I recall reading several years ago that Apple dropping affiliate links (? Not sure if that’s the correct name) was a major financial blow. I had no interest in the podcast or the reviews of games on other platforms, or the increased coverage of anime games, but I continued to support them financially in a modest way just so that I could read the roundup of new games released every week. A few years ago, there would be several games I would check out each week, but more recently I would just scroll through the list and find nothing of interest.

sites specialized around gacha are probably not just western. I imagine sustaining a few korean or japanese site managers is cheaper than in the US.

There's a few english-first sites talking about gacha, but they are much smaller endeavors. Not much different from a blog managed by 1-2 people that just need a few hundred dollars (if that) to pay for servers.