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GameSpy And IGN To Merge
Bagels writes "'I had a big company, and he had a big company, and now we have a very big company.' This very appropriate Simpsons quote begins IGN's announcement regarding its imminent merger with GameSpy Industries, their former rival. GameSpy has its own announcement about this, as well. The official press release claims the companies' two websites will remain separate entities, and those websites will retain their original feel; the merger is mainly to pool the financial (and likely informational) resources of the two companies. The merger will be completed in the first half of 2004 - SpyGN, anyone?"
This combination offers tremendous synergies as GameSpy and IGN have very complementary strengths
What is it about business deals that reduces everything to verbal sludge?
The quality of IGN's articles is far beyond that of Gamespy's... Hopefully the Gamespy editorial staff gets downsized in the process, and thus forever freeing games.slashdot.org from stupid Gamespy filler articles.
"Come on, let's go drink till we can't feel feelings anymore."
Does this mean I'll have to click through two advertisement pages each time I want to read a review?
so now we get 2x as bad reviews... or do they just cancel each other out. Either way, the only good game reviews are those written by the individuals playing them... not trying to make money off reviewing/selling them.
Wouldnt you like to be a pepper too?
There's nothing like the consolidation of two evil companies.
RaGe
We're all just noise on the wires..
Two rival (and by rival, I mean there is deepseeded hatrded between the two) talkback radio stations announced a planned part-merger earlier this week in Australia. The plan was to merge the news rooms and some infrastructure.
The State Government and the radio hosts for those stations complained, and by Thursday morning the deal had been called off.
Not like anyone will really care about a game industry news site merge though - all news/review sites are biased and give no scores lower than 7 out of 10 anyway. Carbon copies of one another....
Bring back Daily Radar, I say. There was some enjoyable reading entertainment.
ISpy
(oh wait, lawsuit sense tingling....)
/sig "Shop smart! Shop S-Mart!"
That's one less domain I have to maintain in my spam/ad-filtering regexes.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
I'm sure that some staff will be let go to reduce costs and eliminate duplication. But the duplication is what users like. Two differing views are better than one.
A Multiplayer Strategy Game for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux
I think that the reviews on Gamespot.com are way better than ad hoc reviews *or* stuff on Gamespy and IGN. Also, their video features and clips are much more representative . . .
Looks like PA can make fun of GameSpy and IGN at the same time now.
my book
On one hand, with a single dominant company we are likely to get more visitors who are disenchanted with them. Before, manly people (not all, of course) went to IGN if they disliked GameSpy and vice versa; now they'll spread out over the smaller sites, and we are likely to get a piece of the pie. In addition, publishers will most likely catter to smaller sites more, as they won't stand idle while a marketing channel is getting monopolized.
On the other hand, this merger does have some negative effects on me as a reviewer and a gamer. First, the new company would have enough leverage to try to push us out of the gaming field or acquire us, mainly by signing exclusive deals with publishers. Second, they'll have much more resources to overhype a game, which will result into high-quality titles (adventures, wargames, turn-based strategies) being pushed even further into background, killing of their developers and offering a smaller choice of games for me.
those websites will retain their original feel;
I'm sorry, but IGN lost its original feel about a gazillion annoying ads ago.
Do they even have content anymore?
You can't take the sky from me...
If anything the merger will reduce the amount of choice we have in gaming websites. I'm not sure that I can see any benefits that the end user will experience.
In linux libertas
Dumb and Dumber, only this is real. IGN, the laughing stock of websites among people that actually play video games and gamespy which is just as enlightening. One can only hope this merge means that they will fire everyone from both sides and start all over and actually give a review that gamers want to see instead of doing something silly like posting a list of games that they claim to be the top 100 of all time and filling it with "web site sponsor" paid for games instead of an actual decent list. Sorry for the rant, but it truely is a merge like the movie dumb and dumber. It will provide us laughter, but when it counts, it will still be useless.
Now instead of two large money grubbing corporations, we have one huge one. Way to go guys, I hope you enjoy making life a pain for gamers unless they pay you.
the last gaming site i really frequented was gamecenter. ever since they were sold (and completely dismantled) by gamespot, i've been fed up with the major gaming sites... as i recall, this was about the time companies realized they couldn't give this stuff away for free, and all the advertisements and premium content stuff was introduced.
these days, i visit a game site maybe once a month to check what's highly rated on the gamecube or gba and then maybe read the review.
Tiny review sites or even fan pages seem to do a better job on actually reviewing a game. I only really hit the big sites to get a preview of an upcoming title and perhaps some eyecandy.
They make their money through advertising. Its hard to get Capcom to advertise on your site when you gave the last 3 games they put out a 3 out of 10.
Anyway, Game review sites have a tenuous existence anyway. Internet advertising is a very unreliable source of income. And no one I know of is likely to want to pay money specifically to read game reviews.
Happily, the Internet is a great place for word of mouth to spread. It's not hard to get an idea of how entertaining a game really is.
END COMMUNICATION
A company I hate for their useless ad-covered-site and almost as useless reviews is merging with a company I hate for their useless reviews and almost as useless ad-covered-site.
Complementary strength synergies indeed. I can't wait to see what a review that's twice as insipid covered by twice as many ads looks like. Or maybe they'll just find some way to completely merge their ads with their reviews (as if the reviews aren't paid advertisements already)
Mainstream gaming news died a horrible death several years ago. The closest I come to reading mainstream gaming news is Bluesnews occasionally. Even they're an UGO affiliate, though.
Don't even get me started on the horrific things that IGN did to Voodooextreme.
Random and weird software I've written.
Bill Gates announces a merger between Microsoft and SCO.
I definately agree there. I've been a subscriber now for awhile and really like their video reviews. They definately aren't afraid to use their bandwith.
I have found that they definately don't hype a game unless it's fairly deserving. And as far as reviews go, they're often a bit overly critical and harsh which I prefer to other sites that shall remain nameless that give certain games undeservingly high scores.
What will become of the oft-repeated line, "you can't spell ignorant without IGN!"
Yeah, this will be great. I mean, when you combine two big entities, nothing but good can come out of it.
Just look at AOL Time Warner!
My sig can beat up your sig.
Ign is bloated crapware...I get four or five full-page ads just to check the newest reviews. Gamespy has this really irritating login thing...they always get listed for mirrors, but you have to login and sign up and all of this crap just to get any file. Perhaps once the two are combined they'll discard most of the kludge and return to a slim, informative site design. After writing that, I slapped myself for being so optimistic...
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
The only two game sites I visit are slashdot, and gametrailers.com
I don't need some jackass telling me how easy a game is for him.. i'd rather get gaming news, and watch game trailers.. and no stupid flash ads that cover up content.
One course of action is to read "reader's reviews" that sites like Gamespot uses. But like all reader contributed things, take them with a grain of salt (or vice versa in the case I'm going to give you.)
Gamespot's official review score for the game XIII on the Xbox : 6.4 . Gamespot's reader reviews score (as of the time and date of this posting) : 42 reader scores, 8.4
My my my, thats quite a big gap isn't it? Simply put, when you see two reviews give a score with that high of a varying difference (2 out of 10 points! Jeez!) you know its time to get a third opinion.
Why does it not matter? Simple. Gamespy and IGN are so full of themselves when it comes to game review's it isn't funny. Especially when their own readers consistently give higher reader ratings to video games then their own company reviewers do.
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
As for ad's on Gamespy and IGN which can be bloody annoying as heck, that is what proxy filtering is for. Setup something like Proxomitron and JD5000 Filters for Proxomitron and you can kiss all those flash and regular ad's goodbye and actually READ content on the Gamespy/IGN sites without being bombarded by ad's.
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
Dave "Fargo" Kosak one of the founders of Gamespy talks about this merger in his weekly coulum called PlanetFargo.
http://www.gamespy.com/fargo/december03/merger/
Never Underestimate A Human Being
I'm quite serious. What the hell is wrong with IGN? I've paid for membership the last two years and frankly it has been money well spent. This /. topic is filled with people whining and complaining about the site without backing it up.
Forget that they review games. Forget that they have a competent writing staff that shames the competition. Forget that they've been in the game for what...6 years? Forget that they have the resources to do head to head comparisons of multiplatform titles. Forget that they produce quality video features weekly. Forget all that but remember this:
-their film site has fantastic articles, eg. primer on Dario Argento
-their sports site is still in it's infancy, and already has had interviews with Donovan McNabb & Peyton Manning
-their hardware site reviews an incredible number of products, and in my experience the reviews have been spot on.
In fact, the game reviews are also spot on. What the hell is everybody's problem with them? Is it because they cover their site in ads? Is it because they don't limit their reviews to GPL'd games featuring OGG audio compression and BSD versions? Seriously, what is your rational reason for hating on the site? Do you think they're biased? Do you think they take the old payola? I've got news for you...after owning every platform out there and playing hundreds of games, I am completely confident in their objectivity. Naive? No. I just don't see a conspiracy around every corner. Of course they get perks from various publishers...they're a huge portal. But every publisher has had games panned on the site as well.
The point is: Too many ads? Too harsh on the Cube version of your game? Who f*cking cares? Grow up and deal with it. The fact that most of the site is free is shocking, given the disparity between it and other gaming sites.
If you could be anything you want, I'll bet you'd be disappointed.
1. Charge people for an "early review"
2. Review a game that's released on all three consoles. Copy, Paste, edit Xbox-PS2-Cube.
3. Profit!!!
...out of touch with reality. I'm not going to bother with a play-by-play. Please just understand that the effects of this, BOTH long-term and short-term, are MARGINAL. This is not the END OF GAMING AS WE KNOW IT.
NEWSFLASH: Half-Life 2 cancelled - cause: could not afford to buy favorable reviews on combined IGN/Gamespy network. Both netjak.com readers cry.
Are you kidding me? Try to apply ANY of your statements to some semblance of reality. What game will be pushed into the background? Why?
Before you make any sort of sweeping, meta-statements with deep implications, try and first say "What is an example of this happening?" If you can't think of an example, then your statement is probably false.
I've heard from everyone that IGN, Gamespy, Gamespot, etc, etc suck. Okay, every mainstream video game site sucks. So rather then telling me all the sites that "suck," why not offer up some good alternatives.
You know, site that have "fair" reviews, write editorials about videos games, are updated on a daily basis, and, you know, don't suck.
...The GIA. Sadly, its successor, GameForms, is a shadow of its former self. So now I have all of no place to go for wacky japanese game ads... and that's sad.
--Moo.
Originally I was going to recommend Nintendojo.com, but after reading the latest dead brained article they came up with called "Nintendo Myopia" I instantly lost faith in them. I too wouldn't mind seeing some alternatives here as well.
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
Apparantly Dave is horny or hasn't been laid in years because the first pic you see in the article is some skinny as a rail chick whom most likely has silicon breast implants wearing black panties and a revealing top, leaning on what looks like a BMW.
:D
Apparantly all he can talk about is Babe of the week where more fake models are shown.
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
Yeah and the funny thing is - 6 years ago they were a heck of a lot more honest and did a better job with the sites that got them started, namely IGN64 and the sites they had then for PS1 and other systems.
Head to head? As in copying and pasting one review for a PS2 version of a game to the Gamecube and then Xbox version - in short the exact same review? Laugh.
And to be honest if they wanted quality video features they would actually release video's in OTHER formats besides always Quicktime or more likely now DIVX format.
Of course they are biased and also "Take the old payola". They appear to be more biased towards PS2 games more then anything else, as well as football games which they always give high ratings too even when it's just MINOR changes from the previous year's version, yet when it comes to decent titles on any platform they consistently rate it often below 8, only for everyone to see readers with common sense give it a better rating.
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
Over at Warcry.com we've strived to become what those networks were prior to the ads.. We may have sky's and banner ad's but they're hardly intrusive to your reading and what's more important is that those of us that work on the sites are gamers themselves on our own free time.