Collider (website)

Valnet, Inc. is a Canadian media company established in August 2012 by Hassan and Sam Youssef in Montreal, Quebec. It operates primarily in the entertainment media industry, where it has sought to acquire producers of content in this space. In this way, it has become the parent company of several internet media publications including ''TheGamer'', ''Collider'', ''Comic Book Resources'', ''MovieWeb'', ''Screen Rant'', ''Game Rant'', XDA Developers, and MakeUseOf. According to ''TheWrap'', Valnet websites prioritise "mass quantity over quality" and " SEO bait" content. There have been complaints from writers about working conditions and the low pay offered by the company.

History

Students Matt Keezer, Stephane Manos, Sam and Hassan Youssef met through their common interest in competitive foosball, and started a business in online pornography in 2003, growing their successful enterprise under the Brazzers name. Keezer began Pornhub under the company Interhub separately from Brazzers, and the businesses remained silent partners. In 2009 Interhub was found to be hosting videos of the rape of an underage girl but did not remove the video until the victim set up a new email address posing as a lawyer and sending an email threatening legal action. In October 2009, Federal investigators of the US Secret Service's Organized Fraud Task Force seized millions of dollars from Brazzers parent company, discovering millions in wire transferred money from banks in Israel and other countries to two separate Mansef accounts. This resulted in a sale of all of the founders' pornography assets in March 2010 to Fabian Thylmann, while the Youssef brothers took time off from business, until they eventually founded Valnet in August 2012.

The company started a YouTube channel in January 2016 called "Little Angel", which provides animated content aimed at toddlers. By April 6, 2016, the company acquired ''Comic Book Resources'', with Valnet CEO Hassan Youssef retaining the editorial team and taking over their offices. On November 17, 2020, Valnet announced that it had acquired ''Collider''. Valnet acquired XDA along with four other websites—Pocketnow, AppAdvice, BackyardBoss and Hook&Bullet—from Busy Pixel Media in February 2022. Also that month, the company sold Little Angel to Moonbug, the owner of Cocomelon. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In May 2023, it was reported that Valnet had laid off several key figures at subsidiary ''Comic Book Resources'' (''CBR''), including editor-in-chief Adam Swiderski, senior new editor Stephen Gerding, and senior features editor Christopher Baggett. In June, it was reported that ''CBR''s employees had been finding difficulty in keeping up with Valnet's content demand. The company was reportedly "seemingly firing those who try and stand up for writers" in its bid to attempt to improve its work culture and performance. Many fired staff vocalized discontent for these firings on Twitter, due to what was allegedly the full shutdown of the website news section, which the company refuted.

Valnet acquired OpenCritic by August 2024 in an attempt to integrate the aggregator into its other businesses in the gaming sector. It announced plans to turn the site into a social media platform. The company signed a lease for the 740 Broadway building in New York City by October 2024, being the company's first offices in the city.

'' TheWrap'' spoke to 15 current or former Valnet contractors in 2025 regarding alleged exploitative working conditions at the company; one freelancer had also recently filed a lawsuit against the company for exploitation. ''TheWrap'' article led to Valnet and Hassan Youssef filing a lawsuit in April 2025 against the website's company The Wrap News Inc. for libel.

On May 1, 2025, Valnet acquired ''Polygon'' from Vox Media.

Subsidiaries

''Collider''

''Collider'' is an online entertainment publication, with a focus on the film industry and television series. ''Collider'' focuses on entertainment news, analysis, and commentary, along with original features, complementary film and television reviews, editorials, and interviews.

''Collider'' was founded in 2005 by editor-in-chief Steven Weintraub as a blog. In 2015, Weintraub sold ''Collider'' to Complex Media, who would manage the business and advertisements on the website and offer editing support. On November 17, 2020, Valnet announced that it had acquired ''Collider''.

''CBR''

''CBR'', formerly ''Comic Book Resources'', is a news website covering movies, television, anime, video games and comic book–related news and discussion.

''Comic Book Resources'' (''CBR'') was founded by Jonah Weiland in 1995 as a development of the Kingdom Come Message Board, a message forum that Weiland created to discuss DC Comics' then-new mini-series of the same name.

''CBR'' has featured columns by industry professionals such as Robert Kirkman, Gail Simone, and Mark Millar. Other columns were published by comic book historians and critics such as George Khoury and Timothy Callahan.

By April 4, 2016, ''CBR'' was sold to Valnet, after which the site was relaunched as CBR.com on August 23, 2016, with the blogs integrated into the site. '' Popverse'' reported that following the acquisition by Valnet "comics were increasingly sidelined for coverage .. as were both reviews and columns as focuses for publishing; instead, the site refocused on shorter news pieces and reactions to news stories". Valnet Inc. is a subsidiary of Valsef Group, which is also headquartered in Montreal.

''GiveMeSport''

''GiveMeSport'' was founded in 2014 and acquired by Valnet, Inc in 2022. The collaborators and editors at GMS include Fabrizio Romano, Ben Jacobs, Dean Jones, and Tom Bogert.

''MovieWeb''

''MovieWeb'' is an entertainment news website and video brand that reports on entertainment news through its website. The site also maintains a searchable database of films.

MovieWeb first launched in 1995; by 1997 it was reported to be in operation supported by a 4-person team publishing movie information that, while not 'slick', had a 'certain charm'. In 2012, MovieWeb produced a video which was an '80s-themed parody mashup of ''The Walking Dead'' series accompanied by music from '' Growing Pains'' that went viral.

Previously, MovieWeb was owned by WatchR Media, Inc., a privately held Las Vegas company. In 2021, it was estimated the MovieWeb website had 8 million unique visits for the month of July. MovieWeb has been owned and operated by online publisher Valnet Inc. since September 2021 upon completion of the acquisition from WatchR.

In August 2000, MovieWeb announced a collaboration with video rental chain Video Update and video retail software provider Unique Business Systems Inc.

MovieWeb acts as a distribution partner of Hulu. MovieWeb also produces video content for IMDb.com.

''OpenCritic''

''OpenCritic'' is a review aggregation website for video games. OpenCritic lists reviews from critics across multiple video game publications for the games listed on the site. The website then generates a numeric score by averaging all of the numeric reviews. Several other metrics are also available, such as the percentage of critics that recommend the game and its relative ranking across all games on OpenCritic. OpenCritic was launched in 2015 to avoid some of the controversies that Metacritic has gained in the video game industry. A game's Metacritic score has become strongly attached to the financial performance of a game and subsequent efforts of the development studio and publisher, such as affecting post-release studio bonuses. However, Metacritic provides limited details of how it calculates its review scores, and uses weighted averaging that favors some publications over others, leading many to criticize the heavy weight that the industry puts on the site. Valnet's acquisition of ''OpenCritic'' was announced on July 31, 2024.

''Screen Rant''

''Screen Rant'' is an entertainment website that offers news in the fields of television, films, Video games, and film theories. It was launched by Vic Holtreman in 2003, and originally had its primary office in Ogden, Utah. ''Screen Rant'' has expanded its coverage with red-carpet events in Los Angeles, New York Film Festivals and San Diego Comic-Con panels. The associated YouTube channel was created on August 19, 2008, and has 8.62M subscribers and 5.4K videos as of June 21, 2023.

In February 2015, ''Screen Rant'' was acquired by Valnet, and was reunited with its sister site, ''Game Rant'', in 2019, when Valnet acquired the other publication. ''Screen Rant'' features a video series called ''Pitch Meetings'' by YouTube comedian Ryan George. By September 2020, the series included over 200 videos, garnering a combined 250 million views. In the series, George plays both a screenwriter and a film producer in a pitch for a film or television series, describing its plot in a way that highlights various inconsistencies and the way monetary incentives affect the movie industry.

XDA

XDA (formerly known as XDA Developers) is a mobile software development community launched on December 20, 2002. Although discussion primarily revolves around the Android operating system, members also talk about other operating systems and mobile software development topics.

XDA-Developers.com was created by Dutch company NAH6 Crypto Products BV and launched on December 20, 2002. In January 2011, XDA Developers was bought by the US based company JB Online Media, LLC. and subsequently by Canada-based Valnet Inc. in February 2022. The name ''XDA Developers'' is originally derived from the O₂ XDA, which was marketed as a personal digital assistant (PDA) with extra features.

In 2013, XDA partnered with Swappa to become its official marketplace where users can buy or sell devices.

Valnet acquired XDA along with four other websites—Pocketnow, AppAdvice, BackyardBoss and Hook&Bullet—from Busy Pixel Media in February 2022. In 2023, '' FeedSpot'' listed XDA (with 11 million members) as the largest mobile software development forum and among the top 70 technology forums to follow.

XDA website layouts

Many software and hardware hacks, Android rooting methods, Android custom ROMs and other phone- and tablet-specific tweaks originate from the members of the XDA Forum. XDA also hosts the XDA Portal, a source for tech news, products, guides, and features which launched in 2010.

Their forum site underwent major redesigns in 2010, 2013, late 2014 (named ''XDA 2015'') and late 2020 (named ''XDA 2021''). The 2013 layout distinctively indicated the number of active and total registered users at the top right, and the 2015 layout supported responsive web design and was available with a dark-on-light color scheme option.

As of 2020, the website features 3 themes, namely XDA, XDA Dark and XDA Classic. The older layout options for XDA 2013 and XDA 2015 were removed in XDA 2021. The website transitioned from vBulletin to XenForo on December 1, 2020, along with a major layout redesign, named ''XDA 2021''.

XDA reception and controversies

In February 2007, when the Microsoft Windows Mobile OS was widely used on mobile phones, Microsoft asked XDA Developers to remove all ROMs created by OEMs.

In 2008, CNET Asia suggested that XDA Developers offers potential solutions to problems with many Android-based mobile devices. In other mobile phone reviews, testers at CNET preferred using XDA Developers' ROMs when carrying out detailed reviews.

''Polygon''

Polygon is an American entertainment website created by Vox Media covering video games, movies, television, and other popular culture. At its October 2012 launch as Vox Media's third property, ''Polygon'' sought to distinguish itself by focusing on the stories of the people behind video games and long-form magazine-style feature articles.

The site was built over the course of ten months by eight co-founding editors which included the editors-in-chief of the gaming sites ''Joystiq'', '' Kotaku'' and '' The Escapist''. Vox Media produced a documentary series on the founding of the site. In May 2025, ''Polygon'' was sold to Valnet.

Reputation

According to ''TheWrap,'' Valnet prioritzes "mass quantity over quality to churn out mind-numbing SEO bait." Once websites are acquired by Valnet, the permanent staff are usually replaced by contractors, who are paid significantly less (reportedly around $19 for 1000 words at ''GameRant'') than the former tenured staff. One former contributor described Valnet website ''Collider'' to ''TheWrap'' as "a content mill, borderline like almost sweatshop-level", while another writer suggested that Valnet forced contractors to create "junky clickbait" content. Valnet writers who complain about payment or working conditions or reveal payment rates are alleged to be blacklisted by the company.

See also

* List of Internet forums

References

External links

* {{official website

2012 establishments in Quebec
Canadian companies established in 2012
Canadian journalism organizations
Canadian online journalism
Computer magazine publishing companies
Digital media organizations
Publishing companies established in 2012
Publishing companies of Canada