IGN

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**IGN**

URL	http://www.ign.com/
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	Gaming & Entertainment
Registration	Free, IGN Insider, Founder's Club
Owner	IGN Entertainment
Created by	Imagine Media
Launched	1996
Current status	Active

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

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, Nintendo GameCube, Wii, Nintendo DS, Game Boy, Wireless, N-Gage, PlayStation, Nintendo 64, 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.

1 History
2 Corporate details
3 Site editors
4 Other sections
5 Notes and references
6 External links

History

Founded in September of 1996 as Imagine Games Network, IGN began as five individual websites within Imagine Publishing: N64.com, PSXPower, Saturnworld, Next-Generation.com and Ultra Game Players Online. The growth 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.

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 200 most-visited websites according to Alexa, and the IGN forums are among the most active Internet forums.^[1]

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.^[2] 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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[3] 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.

Site editors

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

Management Team

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)
Fran Mirabella III - Chief Video Producer (M)
Justin Keeling - IGN UK Director (M)
Teddy Pierson - IGN Boards Administrator (M)

Senior Editorial Staff

Dan Adams - IGN PC (C)
Jeremy Dunham - IGN PS2, PS3, PSP (C)
Douglass C. Perry - IGN Xbox, Xbox 360 (C) (F)
Matt Casamassina - IGN Wii, Cube (C) (F)
Craig Harris - IGN DS, Game Boy (C) (F)
Levi Buchanan - IGN Wireless (C)
Mark Ryan Sallee - IGN Guides, Cheats, FAQs (C)
Hilary Goldstein - Chief News and Features Editor (C)
David Clayman - IGN Insider (C)
Marc Nix - Games Database Manager (C)
Brian Zoromski - IGN TV (C)
Todd Gilchrist - IGN DVD (C)
Gerry Block - IGN Gear (C)
Jon Robinson - IGN Sports (C)
Justin Kaehler - IGN Cars (C)
Spencer A. Abbott - IGN Music (C)

Editorial Staff

Steve Butts - IGN PC
Charles Onyett - IGN PC
Chris Roper - IGN PS2, PS3, PSP
Jeff Haynes - IGN PS2, PS3, PSP
Greg Miller - IGN PS2, PS3, PSP
Erik Brudvig - IGN Xbox, Xbox 360
Jon Miller - IGN Xbox, Xbox 360
Mark Bozon - IGN Wii, Cube
Stephen Ng -IGN FAQs
Jason Allen -IGN Cheats
Andre Segers - IGN Guides
Daemon Hatfield - News and Features
Micah Seff - News and Feature
Craig Beridon - IGN Insider
Meghan Sullivan - Database Team
Michael Pereira - Database Team
Brian Linder - IGN Movies
Eric Moro - IGN Movies
"Stax" - IGN Movies
Dan Iverson - IGN TV
Eric Goldman - IGN TV
Erik Harte - Video Producer
Kyle Watson - Video Producer
Nick Scarpino - Video Producer
Ty Root - Video Producer
Bennett Ring - IGN Australia
Cam Shea - IGN Australia
Patrick Kolan - IGN Australia
Anoop Gantayat - IGN Japan
Thomas Byrnes - IGN Korea
Alex Simmons - IGN UK
Matt Wales - IGN UK
Rob Burman - IGN UK
Jessica Chobot - Host, IGN Weekly

Other sections

In 2000, Snowball.com purchased an E-federation called the Internet Wrestling Organization (IWO) ^[4]. 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. 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.
In 2002, IGN launched a dedicated videogame FAQs site specifically designed to host user-submitted guides.^[5] This was launched following the cancellation of affiliation with GameFAQs.^[6]
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 quality of a game.
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 2006 IGN launched regional versions of the site based in the UK and Australia, which both share the same information as the American site but with added content authored from editors within each respective region. When visiting IGN.com from either the UK or Australia, the site automatically redirects you to your localised version using geolocation software. Each version of the site has a modified logo with the UK, Australian or American flags beneath the IGN symbol.
On May 30, 2006, IGN Dreamcast was restarted however none of the Dreamcast updates were posted on main IGN webpage.