Restart, a gaming news website funded by Walmart and run by a company called Moonrock, puts special links in its articles whenever it mentions a game, according to The Verge. Those links send readers to Walmart's product pages and include a tracking code that tells Walmart where the reader came from. But here is the surprising part: Restart gets 0% of the money from any sale that results. The links exist purely so Walmart can collect data on how customers find its products.

The arrangement adds detail to a site that has faced questions about its independence since it launched. Moonrock announced Restart on December 11, 2024, through a press release, calling it a "clutter-free" gaming news destination. The Verge described it at the time as a Game Informer-style gaming news site started by Walmart and operated by Moonrock. GamesBeat reported that Moonrock maintained the site was independent despite Walmart's sponsorship, led by editor-in-chief Brandy Berthelson, a writer and editor with over 19 years of experience who studied at Ball State University.

Restart has consistently said it is editorially independent. The site described itself as independent and stated that Walmart does not influence its editorial direction, The Verge reported. A separate disclosure on Restart's website noted that Moonrock works with Epic Games as a business partner and that its coverage is unaffected by that partnership. The same disclosure appeared on a Restart article about Fortnite mode closures, catalogued at restart.run.

The tracking-link detail sharpens an existing tension. If the links generate no revenue for Restart, the financial relationship between the site and its sponsor rests entirely on Walmart's sponsorship funding rather than on affiliate commissions, which is when a website earns a cut of a sale for sending a customer to a retailer. That does not contradict Restart's independence claim in a narrow sense. But the links do create a data pipeline from editorial content to Walmart's store, even without a direct revenue share. The site's readers, clicking a purchase link embedded in an article, are unknowingly contributing tracking data to a retail sponsor.

The broader context here is one the games press has navigated before. The layoffs that prompted the creation of Moonrock also displaced writers from prior publications, Aftermath reported. Moonrock emerged from that contraction and built Restart as a new editorial property with corporate sponsorship as its funding model. That model is not new in media. What is unusual is the combination: a single retail sponsor, tracking links that benefit only the sponsor, a separate business partnership with a game publisher whose products the site covers, and an editorial independence claim that asks readers to trust a firewall between all of these relationships.

Think of it this way: imagine a restaurant review blog funded by a single grocery chain. Every time the blog mentions an ingredient, it links to that grocery chain's website. The blog earns nothing from the clicks, but the grocery chain learns which reviews lead people to its store. Now add that the blog's parent company also has a business deal with a major food brand that the blog reviews. Each relationship is stated openly. None is hidden. But all of them sit together in one place.

In my view, the tracking-link revelation matters less for how money moves and more for what it shows about how closely the site is tied to its sponsor. A 0% revenue share means Restart gains nothing directly from sending traffic to Walmart. But Walmart gains behavioral data: which games drive purchase interest, which articles lead to sales, which editorial choices connect to checkout. That is a form of value, even if it does not flow back to Restart.

For anyone watching how media businesses operate, the Restart arrangement is a case study in how sponsorship, tracking, and editorial independence can exist within a single website without any one piece being clearly wrong on its own. The site discloses its relationships. It does not earn commissions. Its editor-in-chief has nearly two decades of experience. And yet the incentives are visible: coverage that drives purchase clicks feeds data to the sponsor, the sponsor funds the site, and a separate commercial partner sits alongside the editorial chain. Readers can weigh those facts for themselves.