On the 21st of February Ziff Davis, the parent company of IGN, announced in an internal memorandum that they had taken steps to ‘simplify and focus’ their online content.
Among the losses for the online consumer are the websites 1UP.com and GameSpy.com. While this may be unwelcome to many, the estimated worth of these websites combined is only $3,240,038, a fraction of IGN.com’s estimated worth of $44,558,047.
A lesser-known but potentially more important loss to the online consumer is in the proposed sale of IGN’s competitive gaming arm: the IGN Pro League or IPL. The league has received acclaim in the competitive gaming (eSports) community for it’s high standard of content; especially in the publication of high level play of Blizzard’s real-time strategy, Starcraft 2. IGN have announced the cancellation of IPL 6, IPL’s large live tournament event. The tournament which was scheduled to be held at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas and was one of the world’s largest e-Sports events. This has left gamers who’ve bought plane tickets to Vegas out of pocket. In an attempt to steal some market share, MLG CEO Sundance has offered discounted tickets to MLG Dallas which is taking place the same weekend.
By putting IPL up for sale, Ziff Davis are not only casting doubts over the longevity of one of North America’s largest and most respected competitive gaming leagues, but also over the sustainability of one of the giants of gaming media. While international economic difficulties at such a time as this mean that measures to reorganize businesses are not uncommon, this is still far from good news. We can only hope that under their new structure, the staff at Ziff Davis and their subsidiaries will be able to replace what they have lost.
