Chaos Raiden
Avid Gamer & Reviewer
How IGN Have Lost Their Way
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been using IGN as my source of gaming information for many many years and have listened to their podcasts from the very start; but over the last couple of years or so I feel IGN have lost their way and this article is my qualification of this statement.
Entertainment
IGN used to be the source of gaming information tailoring its content specifically to gamers, it was detailed, varied and always kept on point.
But increasingly over the last few years due in part to its more over-bearing parent company Fox, it has diversified to keep with the times. This means IGN’s focus is all mediums of entertainment and because of this their video game coverage has lessened. This can be directly quantified by the quality of reviews and articles IGN produce for video games.
Why IGN didn’t keep their site true to their name (Imagine Games Network) is beyond! me and setting up alternate brands may have been advantageous for promoting their other ventures.
Focusing on entertainment as a whole isn’t a bad thing but its no reason to decrement the original aim of IGN to provide gaming news, reviews and media.
Baiting
In a bid to stay relevant IGN have resorted to baiting, intentional writing articles or posting statements that polarise the gaming community, this often entails claiming a video game is better on one system or the other, spouting sales numbers and can even be seen running through their game of the year lists, often their statements are untrue.
Chris Roper
Chris Roper was the Editor-in-chief for the IGN gaming channel; for me, Chris Roper leaving was the start of the end for IGN.
Chris was one of those sparse people that was a true gamer. Having been gaming from the golden era back when he was 21, it ran through his blood; just listening to him talking about how Burnout taught him the reaction skills to avoid a most certain fatal accident by avoiding a Deer on a highway or his love for the God of War series is enough for anyone to understand how video games are centric to his World. Unlike many gamers around the Internet though he would make others take of their fanboy goggles and really see everything for what it was, challenging views and perspectives.
Greg Miller took his place, a man who’s views are tunnelled and although he is an amusing character and rounded presenter he simply lacks the focus, understanding and true gamer spirit we had come to love in Chris.
Nothing amplifies this more than Greg’s poorly written articles or misdirection.
Point Scale
The score of a game shouldn’t be your purchasing reason but for many it is, something No Fuss Reviews know all to well. The fact IGN have changed their scale from 100 points to 20 shows they want visitors to focus on their words rather than the score, which in an ideal World is how it should be.
when you compile all scores from IGN you see a classic bell curve
But we don’t live in an ideal World and this coupled with poor articles to begin with makes the scale more redundant especially since older reviews still have the original 100 point scale.
Scores are now misleading and good example of this is that both Killzone 3 and Call of Duty: Black Ops have the exact same score – so which is better?
If IGN are advertising a game on their site, it is likely that it will score high. It seems that the amount of money IGN are given to advertise games is directly proportional to what score they give. There is also evidence to suggest that IGN ‘prod’ their reviewers towards particular scores especially if its a high profile game.
Conclusion
Sites that care more about hits then their readers are just dragging the industry down, they force customers of games to distrust reviews which in turn hurts the industry as games that score high that don’t deserve it will just be used as a template of future games; this results in clones of a mediocre game being spun out and hype around it fabricated.
It also doesn’t make it easy for smaller games companies to make it big, as they are competing against dollars rather than true merit.
I really do hope IGN start to focus more on the truth, and start once again creating truly unique articles.
So, am I right or wrong, let me know in the comments section below.
Tags: Gaming, IGN, Website
Source: http://ipconflict.co.uk/2011/03/25/how-ign-have-lost-their-way/
As much as I agree with this article, our own gaming preferences and mentality will decide which game is good or not, regardless of reviews or scores.
