IGN

IGN is a multimedia news and reviews website that focuses on video games, along with film, music and other media. Its corporate parent is IGN Entertainment, which owns and controls separate sites such as GameSpy, GameStats and AskMen.

IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites, or "channels", each occupying a subdomain on IGN and covering a specific area of entertainment. Game-related channels include PC Games, Wii, Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, Xbox Live, Wireless, Retro, and iPhone games.

History

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Founded in September 1996 as Imagine Games Network, IGN began as five individual websites within Imagine Publishing: N64.com (later renamed IGN64.com), PSXPower, Saturnworld, Next-Generation.com and Ultra Game Players Online. In 1998, the network consolidated the individual sites as system "channels" under the IGN brand. Next-Generation and Ultra Game Players Online were not part of this consolidation; UGPO dissolved with the cancellation of the magazine, and Next-Generation was put "on hold" when Imagine decided to concentrate on launching the short-lived Daily Radar brand. Then-parent company Snowball.com held an IPO in 2000, which subsequently bombed with the dot-com bubble.

As of June 2005, IGN claimed 24 million unique visitors a month, with 4.8 million registered users through all departments of the site. IGN is ranked among the top 200 most-visited websites according to Alexa. In September 2005, IGN was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's multi-media business empire, News Corporation, for $650 million. To date, the IGN website contains categories that cover music, TV, and film related topics. The site has gained a great reputation among gamers as the website includes guides and walkthroughs for individual games. Any form of cheats, guides or walkthroughs can also be submitted by non-IGN staff.

IGN celebrated their tenth year on January 12, 2008.

IGN was headquartered in the Marina Point Parkway office park in Brisbane, California for the first decade of the 2000s, but relocated to a smaller office building near AT&T; Park in San Francisco on March 29, 2010.

Scoring

Original Scale

A member of the IGN staff writes a review for a game and gives it a score between 0 and 10, which is assigned by increments of 0.1 and determines how much the game is recommended. The score is given according to individual aspects like presentation, graphics, sound, gameplay and lasting appeal—each game is given a score in each of these categories, but the overall score for the game is an independent evaluation, not an average of the scores in each category.

IGN rarely gives a game a score of 10. Some of the games that received a 10/10 score are for the Nintendo 64, Link's Awakening DX for the Game Boy Color, Pokémon Gold and Silver for Game Boy Color, Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow for Game Boy, for the Game Boy Color, Sonic the Hedgehog: Pocket Adventure for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, Soulcalibur, and Super Mario Bros. Deluxe. In addition to those, two more games were awarded 10s in 2008 — Grand Theft Auto IV and . And in 2010, IGN gave Super Mario Galaxy 2 a 10/10. IGN UK also gave GTA IV a 10 (this was the first 10 given by IGN UK to a game as well as Super Mario Galaxy 2). In addition, IGN UK gave a 10/10 while the US gave it 9.5/10, thus making it the first game the UK gave a perfect review that the US did not. To date, IGN has given a total of 30 games (including cross-gen ports and ) a rating of 10 out of 10.

Current Scale

On August 3, 2010, IGN announced that the site would be changing to a new scoring scale. Instead of a 100-point scale where games are scored in increments on 0.1, all future reviews will use a 20-point scale where games are scored in increments of 0.5. The scoring change is not retroactive; all scores on reviews written prior to the change will remain the same.

Other sections

In 2000, Snowball.com purchased an E-federation called the Internet Wrestling Organization (IWO). Since Snowball owned both IWO and IGN, IWO would go on to become IGN's first official E-Fed, even doing a column on the website. IGN For Men: This section closed down officially on October 2, 2001. It is no longer updated. IGN has sites such as IGN Stars and AskMen.com that fulfill much of the function of the old IGN ForMen site. IGN Wrestling met its end in early 2002, when many of the staff departed. Interviews with professional wrestling personalities and coverage of wrestling games has been folded into IGN Sports, currently headed by Jon Robinson. IGN Sci-Fi: Largely dead since 2002, this section of the site included movie news, comic book reviews, anime coverage, and other associated items. It has since been discontinued. The site, SciFI.ign.com now redirects to the recently created SciFiBrain.ign.com which covers some of the content of the old SciFi site.

In 2002, IGN launched a dedicated videogame FAQs site specifically designed to host user-submitted guides. This was launched following the cancellation of affiliation with GameFAQs. In 2004, IGN launched GameStats, which serves as a more unbiased rating network, as it takes in every corporately owned game rating site, and averages it all into one score to give a general idea of the quality of a game. IGN also launched Direct2Drive.com in 2004. Its primary focus is selling digital downloads of full PC and Mac video games, as well as anime, comics and game guides. In 2005, IGN launched their comics site. It is devoted to not just the staple Marvel and DC titles, but also manga, graphic novels, statues and toys.

In 2006, IGN launched their television site. It provides interviews with various television celebrities in addition to a TV schedule, TV trivia, and TV news. Akin IGN FilmForce, IGN's TV section has a variety of exclusive clips from upcoming television shows. In 2006, IGN launched regional versions of the site based in the UK and Australia, which both share the same information as the American site but with added content authored from editors within each respective region. When visiting IGN.com from either the UK or Australia, the site automatically redirects you to your localised version using geolocation software. Each version of the site has a modified logo with the UK, Australian or American flags beneath the IGN symbol. On May 30, 2006, IGN Dreamcast was restarted, however, none of the Dreamcast updates were posted on main IGN webpage.

In 2007, IGN launched their anime site. It provided features on anime and manga including trailers and free episodes. It also included reviews of manga and anime from other sections of IGN, such as IGN Comics and IGN DVD. The anime channel was dropped after IGN redesigned the site. In 2008, IGN launched their Retro channel to mark IGN's 10th anniversary. To coincide with the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, IGN created Super Smash Bros World Site. On the site people can submit their user created stages from the game and download ones made by other people. IGN subsequently launched a similar website called GTA 'Hood on April 29, 2008 for Grand Theft Auto IV.

On March 17, 2010, IGN launched a segment with Kristine Steimer where she attempts to catch all 493 Pokémon in her Pokémon SoulSilver game. There is a blog on the IGN.com at http://ds.ign.com/articles/107/1078539p3.html. The process of catching all the Pokémon has also done a very good job at engaging the readers. IGN has set up an e-mail account where the readers are able to e-mail Kristine in attempts to set up a trade. Kristine's Friend Code (1248 0974 0329) is also listed. On the final page of the blog there is a checklist that shows all the Pokémon that Kristine has caught and all the Pokémon that she still needs to catch.

Podcasts

IGN features several podcasts released every week focused around different areas of gaming news featuring members of each news and reviewing teams related to the consoles specific to the podcast. It's podcast list includes:

IGN UK Podcast features a general roundup of movie and video games news from the perspective of the IGN UK staff. It is the site's newest podcast as it debuted on the 18/09/2009. The team recently celebrated their 25th podcast with a live recording of the podcast. It is one of the few IGN Podcasts which contains explicit language.

Nintendo Voice Chat focuses around the latest gaming news related to Nintendo consoles. It is hosted by Craig Harris.

Command Prompt focuses around the latest PC gaming news.

Channel Surfing covers the latest news about television programs.

Podcast Beyond features all the latest news relating to the PlayStation consoles.

IGN Daily Fix is a Video Podcast hosted by Jessica Chobot which features News about Movies, Video games and TV shows. When Jessica Chobot isn't available, Daemon Hatfield takes over. Additional hosts include Scott Bromley, Kristine Steimer, Fran Mirabella, Greg Miller, and Nate Ahearn.

Three Red Lights is a podcast for the latest gaming news relating to the Xbox 360. It gets its name from the Xbox 360's indicator, which flashes three red lights when a "general hardware failure" has occurred. They have interviewed famous celebrities such as Don King and 50 Cent on it. One of the "co-hosts", named "Jeff Bell", is an actual bell that is rung when someone uses marketing lingo. The bell was buried some time last year after Jeff Bell left Microsoft, but now they have introduced his brother, "Bob Bell", who rings every time someone votes for him. He has been trying to get enough votes for a seat in the Senate, but currently he has only gotten a membeship for the PTA. Recently they have been allowed to use explicit language.

Game Scoop, introduced in July 2006, is the longest running podcast produced by IGN and is released every Friday with Daemon Hatfield as the host, accompanied by a different group of IGN journalists from various news teams every episode. Game Scoop is a discussion about the gaming news from that week, however, since its launch in 2006 Game Scoop has become more about entertainment featuring interviews, prank calls, general humor and a humorous romance section named "Knocking Boots" with Greg Miller as the host. Game Scoop was first produced on Thursday, July 20, 2006, replacing the original gaming news podcast "Gaming News Round-up".

The First Podcast which IGN produced was the IGN Xbox 360 Podcast released on Thursday, November 17, 2005, which later developed into the Three Red Lights Podcast.

Girlfight is an all girl podcast by some of the female editors at IGN. As of April 28, 2010 with its third episode Girlfight became an official IGN podcast. By the third episode, the Girlfight podcast also became the number one gaming podcast on iTunes. The podcast is hosted by Nicole Tanner and she is joined by Dana Jongewaard, Kristine Steimer, Jessica Chobot, and Meghan Sullivan.

GameSpy Debriefings semi-weekly podcast by some of the editors at IGN and their subsidiary GameSpy

Legend of Zelda April Fools prank

On April 1, 2008, IGN released a movie trailer of a possible movie of the hit video game series The Legend of Zelda that prompted several Zelda fans into believing a live-action motion picture was on the way. Other movie websites reported that IGN was showing the world premiere of the Zelda trailer that day. The supposed release date of the film was April 1, 2009. The trailer had 3.5 million views on it that day. IGN released a statement the following day that the trailer was an elaborate April Fools joke. IGN was flooded with calls and e-mails about the joke, but IGN said that it was done with good intentions and also to show Nintendo conceptually that a Zelda movie could be made and fans would go see the film. IGN also made a mock trailer for a possible movie based on the Halo video game series for April 1st 2010, but with an Indian Bollywood theme which gave away the prank.

Criticism

Like many popular gaming sites, IGN has detractors. The most contentious issue is their ubiquitous advertisements. IGN was one of the first sites to use interstitials. Originally these ads were designed to show up after a set number of page links; currently, they now appear more often. Also, for a brief time, IGN's entire website was significantly changed to add Coca-Cola and McDonald's logos everywhere.

IGN has been criticized for displaying advertisements for its Insiders, who pay a yearly fee to receive added benefits. Many sites with subscriptions disable all ads for those who pay. After many complaints from Insiders, IGN gave them the option to disable the most intrusive of the ads. Banner ads, including Flash ads, are still shown to Insiders.

IGN defenders say that they should be given credit for developing a business model which allowed them to survive the dot-com crash of the late 1990s.

References

External links

Website

IGN Channel on YouTube

Category:Internet properties established in 1996 Category:Internet forums Category:Blog hosting services Category:Orphan initialisms Category:Video game review websites Category:Video game news websites Category:Companies based in San Francisco, California