.
The owners are the staffers who field news, write reviews, interview developers, and provide you with best-in-class guides for the latest releases every day. Our contributors mostly aid the site by hosting their incredible "Pat's Labor" Patlabor watch through podcast. But some of them may appear as regular writing talent alongside a suite of other familiar writers to help inaugurate the launch of Rogue.site.
Rogue is also partnered with the award-nominated tabletop gaming site, Rascal.news. Rascal approached several of us and offered to help guide and facilitate a new site full of displaced Polygon folks. Since that first meeting, they've been invaluable to us. Rogue is only here because the Rascal folks believed in and supported us from the very beginning.
What is Rogue?
We envisioned Rogue with three major goals:
- Help readers find games that resonate with them on a personal level – affording equal attention to both AAA and indie titles.
- Humanize developers and their process while holding studios accountable for their actions.
- Create content that is made by humans, for humans, without catering to algorithms
2025 has been rough for everyone. Games and games journalism are no exception. We believe that we can help by showcasing some of the coolest stuff we find, helping general readers understand what development looks like, and drawing attention to the challenges your favorite studios overcome to build your favorite games.
We've all worked for companies that demand big traffic numbers to benefit people at the top. This often demands writers cater to Google above all else. It's why AI has started to permeate your favorite websites, and why headlines feel like "clickbait." In a "growth forever" economy, it's the only way for these websites to keep going, and unfortunately that often isn't enough.
This cycle is only going to get worse in the future. We aim to fight against that, as so many incredible independent sites before us have. We will write about what we want to write about, and what we think our audience will enjoy. We don't need an algorithm to tell us what the people want when you can just tell us yourselves.
Who owns Rogue?
We, the staff, own Rogue. There is no company above us. We have no "boss." Nobody can shut us down or sell us.
Even Rascal, a site we love, is not above us or below us. We're sister sites in the fight to make gaming (of all kinds) accessible to everyone.
You can always be assured that the writing that appears on our website is for you. If we want to write about Grand Theft Auto 6, it'll be because we want to, not because someone else noticed how well it's trending. If we want to cover a rad indie game instead of a AAA release, nobody can stop us.
We're beholden to each other, to our families, and to you.
How does Rogue make money?
Rogue, from the outset, was conceived with the guiding principle that we would never have advertisements on the site. You will never see an ad or sponsored post on Rogue. Advertisements raise ethical concerns that we'd rather avoid ... forever. So if you like the clean look of our website (we sure do), rest assured that we will never trade that for a chance to sell you something.
Because of this policy, we're adopting a reader-supported model. The idea is we ask you all to pay a bit of money in the form of a monthly (or yearly) subscription in order to access some of the content published on our site.
News and guides will always be free, with some more involved posts asking you to make an account before you can view them. Every post can be accessed with our lowest subscription tier, for just $7 a month. We have two other tiers which offer subscriber bonuses (like video versions of both of our podcasts!). But these are merely additional ways to support us and what we do. Simply, there are three kinds of posts on Rogue:
- Free – News and most guides, you can access these articles just by clicking on them! No need to sign up, make an account, or anything like that (but what’s stopping you?))
- Free with an account – News roundups, walkthrough-style guides, and the occasional editorial or interview post. You need to have an account on Rogue to access these posts. No purchase necessary, just create an account using your name and email. We’ll never use this information for any other purpose.
- Paid members only – Most opinion pieces, reviews, history, and gaming culture posts will fall under this category. You can become a paid member by subscribing to our lowest tier ($7/month or $70/year). This will net you access to all of our posts for as long as you subscribe.
None of us entered games journalism to get rich, and we certainly have no intention of getting rich from Rogue. All we want is to keep doing this for as long as possible. To do that right, we need to treat Rogue as a full-time commitment, which is why we're asking for your support. Your subscription goes to buying groceries, paying our rent on time, and new school clothes for our kids. Even if you can’t support us financially, your readership, and spreading the word about Rogue means the world to us.
We think we'll provide a great service that's worthy of your support, and we hope you'll agree.
