Ign Entertainment, owned by Ziff Davis, has now bought all Gamer Network brands, which includes at least four of the most outstanding game sites in space, as well as participations in others.
The purchase includes Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, Rock Paper Shotgun and VG247. Then, shares in Outside Xbox, Digital Foundry, Nintendolife, PushSquare, Pure Xbox and Time Extension. The move has already resulted in significant “redundancy” layoffs of acclaimed journalists across the brands as they are absorbed into the mega-site.
While consolidation is generally not great in any industry, game journalism is especially struggling and moves like this are only going to make things worse. Mid-level or smaller sites are already fighting against YouTube and Twitch, and for visibility against Google’s increasingly actively hostile search policies (which now include AI rip-offs of their articles as of last week), but now you have a site like IGN owning five major brands that can populate the entire link list for a given topic, in theory.
While this is just the latest move, we have other, similar ones in the past. Fandom bought GameSpot, Giant Bomb and even Metacritic, the all-improtant aggregator, back in 2022. The Gamur network has over a dozen publications including Destructoid, The Escapist, Gamepur and Twinfinite.
There are some reputable sites that are self-contained, or at least the only gambling site in their network. Polygon turns out to be the healthiest, Perhapps, while something like Kotaku turns out to be constantly at death’s door with a skeletal staff looking to fight with his mismanagement of justice. The Washington Post recently shot down almost his entire vertical game, reduced to roughly one guy (gene).
There is also public war against games of games by part, in part, of the “anti-dispair” crowd that believes that progressive media are being closed due to the so-called activist opinions. And there are also fans of consoles that consistently destroy the media for allegedly favoring a piece of hardware or other, or criticize them for “inconsistent opinions” in dozens of writers who have various points of view. In summary, when talking about dismissals and general destruction of the industry, the players’ reaction is a discouraging “well, they deserve it. “
Almost everything is bad news. Many former big names in the industry have moved into PR, gaming progression itself, or created their own independent entities such as Kinda Funny Games or the recently formed Aftermath. Others have learned that you want to be a “brand” with a large social media presence, a paid newsletter, or your own YouTube/Twitch area to attract a consistent audience (this is what I have done in particular over the last few years). ).
It’s difficult to see him improve. I feel for my colleagues who necessarily undergo this kind of thing every month and every month at this stage, and I have the impression that the recent Google Ai push is the maximum dust on the horizon in a position to breathe each and every one for each one well. God is helping us all.
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