IGN Entertainment, Inc., known as 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.
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 IGN 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 per 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. Currently, the IGN website contains categories that include music, TV and film related topics.
IGN celebrated its 10th anniversary 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 its Direct2Drive division to Gamefly for an undisclosed amount .
In 2011, IGN recieved a Guiness World Record award for the most visited video-game website.
IGN rarely gives a game a score of 10. During the 1990s, IGN awarded 10s to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 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, The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages 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 Color, Metal Gear Solid for the Playstation,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 Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots were awarded 10s. In 2010, IGN awarded Super Mario Galaxy 2, Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare 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 Halo: Reach 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.
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 scores from every corporately owned game rating site and averages them 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 its comics site, which is devoted to not just the staple Marvel and DC titles, but also manga, graphic novels, statues and toys.
In 2006, IGN launched its television site. It provides interviews with various television celebrities, in addition to a TV schedule, TV trivia and TV news. Akin to 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 the main IGN webpage.
In 2007, IGN launched its 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 its 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 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 readers are able to e-mail Kristine and attempt 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 Kristine has caught, and all the Pokémon she still needs to catch.
On April 1, 2010, IGN made a mock trailer for a possible movie based on the Halo video game series but with an Indian Bollywood theme, which gave away the prank.
On April 1, 2011, another mock trailer was made for a television spin-off of Harry Potter.
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
ar:آي جي إن bn:আইজিএন ca:IGN da:IGN de:IGN Entertainment es:IGN fa:آیجیان fr:IGN (site web) ko:IGN hr:IGN it:IGN (sito web) ka:IGN lt:IGN hu:IGN mk:IGN ms:IGN nl:IGN ja:IGN no:IGN pl:IGN pt:IGN ru:IGN simple:IGN sr:IGN fi:IGN sv:IGN tr:IGN vi:IGN zh:IGNThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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