Comment by nikcub | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nikcub | Hacker News Reader

A bit of background. Ziff Davis (parent company J2 global, Nasdaq JCOM) purchased IGN[0] from News Corp. Of the major properties in the IGN group: IGN.com, AskMen, UGO.com, 1up.com etc. they are shutting down GameSpot, 1UP and UGO[1] and laying off a bunch of people in the remainder of the business.

In the media world most people associate 'online' with efficient, and this demonstrates that it isn't necessarily true. There is still a lot of competitive pressure if all you are doing is running a fat organization and replacing paper with a web server.

Ziff apparently only paid $100M for the business[2] (News paid $600M+ only years ago) and IGN has 53 million unique visitors (in a high yield demographic - young males) across their properties, yet they couldn't make the business model work. Demonstrates just how 'thin' the new media businesses have to become in order to survive and the challenge that old media companies are facing.

[0] http://investor.j2global.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=737...

[1] http://kotaku.com/5986027/ziff-davis-shuts-1up-gamespy-and-u...

[2] http://pandodaily.com/2013/02/01/sources-ziff-davis-is-close...

News Corp, and old media in general, is the kiss of death for internet companies. News took IGN from $600m to $100m, and MySpace from $580m to $35m. Think about that if your exit strategy involves one of those companies. By all means take their money, but do it knowing they'll kill your company.

On the other hand, News Corp kept GameSpy.com alive as a distinct editorial brand for 7 years, when it was easy to fold it into IGN.com.

Old media in general is a slow, sloppy kiss of death.

Old media does a little better I think. My wife's company owns a few small newspapers up north and they do surprisingly well.

It is all about knowing your target demographic. I'm doubting your wife's company targets young adult males interested in video games and technology.

You are right, I meant the big media conglomerates, not necessarily old media.

GameSpy and Gamespot are the only gaming sites I knew. Where does one look for information on games now?

Edit: thanks for the suggestions so far! They all seem to be in blog style, with the typical horrible navigation (basically, you are limited to the most recent posts). I miss the huge repositories of game reviews from sites like GameSpy - being able to look up reviews of old games?

I use Kotaku and some french sites (nofrag.com & factornews.com)

I'm a fan of Giant Bomb, they've been acquired by Gamespot but they still seem to be fairly editorially-independent.

I'm also a huge Giant Bomb fan. Adding the URL here so others can find them easily: http://www.giantbomb.com

RockPaperShotgun

RPS focus only on PC gaming, but they really are head and shoulders above every other gaming site I've come across. Thoughtful, in-depth (and with a great sense of humour), I can't recommend them enough.

The Verge spawned a gaming-only sister site: http://www.polygon.com/ I'd also highly recommend http://www.escapistmagazine.com/ and if you have any interest in the development behind the games then http://www.gamasutra.com/ is great

Polygon has a great editorial staff. I just wish their site had more information density. As it stands, I can only view three news entries without having to scroll down on my laptop's 13.3" monitor. I wish they had a more dense viewing layout. Their mobile site is very usable, however.

http://www.eurogamer.net

Gamespot is not shutting down, it's not theirs anymore. Gamespot (as nuke.com) and 1up both spawned from EGM, which was once in ZD and it got shut down (EGM did). Gamespot has since changed owner, and EGM recently started publishing again independently.

I'd recommend an old good one that partnered with Gamespot for some time: GameFAQs. You'll find a huge repository of reviews from users as well as some fairly good forums.

Gamers with Jobs has an incredible community, editorials, and a games discussion podcast.

http://www.gamerswithjobs.com

>I miss the huge repositories of game reviews from sites like GameSpy - being able to look up reviews of old games?

Try MobyGames [1] for that. They collect user reviews as well as quotes and scores from and links to reviews from professional reviewers. Unlike MetaCritic MobyGames has a lot of information on older games and references reviews from sources that may be long gone (e.g., Computer Gaming World).

I'd also suggest Retronauts [2] and Insert Credit [3] if you like podcasts.

[1] https://www.mobygames.com/

[2] http://www.1up.com/do/minisite?cId=3156908&ct=PODCASTS

[3] http://www.insertcredit.com/

>they are shutting down GameSpot

I haven't seen this anywhere, do you have a source? Maybe I'm just tired, but I didn't see anything about that in your links. That's kind of sad; I'm not a huge fan of the site, but I actually trust their reviews more than most other gaming sites.

edit: are you sure you don't mean gamespy? In your source I see 'subsidiary gaming sites 1UP, UGO and GameSpy are all being shut down'

Some things never change, ever since the public Internet the Ziff-Davis brand has become the kiss of death for everything that touches it... only a matter of time now...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com