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[Razzorn34]

IGN used to be decent, then went the path of every other gaming site in running after casuals. I frequent no gaming sites these days except forums like this. I can't find a modern gaming site that has reviewers who are actually core gamers, who are actually decent at the games they play, and aren't pushing some sort of agenda with their reviews.

All I want to know is if a damn game is good or not from people who game like me. This used to be the regular thing. These days? You get casual game reviewers who claim to be good at games, who can barely figure out basic mechanics, and who will write half the article about some chicks clothing they think is an issue.

 

[angelic]

They must be fairly damaged as a brand. The whole concept is broken, they review games but rely on ads..so they're automatically on the payroll. They get code a week before release so they can't do a proper job. They make constant fuck ups like the RE2 A/B scenario. The plagiarism thing. The fact that they're not needed any more. The fact that they hold their own work in such high regard, although that's most game journos. I've never spoken to one yet who doesn't act like the whole weight of the world is on their shoulders...they simply must get this review of Barbie's Horse Adventure completed. The world must know.

 

[Heebie Jeebies]

I've never actually used IGN, but humble bundle has been utter shit since they bought it.

 

[trufflepigg]

I like IGN, can't even remember their old name but I've been visiting the site for like 20 years.

Lately I'm annoyed that the site is very strict with comments, they have very liberal pro-SJW policies at IGN now, you say a wrong political word in the comments and you get banned. For example, the words gay/trans/sjw will all get you banned, even if you're talking about a game having transexual cast etc. You cannot critique liberal sjw stuff at IGN anymore.

 

[TeamGhobad]

youtubers killed off the websites.

 

[Shakka43]

Written reviews are just not that important these days, Youtube has taken a much bigger role and people care more about their favorite youtuber's opinions than what most of the gaming websites have to offer.

 

[Last Prime]

Greg Miller annoyed the hell out of me, but it seems like the site went on a downward spiral after he left.

Greg Miller was such a fanboy on IGN that I stopped going to the site.

 

[wvnative]

Not sure about the community but it seems a lot of their staff has left in past couple years and I ain't seeing nearly as much interesting content as they used to have. (What happened to unfiltered?)

 

[Neverwas]

Greg Miller was such a fanboy on IGN that I stopped going to the site.

For sure. He was insufferable most of the time. I still feel like those were the last good years of IGN though.

 

[Krappadizzle]

Na, people are just ignoring them.

 

[Fake]

Could be IGN or could be Dirt 2.0... Why not both?
Ps: Greg Miller is a nice guy.

 

[Mr Nash]

I have no idea about their actual site, and given how wide spread traffic assignment is with large corporate web sites I'd be suspicious of the authenticity of traffic reported about a site like IGN anyway. Their YouTube channel isn't that impressive. While they may have 11 million subscribers, their engagement is horrendous. Scrolling through their videos, tons of them only have 20K to 50K views, even going back a week to give people time to look at them. For a channel with that many viewers, they should be getting 10X the views that they have currently.

It really wouldn't surprise me if corporate-backed games journalism is one recession away from going belly up forever. Places like IGN, Kotaku, Polygon, and the like are on borrowed time.

 

[Meowzers]

IGN slipping into the lower leagues these days.

It's still a decent site, but for gaming reviews/previews information I just pop myself onto YouTube and have a gander.

 

[angelic]

Greg Miller is nice, but his shows are unlistenable due to him babbling the same pre-canned phrases without any actual talking. 10 minutes of in-jokes about bakers dozen, podcast services around......pause....the globe, TIME FOR SOME NEWS etc. Stop shouting, just talk.

 

[Cactuarman]

Come on Airbus Jr . This is a pretty low-effort excuse to shit on IGN. First of all you used Dirt 2.0 as an example. Secondly, 100K comments? Where did you pull this from? After a quick search even their really big reviews seem to max out around 15-25K comments - MGS5, Last of Us, LoZ BotW

We're better than this

 

[Lionel Richie]

The first Dirt Rally is just so fucking good, I'm sad this thread eventually led to people extensively mocking that franchise.

 

[ThaPhantom]

IGN has been hot trash for a minute. I still post on the forums periodically but that is more a force of habit since I have had my account since 2004.

 

[Jigsaah]

I don't think IGN is dead really, but since that plagiarism debacle, the stigma that they are paid to score games higher (which I don't believe) and their sometimes blatant Sony bias has really hurt their credibility. I do enjoy some of the podcasts still.

 

[VertigoOA]

I was thinking this recently. I don't read anything online now whereas a few years ago I consumed a shit ton of articles every day. I still read books voraciously so it's not my reading habits. Instead, it's like the internet has become so boring that it distracts me from enjoying it. I'm sure better writers could make a ton of difference to websites like IGN but it's like they want the bland, copy-past style news stories and same-style reviews you can find at any other site. It's weird.

Bro I pretty much ran a game website for a decade. Wrote daily news articles, product reviews, got sent to the w hotel to play oblivion, and found myself at the post office every weekend mailing product out to staff.

I realized a lot during this time period. Reviews to an extent are bought and paid for.*cough Nintendo cough golin Harris.*cough

And then playing so many games back to back actually ruins your perception on gaming entirely.

Play a c-rated game as a kid... you probably loved it. A lot of people probably loved it too. Reviewers lose that grasp. They’re just looking for a bullet point checklist.

That’s why games journalism is kinda fucked. You’re best off reading what forum posters say about games they’ve actually played to gauge the actual perception.

I say... find someone you kinda agree with if you want purchase suggestions. But the current culture of gamers being outraged as if owed revolutionary experiences every time they spend a measly 60$ is sad

There are some good people at ign. Fireteam chat is an excellent example... you can tell they do it because they love what they play

 

[zeorhymer]

I wonder if they recovered from the guy plagiarizing from the other smaller outlets. That was a huge blow to their credibility.

 

[VertigoOA]

I wonder if they recovered from the guy plagiarizing from the other smaller outlets. That was a huge blow to their credibility.

More common than you think. When they’re racing for deadlines don’t be surprised to hear someone copy and pasted someone’s else’s shit into ms word and edit it.

Lol... I don’t trust movie critics either. I watched them kill my love for Star Wars

 

[zeorhymer]

I watched them kill my love for Star Wars

Star Wars was doa when Force Awakens is a rehash of the original Star Wars with different characters.

 

[manfestival]

I naturally started moving away from them. Their opinion pieces became overwhelming and too common. That is not my kinda thing.

 

[ROMhack]

Bro I pretty much ran a game website for a decade. Wrote daily news articles, product reviews, got sent to the w hotel to play oblivion, and found myself at the post office every weekend mailing product out to staff.

I realized a lot during this time period. Reviews to an extent are bought and paid for.*cough Nintendo cough golin Harris.*cough

And then playing so many games back to back actually ruins your perception on gaming entirely.

Play a c-rated game as a kid... you probably loved it. A lot of people probably loved it too. Reviewers lose that grasp. They’re just looking for a bullet point checklist.

That’s why games journalism is kinda fucked. You’re best off reading what forum posters say about games they’ve actually played to gauge the actual perception.

I say... find someone you kinda agree with if you want purchase suggestions. But the current culture of gamers being outraged as if owed revolutionary experiences every time they spend a measly 60$ is sad

There are some good people at ign. Fireteam chat is an excellent example... you can tell they do it because they love what they play

Interesting. What changed, why did you stop doing it?

Personally I don't care about recommendations but I would appreciate something interesting to read on my lunch break. Unfortunately I don't think there's enough original content on game sites.

 

[Makariel]

Just reading Dirt 2.0 rally review over there an so far only 13 comments so far

There are many places where I would look for an opinion on Dirt Rally 2.0. IGN isn't one of them.

 

[DanielJr82]

I like their Gamescoop and Fireteam Chat podcasts, also their Youtube channel is great. I generally don't bother going to their website (or any review site for that matter).

 

[PharaoTutAnchAmun]

Just reading Dirt 2.0 rally review over there an so far only 13 comments so far

Used to have over 100,000 post for game review to just 13 thats a massive decline

wheres everybody going or theres a large number of people lost interest in gaming or what?

No, it is just quiet now after the sh*tstorm over the IGN review from the single and online player of CrackDown 3. Boy, that was something.
I have read it all and i had a good time with some coffee and cheesecake.

But i think not alot people are interested in Rallygames and therefore there are not so many comments.

 

[Moses85]

After the RE2 Remake Fail, well deserved

 

[Vawn]

I don't want IGN to die just for the fact I enjoy listening to Game Scoop.

 

[Mr Nash]

Bro I pretty much ran a game website for a decade. Wrote daily news articles, product reviews, got sent to the w hotel to play oblivion, and found myself at the post office every weekend mailing product out to staff.

I realized a lot during this time period. Reviews to an extent are bought and paid for.*cough Nintendo cough golin Harris.*cough

And then playing so many games back to back actually ruins your perception on gaming entirely.

Play a c-rated game as a kid... you probably loved it. A lot of people probably loved it too. Reviewers lose that grasp. They’re just looking for a bullet point checklist.

That’s why games journalism is kinda fucked. You’re best off reading what forum posters say about games they’ve actually played to gauge the actual perception.

I say... find someone you kinda agree with if you want purchase suggestions. But the current culture of gamers being outraged as if owed revolutionary experiences every time they spend a measly 60$ is sad

There are some good people at ign. Fireteam chat is an excellent example... you can tell they do it because they love what they play

A lot of good points. I ran a site with a friend from 2000-2015 and we noticed the same thing. We were a general purpose site, and I think that really did a number on us eventually just from all of the reviews. I actively avoided reviews in favour of features and other articles specifically because I knew the grind of doing reviews all the time would eventually make me hate my hobby and seeing that happen in others made me want to avoid it all the more. Turning an outlet into a review mill will eventually wear down the writers unless they have a massive staff such that reviews can be divided up so that contributors only have to do 1 or 2 reviews per month. Even then it gets tiresome.

In retrospect, I think people who ran game-specific or series specific web sites had the right idea. Just focus on Diablo or Zelda or Final Fantasy for example and it ensures their writers aren't driven insane by constant reviews and at most will just write a bunch of guides explaining various aspects of a game. It's a slower approach and may not garner the traffic of being an all-purpose game site, but people who write for it are less likely to begin hating their hobby over time.

 

[Quezacolt]

Before IGN, i's like to see kotaku and polygon die first.

 

[bumleforce]

I hope so. The site seems to be ran by a bunch of beta males with political agendas

 

[entremet]

Video game enthusiasts moved on to Youtube and Twitch. The rest of the games press became more personality driven--Giant Bomb, Easy Allies, Jim Sterling and so on.

IGN and Gamespot put out a lot of video content these days as well. Many of the sites are also doing more stuff with geek culture--movies, and so on. But the days of people reading reviews has long been over. Most of those reviews are mostly scripts to their videos.

 

[ethomaz]

Just watch the numbers of comments when Anthem review get online...

 

[alabtrosMyster]

the site is still up, but I have not been there for like 5 years...

 

[woigemok]

Before IGN, i's like to see kotaku and polygon die first.

Agreed, those farts are worse than IGN.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

Real ones know that IGN died when moriarty and Greg did not include Metal Gear Solid 4 in their top PS3 games of all time back in the early 2010's. An absolute sin for a game critic to make and they haven't repented to this day.

 

[CJY]

Imagine GONE network.

 

[Iced Arcade]

I know the boards were basically forgotten about. Right down to not having anyone who works on its basic functions. It's pretty much left for dead.

 

[kevin_trinh]

Ermm what gaming site is considered top tier now?

 

[Hudo]

IGN became the water level of video game review sites.

 

[ROMhack]

Video game enthusiasts moved on to Youtube and Twitch. The rest of the games press became more personality driven--Giant Bomb, Easy Allies, Jim Sterling and so on.

IGN and Gamespot put out a lot of video content these days as well. Many of the sites are also doing more stuff with geek culture--movies, and so on. But the days of people reading reviews has long been over. Most of those reviews are mostly scripts to their videos.

That's true but making videos and writing are different skills. Sometimes I watch videos with good production values and excellent presentation but the point being expressed is really bland. At least with written content you can read the first and last paragraph and figure out if the piece is worth reading.

 

[Freeman76]

They havent been reliable for years now, so probably

 

[The_Dama]

Still the best and most reliable gaming source on the web. Use IGN every day.

 

[Murdoch]

I enjoy their podcasts immensely

 

[AstroRhino]

I like their podcasts, but I think Unlocked should be cancelled at this point.

I feel so sorry for Ryan McCaffrey having to put a positive spin on Xbox games....listening to him stumble around this week trying to justify Crackdown 3 was just painful...'its okay to like bad games'.

You can't polish a turd.

 

[entremet]

That's true but making videos and writing are different skills. Sometimes I watch videos with good production values and excellent presentation but the point being expressed is really bland. At least with written content you can read the first and last paragraph and figure out if the piece is worth reading.

They are different skills. But no one reads reviews anymore anyway, especially in the days of MC now.

 

[Horns]

IGN will be just fine I am sure. Their business model will have to change and they'll adapt. They still put out high quality content. I tend to agree with most of their reviews.

 

[ROMhack]

They are different skills. But no one reads reviews anymore anyway, especially in the days of MC now.

What's MC?

I generally agree that nobody reads reviews although I personally read more reviews than I watch vids.

Podcasts are obviously better than both.

 

[entremet]

What's MC?

I generally agree that nobody reads reviews although I personally read more reviews than I watch vids.

Podcasts are obviously better than both.

Metacritic.