| Revision as of 20:12, 15 July 2005 editMga (talk | contribs)213 editsNo edit summary← Previous edit | Revision as of 20:13, 15 July 2005 edit undoMga (talk | contribs)213 editsNo edit summaryNext edit → | ||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
| {{vprotected}} | |||
| '''IGN''' is a part-free and part-subscription general ] ]. It was founded in ], starting as ], SaturnWorld and PSX Power. As of June 2005, it claims 23 million unique visitors a month, with 5 million users registered through all departments of the site, including reviews, previews, walkthroughs, codes, and other media. | '''IGN''' is a part-free and part-subscription general ] ]. It was founded in ], starting as ], SaturnWorld and PSX Power. As of June 2005, it claims 23 million unique visitors a month, with 5 million users registered through all departments of the site, including reviews, previews, walkthroughs, codes, and other media. | ||
Revision as of 20:13, 15 July 2005
IGN is a part-free and part-subscription general gaming website. It was founded in 1995, starting as N64.com, SaturnWorld and PSX Power. As of June 2005, it claims 23 million unique visitors a month, with 5 million users registered through all departments of the site, including reviews, previews, walkthroughs, codes, and other media.
IGN is ranked among the top 300 most visited websites according to Alexa, and runs some of the most popular forums on the Internet according to Big-boards.com.
Corporate Details
IGN runs on a combination of advertising and subscriptions. IGN Insider is IGN's premium subscription service at $20/year. Insiders get benefits like the ability to disable some ads, access to Insider only forums, and can read Insider only content.
IGN Entertainment was only the only gaming website in the stock market (Nasdaq: IGNX), however its stock is no longer publicly traded.
IGN originally stood for Imagine Games Network, until it was spun out of Imagine Media as part of Affiliation Networks (soon renamed Snowball Inc). Snowball is now known as just IGN Entertainment, thus the IGN acronym has no real meaning. There was a short time when IGN stood for the "Internet Generation Network."
In March 2004, IGN Entertainment and GameSpy Industries merged, and was briefly known for 3 months as IGN/GameSpy before formalizing their corporate name as IGN Entertainment.
In June 2004, IGN bought the popular movie review site Rotten Tomatoes, and in February 2005 they acquired the popular download site, 3D Gamers.
In June 2005, IGN bought male lifesytle website AskMen.com.
Editors
(Management Team)
- Peer Schneider - Senior Producer
- Steven Horn - Producer
- Tal Blevins - Editorial Director, IGN Games
- Chris Carle - Editorial Manager, IGN Entertainment
- Aaron Boulding - Executive Editor, Special Projects
- Fran Mirabella III - Chief Video Producer
- Jeremy Dunham - Editor-in-Chief, IGN PS2, PSP, PS3
- Douglass C. Perry - Editor-in-Chief, IGN Xbox, Xbox 360
- Matt Casamassina - Editor-in-Chief, IGN Cube
- Dan Adams - Editor-in-Chief, IGN PC
- Craig Harris - Editor-in-Chief, IGN Game Boy, DS
- Mark Ryan Sallee - Editor-in-Chief, IGN Cheats, Guides, FAQs
- Brian Zoromski - Editor-in-Chief, IGN FilmForce
(Staff)
- Brennan Ieyoub - IGN Insider
- Ed Lewis - IGN PS2, PSP, PS3
- Ivan Sulic - IGN PS2, PSP, PS3
- Mark Nix - IGN PSP
- Jason Allen - IGN PSP
- David Clayman - IGN Xbox, Xbox 360
- Juan Castro - IGN Cube
- Steve Butts - IGN PC
- Tom McNamara - IGN PC
- Erik Brudvig - IGN Cheats, Guides, FAQs
- Stephen Ng - Cheats, Guides, FAQs
- Hilary Goldstein - IGN Comics
- Brian Linder - IGN FilmForce
- Chris Roper - IGN Gear
- Jon Robinson - IGN Sports
Message Boards
IGN is also known for its active message boards. The IGN boards were created in late July 2000 as a place of video game discussion for members of IGN.com. IGN Boards contains many forums on topics ranging from the 3 major video game systems, to cell phones, to DVDs, and gear. According to Big-boards.com, the IGN Boards are ranked 3, behind FaceTheJury at 2 and GaiaOnline at 1. On April 16, 2005 at 9:34 am PST, cheese8214 posted the 100 millionth post.
The Vestibule
On March 8th, 2002 The Vestibule was created as a means of allowing non-subscribers to use the boards. It was originally intended to be a trial board, but it was frequented by both subscribers ("Insiders") and non-subscribers ("Outsiders"), and soon became the most popular board on IGN. As of 2005, the Vestibule has over 20 million total posts and hundreds of daily users discussing topics such as religion, culture, drugs, and many other points of interest. The 20 millionth post was made on 6/20/05 at 8:08 PM EST.
The IGNCB
The IGNCB, or IGN Community Board, opened on September 11th, 2000, for "non-video game related content" that was beginning to appear on the video game discussion boards. Renowned for their high brow wit and strong elitism the IGNCB are one of the most hated boards on IGN, although the members of the board seem take pride in this. The general consensus is that the IGN:CB is a higher class of board to some other boards, namely The Vestibule. The ratio of moderators to normal users is the highest of any board, this is because the users of the IGNCB are generally old, thus making better moderators.
I-Boards
When IGN Insider was created, special Insider Boards where created for subscribers. These included boards for different systems, a multiplatform board, and a community board for general discussion.
In February of 2002, IGN changed it so that all IGN forums required membership in its insider subscription program, including the popular IGNCB. This controversial move left a lot of loyal "regulars" unable to access the boards. The special Insider Boards were temporarily named the Asylum Boards, and later the I-Boards, which is their current name.
IGN Sci-Fi
Largely dead since 2002, this section of the site included movie news, comic book reviews, and other associated items. It has since fallen into disuse. It still exists at , where its front page offers, among other things, the latest news on Terminator 3.
IGN ForMen
This section closed down officially on October 2, 2001 soon after the announcement that Leah was moving on. It can be found at formen.ign.com but is no longer updated. IGN has recently opened a new site at http://babes.entertainment.ign.com/ that fulfills much of the function of the old IGN ForMen site.
IGN Wrestling
IGN Wrestling met its end in early 2002, when many of the staffers departed. Interviews with professional wrestling personalities and coverage of wrestling games has been folded into IGN Sports.