IGN acquire Eurogamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, Gamesindustry.biz & more | Layoffs occurring

[ITSMILNER]

twitter.com/GIBiz/status/1792948475770073242

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.

Not included in the sale are UK-based events EGX or MCM, or the digital brand Popverse, which remain with ReedPop.

So, not only are game developers/publishers at it, even the press side are getting in on it as well.

[Drumstick]

[Johnny Ryall]

Welp

[Green Gecko]

oh strawberry float off

[jawa_]

I wonder how long it'll be before the websites become sub-sections of IGN... and then, after a while, disappear?

[ITSMILNER]

I wonder how long it'll be before the websites become sub-sections of IGN... and then, after a while, disappear?

For sure they’ll start to nuke some of these sites, I can see VG247 being one of the first on the chopping block.

[ITSMILNER]

twitter.com/ABeeWords/status/1792924969938059562

You may recognise Alice, she was part of Videogamer when it was good.

[Moggy]

banana splits.

[Robbo-92]

This is just as bad as the game developers lay offs

So soon we’ll essentially be getting the same overall review, tweaked to sound ever so slightly different, maybe with a variance of +/- 0.5 on the score yet all pushing the same message, in a time where reading and watching reviews is more important for games you’re not 100% sold on, this could well just make people waste more money as there’s less opinions to look at.

[KK]

We know how this goes. Websites are run into the ground and then eventually shuttered, because one company never does well running multiple overlap brands, let alone from multiple locations (see GamesRadar and Computer and Video Games as just one such example of many).

Eurogamer is far past its 2000s era peak, but it’s never good to see so much consolidation, especially a website whose purpose was to represent the UK/European market.

Unfortunately video game journalism shares a lot in common with local news, in that it’s never been in worse shape.

[Knoyleo]

It's hard enough to find decent quality reviews/previews/news from outlets I recognise as it is, without IGN buying up everything else under the sun. Already it feels like searching for impressions on a game online just returns results from IGN and then an endless list of interchangeable 'influencers". I guess this kind of SEO garbage is why IGN end up with enough ad revenue to be able to buy up their competition.

Depressing how bad RPS had already gotten before their buyout, along with other sites that I used to think of as half decent. Why would I be browsing RPS or PC Gamer for the answer to today's wordle? They've already been forced to become content mills as it is. The modern Internet is just utter gooseberry fool.

[jawa_]

This got me thinking about the gaming websites I visit and how often.

A few times every day
Eurogamer
Nintendo Life
Push Square

Once a day
VGC
Pure Xbox

Every few days
VG24/7
Metro GameCentral

[Jenuall]

Pack it up folks, games media is in its death throes

[rinks]

They announced they were up for sale six months ago. At least there’s a buyer. I guess, that’s slightly better than otherwise.

t:eurogamer-is-up-for-sale?p=5133656

[Photek]

Whats the point of eurogamer?

[Carlos]

Nobody is asking the government to look into yet more foreign acquisition of British media?

Maybe IGN will buy the Telegraph next.

[Johnny Ryall]

This annoys me the more I think about it. Acquisitions only benefit shareholders. I say this quite liking IGN for what it is but I go to IGN for previews and game guides - is there going to be a place in this new entity for Digital Foundry and DF Retro? What's even left now for mainstream games writing? This new IGN group, the Gamespot/Giant Bomb group that I have no time for after Fandom ruined GB, Polygon, the Hookshot media sites and what Kotaku??

High five for their share price I'm sure though.

EDIT: I didn't realise the "Gamer Network" held shares in the hookshot sites, that's even worse than I first thought! Hopefully those sites which aren't wholly owned can buy back their independence but #1 that could be costly and #2 where does that leave them in this new era. This is strawberry floated.

[Trelliz]

I'm not a business person, but is the plan to acquire as many sites as possible, fire as many people as possible while still technically running then make as much ad revenue as possible in the hope that when you eventually shut the whole thing down once the former readership dwindles you've made more than you bought it for?

[Knoyleo]

I'm not a business person, but is the plan to acquire as many sites as possible, fire as many people as possible while still technically running then make as much ad revenue as possible in the hope that when you eventually shut the whole thing down once the former readership dwindles you've made more than you bought it for?

Don't need to worry about your news site's SEO performance if you also own all the other news sites. It's like Reach media buying up all the local news sites and turning them into a homogeneous mess, you hire one team of writers, and then what they put out gets published on a few dozen "different" sites in one go. Sure, it destroys the point of a local news site entirely, but who cares when you're serving up so many ad impressions?

[Holpil]

I own a couple of small businesses, so for me it can be hard to take issue with a company finding a buyer that's going to pay you a large chunk for your life's work when you've had enough. But then those businesses aren't in any creative space, so I don't feel like the old 'selling out' adage applies like it absolutely does in music, games development, art etc. I would love to stop working in B2B stuff and do passion projects but hey ho.

So have the guys who owned Eurogamer etc sold out? Debatable, because they relied wholly on advertising revenue anyway, so they always sold out. Cursory look at companies house shows they generated just shy of £12mil from Ads in 2023 while spending £3.3mil on staff (that likely excludes freelancers). They still ended up with a post-tax loss of £422k.

In today's hyper-optimised, clickbait world of Google discovery feeds, Ad Network rules and the rest of it, games writers have a very hard time in comparison with the 90's/early 2000's heyday of games magazines. On the flip-side it's easier to find an audience than ever and there are alternate means of making a living with the 'supporter' model and remaining independent.

Basically I feel bad for the writers, staff or freelance, but maybe these sites need to die so something better can rise from the ashes (and the cycle repeats...)