IGN

IGN

File:IgnLogo.png
File:Ignmain.png
Type of site	Gaming & Entertainment
Owner	News Corporation
URL	http://www.ign.com/
Commercial	Yes
Registration	Free, IGN Insider

IGN is a multimedia news and reviews website that focuses heavily on video games. It is not to be confused with IGN Entertainment, IGN's corporate parent company, which owns and controls editorially separate sites such as GameSpy, Rotten Tomatoes and AskMen.

Founded in September of 1996 as Imagine Games Network, IGN began its rise as five individual websites within Imagine Publishing (now Future Publishing): N64.com, PSXPower, Saturnworld, Next-Generation.com, and Ultra Game Players Online. The success of these websites enabled Imagine to expand the network in April 1997, hiring additional staff and birthing the now-defunct advertising-focused affiliate program. In 1998, the network consolidated the individual sites as system "channels" under the IGN brand. Next-Generation and Ultra Game Players Online were not part of this consolidation; UGPO dissolved with the cancellation of the magazine, and Next-Generation eventually became Daily Radar.

IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites, each occupying a subdomain on IGN. These sites, commonly known as "channels", cover three generations of video gaming: PC Games, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, Xbox, Xbox 360, GameCube, Wii, Nintendo DS, Game Boy, Wireless, N-Gage, PlayStation, N64, Dreamcast, and Macintosh. Also provided are Cheats & Codes, FAQs and detailed game guides. In addition, IGN has channels for Movies, DVD, Music, Comics, Gear, Sports, Cars, Babes, Sci-Fi Brain, Horror Brain, and TV. Each channel consists of various subsections, such as Game/Movie Profiles, Product Lists, Previews, Reviews, Features, News, Mailbag, Editor's Choice, Release Dates, as well as links to the aforementioned Cheats, FAQs and Guides.

As of June 2005, IGN claimed 23 million unique visitors a month, with 5 million registered users through all departments of the site. IGN is ranked among the top 160 most visited websites according to Alexa, and the IGN forums have been considered to be among the most popular Internet forums.

Corporate details

IGN originally stood for Imagine Games Network. However, IGN spun off from Imagine Media on February 1, 1999 to form an independent, online-only business. At one time, Peer Schneider, VP of Publishing, said it stood for Internet Generation Network. Its corporate name, Affiliation Networks, was changed to Snowball.com and became a public company soon after the break from Imagine Media.

IGN runs on a combination of advertising and subscriptions. IGN Insider is IGN's premium subscription service for approximately $US 20 a year, although it has been known to fluctuate. Subscribers, who are also known as "Insiders," get special benefits, such as higher resolution videos, and full access to the message boards.

IGN relies mostly on advertising to generate income. Each page on the network has at least one ad, typically a "banner" or the smaller "billboard." There are also interstils between some pages. IGN also uses tracking cookies from both itself and partners such as DoubleClick, Overture, Tribal Fusion and Claria Corporation.

IGN has substantially grown due to the various mergers and buyouts it has conducted. While still known as Snowball, IGN acquired the Vault Network and its message boards in 1999. In March 2004, IGN Entertainment acquired GameSpy Industries. For three months it was called IGN/GameSpy before formalizing their corporate name as IGN Entertainment. In June, IGN bought the popular movie review site Rotten Tomatoes. For a short time, IGN Entertainment was the only major independent gaming website in the stock market (IGNX). However, its stock is no longer publicly traded.

In February 2005, they acquired the popular download site, 3D Gamers. IGN announced on March 4, 2004 that they had completed the acquisition of GameSpy. In June, they acquired AskMen.com.

On September 8, 2005, News Corporation announced that it had bought 92.3% of total stock of the company for $US 650 million, giving it a controlling stake in IGN. It is now a division of Fox Interactive Media (FIM), which includes MySpace.com, foxnews.com, and several other properties owned by News Corp. FIM is not to be confused with "Fox Interactive," which is the (functionally discontinued) video game publishing branch of 20th Century Fox.

In legal affairs: in May 2006, IGN filed a motion to shut down former employee Ashkan Karbasfrooshan's company, WatchMojo.com. The judge sided with Karbasfrooshan; the case is ongoing.

Site editors

• Notes:
  • (M) stands for an Editorial Manager
  • (C) stands for an Editor-in-Chief
  • (F) stands for an IGN Founder

• Peer Schneider - Vice President Site Content (M) (F)
• Steven Horn - Publisher, Entertainment and Lifestyle (M) (F)
• Talmadge Blevins - Editorial Director, Games (M) (F)
• Chris Carle - Editorial Manager, Entertainment (M)
• Dan Adams - IGN PC (C)
• Steve Butts - IGN PC
• Charles Onyett - IGN PC
• Jeremy Dunham - IGN PS2, PS3, PSP (C)
• Chris Roper - IGN PS2, PS3, PSP
• Juan Castro - IGN PS2, PS3, PSP
• Jeff Haynes - IGN PS2, PS3, PSP
• Douglass C. Perry - IGN Xbox, Xbox 360 (C) (F)
• Jon Miller - IGN Xbox, Xbox 360
• Erik Brudvig - IGN Xbox, Xbox 360
• Matt Casamassina - IGN Wii, Cube (C) (F)
• Mark Bozon - IGN Wii, Cube, DS, GBA
• Craig Harris - IGN DS, Game Boy (C) (F)
• Fran Mirabella III - Chief Video Producer (C)
• Erik Harte - Video Producer
• Brennan Ieyoub - Video Producer
• Nick Scarpino - Video Producer
• Kyle Watson - Video Producer
• Mark Ryan Sallee - IGN Guides, Cheats, FAQs (C)
• Jason Allen -IGN Cheats
• Levi Buchanan - IGN Wireless (C)
• David Adams - News and Features Editor
• Kathleen Sanders - News and Features Editor
• Daemon Hatfield - News and Features Editor
• Brian Zoromski - IGN TV (C)
• Brian Linder - IGN FilmForce
• Jeff Otto - IGN FilmForce
• Todd Gilchrist - IGN DVD (C)
• Spencer A. Abbott - IGN Music (C)
• Hilary Goldstein - IGN Comics (C)
• Jon Robinson - IGN Sports (C)
• Justin Kaehler - IGN Cars
• David Clayman - IGN Insider (C)
• Craig Beridon - IGN Insider
• Anoop Gantayat - IGN Japan
• Jessica Chobot - IGN Weekly
• Marc Nix - Games Database Manager
• Meghan Sullivan - Database Team
• Teddy Pierson - IGN Boards Administrator, Community Manag
• Gerry Block - IGN Gear

Message boards

IGN is also known for its active message boards. They were created in late June 2000 and originally intended for video game discussion. However, like many other popular message boards, it has since expanded to forums for discussion about cars, movies, politics, photography, and various other interests.

Insider Community Board

The Insider Community Board, often shortened to ICB, opened shortly following the opening of IGN's premium Insider site. During its heyday the ICB was a thriving community spurring a hundred or more topics per day. It dwindled somewhat in popularity following the enforcement of forum rules requiring content be kept at the PG-13 level, with many frequent posters migrating to the ICB2 sister board system..

IGN Community Board

The IGN Community Board, often shortened to IGNCB, opened on September 11, 2000 for "non-video game related content" that was beginning to appear on the video game discussion boards. The Community Board used to feature the highest moderators-normal users ratio, primarily because users of the IGNCB have generally been around longer than others, but today the IGNCB no longer has a pulse.

The Vestibule

Often shortened to "Vesti", this board is known among its users as "Teh Vesti", playing off of one of the more popular message board spelling errors. It was originally created on March 8, 2002 as a trial board for new users. Since then, over 2,000,000 threads and 30,000,000 replies have been posted on The Vestibule, making it by far the busiest board on IGN. No longer used as a trial board, it is now the main community board of the IGN Boards. Any topic may be discussed on it, so long as threads and replies abide by IGN's board rules. However, The Vestibule is often criticized for having low quality content, and due to its quick speed, the forum moderators often miss threads that are against the terms of service (TOS) or have been causing harrassment.

Wrestling

Although IGN stopped its wrestling coverage, the wrestling forums remained popular and well kept. The main wrestling boards are the Wrestling General Board, which is a subscriber-only board, and its free video game board for the SmackDown game series.

Sports

IGN is also known for its active sports boards, Mainly the Basketball and Football board.The Football board is currently at over 1,000,000 posts and the basketball board not short behind. The sports video games are technically sports related, they are not grouped in with the sports boards, but rather the gaming boards, because they are in fact video games.But still, a particular sports game is allowed to be talked about at the board of the sport they pertain to.The sports included in the sports board section of IGN include: Rugby, Basketball, Baseball, Bowling, Boxing, Canadian Football League, College Baseball, College Basketball, College Football Extreme Sports, Fantatsy Sports Board, Football, Golf, Hockey, Mixed Martial Arts board, Soccer, Tennis Board, and Paintball.

WULs

WUL (Watched User List) is a feature of the IGN boards that allows a user to add their favorite users to a list and to be notified of when he or she posts. However it has devolved into a kind of de facto currency of sorts. A user can "WUL" another user (in reality just adding him or her to his or her list), for things such as liking his or her posts, helping with a problem, wining a contest, etc. The more WUL's a user has, the more popular he or she is said to be.

MU

An MU (Member Update) is a weekly post found on some boards at IGN that track the participating members post count, post count increase, WUL count, WUL increase, the weekly top spammers, and other such details.

Trivia

• IGN retains a site for its unofficial videogame guides. While most of IGN's newer guides are for subscribers or IGN Insiders, the majority of the guides remain free.
• IGN purchased GameSages to augment its growing codes and cheats database. Jason Allen currently manages IGN Cheats. This deal caused mass unrest among members of the large bulletin board community established at GameSages, and led to rival sites X-Sages (disbanded to allow the webmaster to pursue "other projects") and TheSagesNetwork (eventually changed format to Conacopia, distanced from GameSages) being established. A plurality of the more distinguished characters remain active on Cody's Awesome Super Friends Forum established by noteworthy GameSages player Cody "Ace" Morrison.
• A common joke by IGN users is 'You can't spell ignorant slut without IGN.' This is a widespread joke within the IGN Boards. At one time, IGN even sold a t-shirt with this slogan. Some detractors instead prefer the phrase 'You can't spell ignorant without IGN'.

Other sections

• In 2002, IGN launched a dedicated videogame FAQs site specifically designed to host user-submitted guides . This was launched following the amicable split from GameFAQs.
• In 2004, IGN launched GameStats, which serves as a more unbiased rating network, as it takes in every corporately owned game rating site, and averages it all into one score to give a general idea of the games quality.
• In 2005, IGN launched their comics site. It is devoted to not just the staple Marvel and DC titles, but also manga, graphic novels, statues, and toys.
• In 2006, IGN launched their television site. It provides interviews with various television celebrities in addition to a TV schedule, TV trivia, and TV news. Akin IGN FilmForce, IGN's TV section has a variety of exclusive clips from upcoming television shows.
• In 2000, Snowball.com purchased an E-federation called the Internet Wrestling Organization (IWO) . Since Snowball owned both IWO and IGN, IWO would go on to become IGN's first official E-Fed, even doing a column on the website.
• IGN For Men: This section closed down officially on October 2, 2001 soon after the announcement that Leah was moving on. It is no longer updated. IGN has sites such as IGN Babes and AskMen.com that fulfill much of the function of the old IGN ForMen site.
• IGN Wrestling met its end in early 2002, when many of the staff departed. Interviews with professional wrestling personalities and coverage of wrestling games has been folded into IGN Sports, currently headed by Jon Robinson.
• IGN Sci-Fi: Largely dead since 2002, this section of the site included movie news, comic book reviews, anime coverage, and other associated items. It has since been discontinued. The site, SciFI.ign.com now redirects to the recently created SciFiBrain.ign.com which covers some of the content of the old SciFi site.

External links

• IGN.com
• GameStats
• CubeToons