The edgy humour in the recent Doom Eternal gameplay demo at QuakeCon 2018 may seem like harmless fun to some, but reading into the implications reveal some worrying possibilities.
IGN Entertainment has acquired the Gamer Network family of digital brands for an undisclosed sum. As a result of the acquisition, some redundancies have been made across the UK-based organisation.
Well this can only mean one thing... more job layoffs even in the publication industry.
“Layoffs occuring“
Yep. IGN now has a monopoly in the gaming media.
“As a result of the acquisition, some redundancies have been made across the UK-based organisation.”
“Gamer Network's publications are GamesIndustry.biz, Eurogamer (including six local language editions), Rock Paper Shotgun, VG247 and Dicebreaker. The business also holds shares in Outside Xbox, Digital Foundry and Hookshot (which operates Nintendolife, PushSquare, PureXbox and Time Extension).”
“IGN Entertainment is the division of Ziff Davis that includes IGN, MapGenie, HowLongToBeat, and Humble Bundle. It has acquired the websites from PAX and New York Comic-Con organiser ReedPop, which initially bought the Gamer Network business in 2018.“
Surprising news, also a little sad as the magazine era is over and the website era is slowly coming to an end. But it must be said that many of the bastards who work at these places have operated as a mafia to control opinion on not only what can be said about games, but who can be allowed to talk about them, and what can be allowed to feature in them or not. As said above, redundancies are coming, Eurogamer pays the highest salaries for a team of staff who for some their output is minimal. Eurogamer also campaigned against Hogwarts Legacy and refused to review it -, the site took a hit. PAX has probably thought to cut its losses. Some job layoffs? I know of some of these people and they took pride in excluding - I will shed no tears.
All this means is a collective hive mind when reporting the news
They’ll discuss with each other how to handle topics and what kind of headlines to go with so they can fire round after round of whatever point they want to make
And the sad thing is over the many years even to the old GameGate days they love making gamers look bad as a collective. Anything for a hit piece.
Narrative control. I don’t like this at all.
Independent reviewers will be more important than ever.
"They’ll discuss with each other how to handle topics and what kind of headlines to go with so they can fire round after round of whatever point they want to make."
You say this like it will be a new thing that they didn't already do.
Yea, I had actually just seen today on Linkedin that a GamesIndustry.biz guy was talking about being laid off. I didn't read all of his post, but I bet it's because of this. That's a shame to hear. :\
Probably Microsoft's fault!
They surely gave IGN the idea.
What's next IGN Pass?
But joke aside let's hope that this makes the news better compared to some of IGN branches
Microsoft and IGN work quite closely so it isn't a stretch to say this is a move to control the gaming press to get everyone singing from the Microsoft hymn sheet. Not a good look at all. It is transparent stuff like this which is backfiring in Microsoft's face. First they want control of all the games now the media.
While there's obviously a desire to preserve add revenue and early access to review copies, I doubt there's the level of conspiracy here that you imply. I mean there's no direct link between MS and IGN right?
You're probably right!!!!
Here's MS evil plan
1) Make sure that Hellblade 2 receives inflated reviews.
2) Fire all the ppl across UK who gave Starfield the justified 6/10 reviews
3) Make sure that Game industry.biz stops giving Sony's president a tribute to spew their lies and have them talk to Sarah Bonds and Todd Howard only.
4) Control the majority of players for the GOTY award so MS wins from now on.
PPL needs to know about this!
@crazyCoconuts The world has moved on from "direct links" as companies were easily caught doing that. These days corporations can merely operate as a cartel through shared mutual interest which is not strictly kosher either but is also more difficult to prove. It's the fundamental flaw with big corporations in the US economy today and no one in power is addressing it.
Is there proof to anything you're saying?
I've never heard of anything like this or is this N4G once again make believing stuff outta thin air again?
@jing if you have proof then I stand corrected.
Otherwise it seems like more conspiratorial thinking to explain what could otherwise be explained by natural forces of market economies.
Don't get me wrong, I believe there is bias all over and unsavory influences. I just don't think it's all centrally planned by evil villains in a smoke-filled room
I don't think anyone has proof but my personal experience corroborates what he is saying about IGN being in MS’s corner for whatever reason.
Granted, Last time I visited IGN regularly was years ago, I literally stopped once I realized the huge bias they showed in favor of xbox. Their pages for the two consoles were fundamentally different. When they would invite xbox president he was treated completely different than when Shuhei Yoshida was invited. The xbox pres was treated as one of their own. There was just too many examples, it wasn’t even much of a secret.
@Lighting77 The proof is in the pudding, "Partnerships for Events: Microsoft and IGN partner for specific events or showcases." "Sponsored Segments: Microsoft has sponsored segments within IGN's showcases." "Industry Relationships: Microsoft and IGN, as major players in the gaming industry, simply have good working relationships. This leads to collaborations on shows & joint announcements without any ownership involved." They just had an event together recently. The crux of it is money is being exchanged for favors, when that happens editorial independence goes out the window.
There was controversy about Microsoft having involvement with Polygon in the past and it proved to be real and effected their editorial bias. "Investment in Web3 Startup: Microsoft's venture capital arm, M12, participated in a $20 million funding round for Space and Time, a Web3 data warehousing platform, alongside Polygon (amongst other investors) "
The embargo was to make sure IGN had time to finalize the deal and make sure Eurogamer gave this game a 5 stars instead of a 3.
Man, how devious and low can Microsoft go just to promote Gamepass
I heard that it costs a ton of money to MS and they will raise the price of Gamepass by a lot of money just to compensate
true story
Oh boy! If we've learned one thing about recent news, corporate shrinkage of an industry via buyouts from those at top only leads to good things for employees and consumers!
Aloy!
Yes, good credible websites, I agree, it is a good match.
IGN is one of the most trusted gaming sites, weather you like it or not, but I know because they don't fit the N4G goofiness bubble, they can't be good.
I left ign years ago. Used to be on the ign forums all the time. I left there and found here. Not sure if you remember but this place used to be pretty bad for Sony fans. 360 was king for a few years. Anyone I don't quite remember but ign changed. Whatever the fk it was it seemed for the worse.
Ummmm not sure that’s a good thing that all these review sites are under the same umbrella. There’s no guarantee that they will maintain a non-bias opinion not paid for by the highest bidder.
You can go much farther back than that. Never forget the Kane and Lynch 2 review drama
Edit: wait that was GameSpot. Still though - don't trust these websites for anything. Find YouTubers like who's opinions you agree with and watch them instead. GaminylGames, Minimme, Digital Foundry, GMan, whatever. All better than these ad-filled "reviews" from people who are forced to play games and score with an arbitrary number
@Amplitude
Digital Foundry has lost my trust ever since they got that MS money, but other than that, I'm with you.
If I'm on the fence of a game, I wait till the reviewers that share my taste has given their opinion.
Ouch, that does not sounds good for Eurogamer.
With so much of the industry media that will more or less follow the same editorial line, it will be harder and harder to distinguish PR from actual journalism in a couple of years.
Thinking about it, may it explain their review score for Hellblade 2?
***harder and harder to distinguish PR from actual journalism in a couple of years. ***
The age of gaming advertorials.
You're right all of this is just to promote Hellblade 2 and inflate the score.
Also the why cuts are indeed coming to Eurogamer and other UK branches because they only gave Starfield an average score.
Shed the non US assets that are not favorable to Xbox keep the US assets that are. Microsoft are going to deliver crap and they are going to tell you their crap is good and you are going to buy it. That seems to be the strategy. At this point I just want them out of gaming as they are operating like cancer.
Exactly right. No more journalists. Just 1 take regurgitated & paraphrased down the chain. Smh.
2K Games will take the stage at Summer Game Fest, and it is about time we got some good news about the state of Mafia 4's development.
I hope it's Mafia 4. And I really hope it's set during the 70s or 80s, and not a prequel of the first game as was rumoured.
Discover the impact of Microsoft's decision to include Call Of Duty in Game Pass. Explore the pros and cons and speculate about future changes.
Most folks that have a Gamepass subscription will not spend the $70, they will use Gamepass instead to play COD. MS will most likely make their money from some solely PC players & some solely PS5 owners. Even some PC players may opt to use Gamepass instead of spending $70. I would think MS would want to make every dime they could from retail sales. As long as they put new releases of COD day one on Gamepass, MS will lose out on some sales of COD.
COD makes truck loads of money on microtransactions. That's likely the play. Get more people in the door through Game Pass and sell more microtransactions. Have a steady stream of events to keep people interested so they keep their sub, and then just the sub alone would double the revenue from that player each year.
Buying the game at $70 a pop including the deluxe versions is much better than people subs for a dollar to $15 a month. Die hard fans that usually buy the game also buy into the transactions. Again putting any new COD day one on Gamepass is definitely a sure loss of making some retail money for every copy of COD. With the last iteration of COD being bad most likely people are going to sub to Gamepass to play COD basically saving themselves $70, that is a loss of retail sales.
Most that don't have Gamepass will just buy the game and he done with it. People that do will just result in a retail sale being lost. Some will buy the subscription for the month then be done. This is lose lose. Casuals aren't going to pay almost 300 dollars a year for COD.
The reality is that Microsoft already knows the answer as stated by them in their documents. PlayStation gamers have built up an ecosystem of games and they aren't migrating over and dropping what they have to buy an Xbox to play one game in a service you have to pay monthly for. Cheaper to just buy the game. And, I'd bet many casual COD players don't know or care about the acquisition.
Which is why Jim Ryan pushed to make sure that that one game continues to be sold as usual on Sony's platform to keep the status quo. Every other IP owned by Activision are worthless. And Activision has shown they don't care about other IP like Tony Hawk by cancelling them.
Sales WILL be lost on Xbox. That's for certain. Microsoft can only hope that Xbox gamers continue to buy up those micro transactions to make up for those lost sales. Only positive for Microsoft is that they get to dip into PlayStation game sales that we all know from history and NPD, that Sony's console sells more games. But increase subs from Sony fans for game pass? Not happening in any way that matters.
Sony, on the other hand, can have their cake and eat it too. They get COD and they can continue dropping more content for their fastest selling GaaS game which is Hell Divers 2. As the game passes 12 million sales and doesn't beat you over the head with micro transactions, Sony has a win win situation and can support the game getting more content to keep players engaged.
As a side note, COD is probably going to turn into some version of Sea of Fortnite Duty. Games as a service sitting in game pass being milked dry with micro transactions and constant updates making you feel you're playing an unfinished game that keeps going and going with no soul.
I'm not sure why everyone is acting like COD is a surprise. That was always the plan. They said in court during the FTC case they were doing this. They have said repeatedly and recently all first party games are going to Gamepass.
gamepass like PS Plus are rental services. Games like COD you buy not rent. So in my case unless I plan on keeping gamepass for 2yrs minimum than the benefit of adding cod is pointless.
1. It is not boring.
2. It definitely isn't offensive. (If this is offensive to you, I wonder what people like Anthony Jeselnik would do to your fragile heart)
But hey, I don't live in a first world country, so what would I know anyways.
It's not surprising to see how they delve into polictics. If anything it is a mockery of prevalent trends and I love that.
Now taking offense on something in a game that's obviously a joke, that's offensive, not just to me, but to a medium where people should be able to express themselves freely.
Sjws are a plague.
Ahhh welcome to the current climate of comedy where you can't make jokes poking fun at current issues without a bunch of triggered nancy's getting their panties in a bunch.
How can the word "Demon" is an offensive term? Jesus, Mortally Challenge aka SJW people get offensive just for any little and specially when you go near their imaginery bubble.
I thought it was hilarious. If you're getting offended by a throwaway joke in a video game or you're shocked you're being offended by a Doom game you need to take a step back and reevaluate your life decisions.