IGN is a casual news/reviews website that focuses on video games, films, 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 and covering a specific area of entertainment. Videogame-related channels include PC Games, Wii, Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi, Nintendo 3DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, Xbox Live, Wireless, Retro, iPhone and Android games.
History
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Created in September 1996 as the Imagine Games Network. IGN was founded by publishing executive Jonathan Simpson-Bint and began as five individual websites within Imagine Publishing: N64.com (later renamed ign64.com), P.S.X.-Power, Saturnworld, Next-Generation.com and Ultra Game Players Online. In 1998, the network consolidated the individual sites as system "channels" under the I.G.N. brand. Next-Generation and Ultra Game Players Online were not part of this consolidation; U.G.P.O. 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 burst of the dot-com bubble.
In June 2005, IGN claimed to have 24,000,000 unique visitors a month, with 4.8 million registered users through all departments of the site. IGN is ranked amongst 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. Currently, the IGN website contains categories that include music, TV, and film related topics.
IGN celebrated their tenth year on January 12, 2008.
IGN was headquartered in the Marina Point Parkway office park in Brisbane, California until it relocated to a smaller office building near AT&T; Park in San Francisco on March 29, 2010.
On May 25, 2011, IGN sold their Direct2Drive division to Gamefly for an undisclosed amount .
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 0.5 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. During the 1990s, IGN awarded 10s to 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 for the Dreamcast, Super Mario Bros. Deluxe for the Game Boy, Metal Gear Solid for the Game Boy Color,and Dragon Quest 3 for the Game Boy Color. After nearly a decade with no games receiving a 10, in 2008 Grand Theft Auto IV and were rewarded 10s. In 2010, IGN awarded Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Pac-Man Championship Edition DX a perfect 10/10. In 2011, IGN has given Chrono Trigger (Wii) a perfect 10/10 on May 25, 2011
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 31 games 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. This change also does not affect the scoring system for reader reviews.
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.
April Fools pranks
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.
In a behind-the-scenes documentary posted the following day, a camera operator stated that they could have cut together a small mini series with all the footage shot.
IGN also made a mock trailer for a possible movie based on the
Halo video game series for April 1, 2010, but with an Indian Bollywood theme which gave away the prank. Another mock trailer was made for a television spin-off of
Harry Potter in 2011.
References
External links
Website
Official mobile 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
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