Polygon Exit Interview: Alice Jovanée, Commerce Writer

"I possess the forbidden knowledge"

Image by viiolaceus

Welcome to Polygon Exit Interviews, a series of chats with my excellent former Polygon employees who were laid off (along with me) when Valnet purchased the website from Vox Media May 1. We’re going to talk about how these talented people got to Polygon, what they did in their time there, and what they hope is next. I’m going to be publishing quite a few of these in the next few weeks, which will likely result in a higher-than-usual cadence for this newsletter moving forward.

Next up: Alice Jovanée, an all-star commerce writer who helped put together some of Polygon’s excellent deals and buying guides. Alice covered a lot of video games and tabletop games during her time with the site, and was frequently sharing cool accessories and tchotchkes that tempted my wallet. It can be hard for commerce stories to come off as genuine recommendations and not just naked attempts at making money for the website, but Alice’s passion and expertise behind her recommendations made that easy.

Tell me about your pre-Polygon background.

I followed a weird, meandering road to games media. This is something that I wanted to do since I was, like, 14, and I waffled back and forth on whether or not this was actually possible for me. That led me to working as an inventory manager for PC Magazine. That was back in 2016. I was familiar with the outlet, and prior to that I was doing shipping and receiving work, which was what they needed there. They needed someone to help with the influx of review units – printers, laptops, etc. I fell into that, and that’s where I was able to start making bylines. They had no objection to me doing extra work, of course, so I was able to do some ad hoc game and product reviews, which was fun. That’s also where I got started with union organizing. I was on the organizing committee, which was exhausting, but gave me a huge amount of respect for the people that remain invested in that aspect.

After I cut my teeth at PC Mag, I was able to work for PC Gamer for a little while. I stuck around there into 2021, and then I started working at The Verge and eventually Polygon. But my work has kind of remained the same throughout, getting people to buy shit on the internet. I've been trying to break out of that, but it tends to be a little less crowded than people who are writing general op-eds or reviews or news, and it is a skill set.

When did you first join Polygon, and what do you remember about it?

I moved over to Polygon in January 2023, and ultimately I ended up spending more time at Polygon than I did at The Verge. It was only like a year-and-a-half at The Verge, but credit where it’s due, I mentioned to Verge leadership when I was first brought in that I would love to do more games coverage and maybe work at Polygon. They took that and held on to that. When the opportunity to start up commerce initiatives at Polygon came up, they pinged me and Cameron [Faulkner] first.

I was like, Is this for real? This isn’t a joke, right? It was really cool to hear them come to me with this opportunity, and both of us jumped at the chance to do it, even though initially it was only on a trial basis. But honestly, it was just like, holy shit, I'm finally doing that thing. I'm in games media now. There isn’t a better place to do this. What if I just dig my heels in and work here forever? That was the plan.

What did being a commerce writer at Polygon entail?

A commerce writer deals explicitly in affiliate partnerships. Any time you can buy something via Polygon, any time you're pointed towards a product, Vox Media gets a cut of that. That's a big part of what helps websites like Polygon remain solvent, and unfortunately it doesn't really have a lot of the glory or the visibility of high key news reporting. The comments were turned off on a lot of our posts, so we didn't even really get to interact with our audience a whole lot.

Commerce writing is an occasionally invisible aspect of virtually every site you visit. IGN does it, GameSpot does it, everywhere. They silo commerce from editorial to keep the editorial mission intact and untouched, which makes sense.

You need to tell yourself that your job is important, because it keeps the lights on, basically. It helps these sites remain not just solvent, but profitable.

Brag about yourself: what’s one thing you’re proud of from your time at Polygon?

I'm not the only one who wrote about these topics at Polygon, but I’ve always tried to champion labor in games and games preservation. Any time I had an opportunity to write about the Video Game History Foundation, or games preservation in general, I loved talking about that. Or retro titles, or modding old games. It’s important to me to keep those aspects of gaming alive in the zeitgeist.

We didn’t have a lot of Lego coverage before I arrived, and I enjoyed getting to write about the new sets. And people apparently really, really liked that. People love reading about Legos and seeing pictures of new sets.

Everyone pitched in across sections at Polygon. What’s a time where you did something outside of your core job responsibilities that you enjoyed?

If we’re looking at my core job responsibilities, I could have very well just clocked in, done my 10 deals posts a week, and left. But oftentimes I would find myself exceeding that because there was stuff I wanted to write about in other spaces, whether that was news or just something fun I noticed over the weekend. Those are all things that existed outside of my core responsibilities, and there was no one saying Hey Alice, you need to pitch in and provide a couple of news stories every week in addition to your commerce stuff. That was stuff I wanted to do because I wanted to, but also so I could eventually break out of that commerce role.

What’s the strangest product you were pitched or wrote about?

There was one that was a coffee cup that was also shaped like a gun, for some damn reason. Legitimately it was just like a Glock attached to a mug, and it came with its own version of branded coffee called something like “Shoot me in the Face Coffee.” Right before The Last of Us season 2 launched, I was pitched on a mushroom coffee, too.

One of the strange aspects that I found myself gravitating towards was how much crossover there is in between high fashion and nerd shit. One of the first stories I wrote, and we weren't getting any kind of affiliate revenue for this, was Jimmy Choo put out a whole line of Sailor Moon shoes and boots. All of them cost a couple grand a pop. And I just wanted to write about it.

I ended up covering crossovers a lot. Converse did a D&D crossover with their sneakers that was cool. Or a new line of Crocs with branded Sonic jibbitz. It’s weird enough, and it’s funny enough. I’m all about doing commerce hits that are tongue-in-cheek. I don’t expect anyone to buy this. In my heart of hearts, I hope nobody does. But I need to warn them.

Do you have a favorite Polygon story or video by someone else?

Probably the Spycraft documentary Clayton [Ashley] and Simone [de Rochefort] did. Apart from being a massive achievement in terms of the work involved, it’s not often that I'm presented with a piece of retro gaming history that I'm not familiar with. It’s an engaging piece of work that goes places I didn't expect. I also remember watching it for the first time in the Polygon offices and telling Clayton, Simone, and Tara [Long] that they should all be immensely proud of this thing they've made. I'm just sad we may never get to see more work like this

What’s the biggest misconception people have about commerce writing?

A common misconception is that it’s wholly sponsored content. But honestly, during our entire time with Polygon, I don’t think [the commerce team] were ever responsible for any sponsored content. At least I wasn't. Like, Hey, we’ve got to sell a ton of Razor laptops because they're paying us a buttload of money. That never happened. A lot of our stuff came from personal experience. Both Cam and I bought a lot of these products with money out of our own pocket a lot of the time, and that's what allowed us to speak about these products with authority. We tried to do right by our readership. We aren't going to tell people to purchase things that aren't worth their time or money. That’s a big part of it – you want to create trust with the readers, right? We understood how difficult that is. We were trying to sell people stuff, and people generally have already made up their mind as to what they do and don't want. So all we're doing is providing recommendations for people, and if they wanted to click on the button on Polygon or go somewhere else and do it, I was getting paid either way. I didn’t get a commission, I wasn’t getting a cut. But at the end of the day, if I'm helping people make informed decisions about how they are spending their money, that is something I can absolutely get behind.

What’s your wish for the future of entertainment and games journalism?

Maybe this is nostalgia talking, because there was a lot of garbage about games media back then, but my first answer is go back to the early times. Coverage was so prevalent, and a little more diverse – not from the people that we were seeing, unfortunately, but from the different outlets that were covering this stuff. If we could somehow get back to having more diverse and numerous voice in games media that had some level of security while maintaining an independent voice.

There are longtime veterans of the games media industry that are bouncing back and doing their own independent thing. I wish the whole of the industry could survive in that way. Disparate communities with staff writing about what they want and not worry about the bullshit. But unfortunately, it’s very difficult to see that kind of future from where we’re sitting right now, especially with the vitriol still seeping in from the layoffs at Polygon. You want to remain optimistic, but it’s still kind of Well, this is all circling the drain. If we could have that same kind of zest and energy with maybe less of the cringe from early games media. There are talented writers that want to write about this shit, but there isn't always a platform for them to do that and remain solvent.

What’s next for you? You said you wanted to break out of the commerce box, what do you want to break into?

I had a lot of conversations with our peers at Polygon prior to the layoffs that were like What do you do after games media in case everything collapses? There is a certain amount of freedom given to me by being laid off. I have all these opportunities that I might have ignored before but are now open to me. I’m looking at doing mock reviews for PR outlets or consulting companies. I’m looking at PR and comms roles within larger hardware manufacturers and other places. If I could somehow pivot this into the games industry, that would be dope, too. But I'm also realizing that I may end up working outside of the gaming space. That may just be a reality of where we are now. I’m still looking at commerce-oriented roles with other companies, as well, because I possess the forbidden knowledge.

Where can people follow you and your work?

I recently made a brand new portfolio. You can learn more about me and the work that I do there. I’m on a limited number of social media platforms right now, but if people want to follow me on Bluesky, I’m there at @alicejovanee.bsky.social‬.