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GameSpy And IGN To Merge 78

Posted by simoniker from the eye-gee-spy dept.
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?"
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GameSpy And IGN To Merge More

GameSpy And IGN To Merge

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  • ehhhh (Score:3, Interesting)

    by acxr is wasted ( 653126 ) * on Thursday December 04, 2003 @07:08PM (#7634538)
    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.

    • Re:ehhhh (Score:3, Insightful)

      by UltimaL337Star ( 641853 )
      "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." No, that would only lower the choices of stupid filler articles... Eventually we will accept the inevitable.

    • Re:ehhhh (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If IGNs are really better than GameSpy's, then the new company will be in a sad state of affairs. I read IGNs reviews(generally for a laugh), and other reviews, then either rent (if I'm still not sure) or buy the game that I want. More often than not, IGNs articles are about... twenty-five percent lies. I'm not sure if it's because people send them a review copy, then change the game, or if they're reviewing betas, or if they're doing it intentionally, or if it's just incomeptnace (I can imagine someone

  • Ads (Score:5, Funny)

    by fredrikj ( 629833 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @07:11PM (#7634557) Homepage
    Does this mean I'll have to click through two advertisement pages each time I want to read a review?

    • Re:Ads (Score:3, Funny)

      by b0r0din ( 304712 )
      You ain't kidding. The ads on gamespy are definently an eyesore. I don't even go there anymore, it's so hard to actually find a review through all the awful advertising crap.

      "Oh look, new Mario game on...*click*...damn I thought I saw something under that translucent army ad that has no X to close...ahh there *click*...now if I can only *click* get these *click* mother*click*ing pages *click* to come up."

      Come to think of it, it's like it's own video game experience. "Your mission, should you choose to acc

      • Re:Ads (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        That's why I have a yearly subscription. Fast Downloads, Free Maxim magazine subscription, Free PC copy of Splinter cell!!!

      • Re:Ads (Score:4, Informative)

        by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb@NOspaM.gmail.com> on Thursday December 04, 2003 @09:03PM (#7635287) Homepage
        Forgive me for stating what should be obvious (and perhaps veering a bit offtopic), but wouldn't it be better to use Mozilla/Firebird rather than giving up on sites that might have content you want to access? I visit Gamespy once a day (mainly to remind myself of new games that I might otherwise forget) and with Firebird I don't get annoying ads - in other words, there are still ads but only the static, banner-types.

        Come to think of it, maybe this is why I get a bit confused when people talk about Gamespy in ways that make it sound like the site is a cesspool, since using Firebird means I don't even see the in-between-pages ads.

  • oh great (Score:1, Insightful)

    by schapman ( 703722 )
    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.

    • Re: Gamespot is Good (Score:4, Insightful)

      by davidslife_com ( 719414 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @07:45PM (#7634793) Homepage
      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 . . .
      • 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.

  • Ah.. (Score:2, Funny)

    by OutRigged ( 573843 )
    There's nothing like the consolidation of two evil companies.
    • blah blah blah...

      Typical "all successful companies must inherently be evil." What, did the big-bad IGN ruin the "mom-and-pop" videogame websites?
    • Gamespy and IGN are just businesses, so they have to do what it takes to make a profit.

      At least Gamespy lets you close the annoying popup ad windows (I don't visit IGN enough to know) - unlike, ahem, Gamespot. Gamespot forces you to sit on the ad screen for a near eternity just to visit the site and no longer offers free downloads. Speaking of Gamespot, 1/2 the content there can't even be accessed without paying for it, and both Gamespy and IGN have done their best to keep most of the material freely acc

  • Similar topic in Australia this week... (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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 anyw
    • 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 COMMUNICATIO
    • Yeah, Gamespot is definitely biased against PC games. They gave the PC version of Slave Zero a 6.4 for being so horrible, yet gave the Dreamcast version a solid 7.2 for being one of the better DC games. Of course, they're not ALL bad, since they gave the incredible Freespace 2 a 9.4...

  • Thank god. (Score:3, Funny)

    by pr0ntab ( 632466 ) <pr0ntab@gma i l .com> on Thursday December 04, 2003 @07:37PM (#7634749) Journal
    That's one less domain I have to maintain in my spam/ad-filtering regexes.

  • Where's the benefit to us? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BortQ ( 468164 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @07:41PM (#7634768) Homepage Journal
    In any big merger like this I can't help but feel disappointed. We go from a state of having two independent sources to having only one.

    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.

    • "We go from a state of having two independent sources to having only one."

      From the press release [ign.com]: "Both brands will remain separate entities."

      • Yeah sure, both brands will remain separate entities. Then they will start to share content. Maybe the message boards will be merged. Eventually what's the point of having both of them around?

        It's quite common to lie at the outset of a merger. Saying that no jobs will be lost or some such. It puts a good spin on the move. Then after the deal is done they can do whatever they want. And they will do what's the most cost-effective.

        Hopefully they will keep the best from both and make a good site.

    • "Where's the benefit to us?"

      Well, you get to recieve lots of special limited time offers from select third party affiliates as I'm sure some of the privacy conditions will change as a result of this.

      Has anybody recieved any notification of privacy policy changes yet?

    • Re:Where's the benefit to us? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by sevensharpnine ( 231974 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @01:11AM (#7636553)
      You're incorrect. We went from having zero independent sources to having zero independent sources. IGN is the worst, with a notable proportion between a game's advertising and its review score. Gamespy's reviews have been better (their console reviews are quite decent), but they are the model for what's wrong with the Internet today.

      Gamespy is the ultimate consumer-feeding media machine. You don't go to Gamespy to find out what's cool; you go to Gamespy to be told what's cool. It's the online equivalent of MTV, complete with drooling fandroids absorbing the mindless consumerism that the advertisers want. That's all Gamespy is--one large, expertly crafted advertisement. There's no original or meaningful contribution to the Internet there. They take mod/map authors' work and basically sell it (specifically, they sell bandwidth to it).

      They cater to the absolute lowest denominator of the public. There is never an engaging idea, never a meaningful news item, rarely a forum conversation with a coherent theme on Gamespy. I could understand if it was mainly kids there (as it was in years past), but I'm honestly concerned about the state of gaming when I look at the intellectual midgets that populate Gamespy today.

      I don't think people see it. It's right fucking there, all in the open. Read. A game being announced is news. A game being released is news. A game being patched is news. Never mind it was broken in the first place!

      Each and every aspect of Gamespy has two purposes: the first, to gently shape the visitors' thought, to encourage them to buy; second, to show the advertisers what type of people visit Gamespy--those that can't differentiate between an advertisement and a news story!

      Yes, I'm disappointed too. Not because two companies have turned to one, though. I'm disappointed by the fact that Gamespy has enough visitors (and hence ad revenue) to grow. Gamers of the past were more discriminate and more demanding from gaming journalism. This newest batch of gamers has shown a new trait. They don't think. They just listen.
      • That's a biting critique you got there. Care to back it up with some URLs for true independent sites?
        • I could reinforce my arguement with links, but they would be to sites that don't exist anymore. There may be some true independant games journalism left on the Internet, but they won't be of sufficient size to matter. It's a complex situation: the game companies often give the exclusive previews and ad money to the pseudo-journalists like Gamespy. And people want that up-to-date content, slant and bias be damned.
    • Gamespy and IGN independent?

      Shirly, you jest.

  • Two press birds with one webcomic stone! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Bansuki ( 540068 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @07:46PM (#7634804) Homepage
    Looks like PA [penny-arcade.com] can make fun of GameSpy [penny-arcade.com] and IGN [penny-arcade.com] at the same time now.

  • Good news and bad news (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NetDanzr ( 619387 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:05PM (#7634949)
    As a writer and editor for a small, independent review site [netjak.com], I view this merger as both good and bad.

    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.

    • bro, you average about 15 views and 1 comment per news posting on your site. i dont think you have to worry about IGN/GameSpy acquiring you...

  • Too late (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:09PM (#7634979) Homepage Journal
    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?
  • 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.
  • 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. Sorr
  • 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.
  • I haven't felt like either site's been very useful at giving the full story on video games for a while now. I don't know if it's advertiser influence or if it's just because my tastes differ, but all of the popular game review sites I've visited lately seem to be missing something.

    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.

  • Woohoo (Score:2)

    by Cecil ( 37810 )
    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
  • 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!
  • 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...
  • 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.
  • So long as video game opinions are largely based on a player's personal preferance, the 'best' way to decide if a game is good for you is to read multiple reviews from multiple sources. Some people like to read Gamespot reviews, while other ACTUALLY like IGN's reviews as well.

    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 scor

    • At least on GameFAQs, 90% of reviews for high profile games are fanboys. You'll see idiocy like 9/10 "This game has a few flaws" more often than you expect to.
    • Exactly. I subscribe to gamespot and It's been worth the low cost. First thing I check is if the reader review score matches the reviewer. If it doesnt, I know to read the article and make sure I just pick out game features. For me, the 3rd opinion I go to is the screen shots and videos. After watching 2 or 3 of them, I know whether I am going to enjoy the game or not. I've played games since I was a wee lad, I can tell what I'll like and what I won't, and actually watching the game in action is more then e
    • Cognitive dissonance also plays a role here. If you buy a game, you're very likely to convince yourself that the game is good and you haven't wasted your money.
  • 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.

  • Oh and as for ad's (Score:2, Informative)

    by xQuarkDS9x ( 646166 )
    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 [proxomitron.info] and JD5000 Filters for Proxomitron [jd500.net] 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.

  • A Gamespy Response (Score:2, Informative)

    by Doodleman3 ( 409554 )
    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/

    • 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.

      Apparantly all he can talk about is Babe of the week where more fake models are shown. :D
  • 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
    • I tend to agree with you. I personally subscribe to gamespot, as I agree with them more often then the IGN staff, but it's really the same. The best way to get a feel for the site is to read the review for games you already have and get a feel for how certain reviewers feel about games that you have. From there you can gauge what kind of score from then would merit you to go out and instantly buy it. Really all you need is video footage of the game and after playing on multiple platforms for multiple years,
      • I'll agree, I'm reasonably happy w/ my ign subscription. In particular, they have a good interface (if ad-clogged a bit now) to an insanely large backarchive of reviews; when I'm cruising for cheap used games, they're a great resource (just wish i had a wireless view into 'em, to look at when I'm in the actual store...)

    • Forget that they review games. Forget that they have a competent writing staff that shames the competition.

      Competent writing staff you say? Lately I have been seeing more and more spelling errors in the reviews, whether it is for PS2/XBOX or Gamecube games. I would also say their reviews don't shame the competition, often the tiny or little review sites with independant writers, heck even the reviewers on Gamefaqs [gamefaqs.com] are often more honest then anything.

      Forget that they've been in the game for what...6 y

  • 3 steps to reviewing games

    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!!!

  • 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 [gameforms.com], 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.
  • 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.

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