Joystiq is shutting down

[yourbeliefs]

Popular video game site Joystiq will be shutting down next week.

http://www.polygon.com/2015/1/30/7945625/joystiq-is-closing-and-ill-miss-them-like-hell

We're really seeing the world of game journalism change. People are increasingly abandoning traditional games media sites like IGN and Gamespot (which were offshoots of the even more "traditional" game magazines) and instead turning to bloggers and YouTubers for their opinions on games. Some sites have shut down and other existing ones such as The Escapist have recently announced layoffs, and it seems as though nowadays just being a "games" website doesn't cut it anymore. For example, the Escapist used to basically just be about video games. Then in the past 12 months or so they've branched off to include movies, television, comics, anime, and even cosplay stuff. And IGN is now basically a media hub with gaming being A (but not THE) focus of their news. It's almost like most places are trying to get into the so called niche of "Geek Culture" and assuming that one that likes gaming should also be into tv, movies, anime, etc. Whether or not this works out remains to be seen.

In any case it's a sad day for those that now have to look for work. Hopefully they'll all land on their feet somewhere better than they were before.

 

[king3pj]

I didn't visit that site often but I'm surprised to see them shutting down. They seemed like one of the bigger outlets.

I find myself visiting gaming websites less and less often. I listen to podcasts and audiobooks all the time at work. Basically if I'm not in a meeting with a client or on the phone I'm listening to something on my iPhone. I may not get the news the second it breaks but between all these podcasts I hear all the major talking points. I listen to the ones I like more for the personalities talking about games than to hear someone rattle off a list of headlines.

I'm a big fan of giantbomb.com. It was started by the former director of Gamespot, Jeff Gerstman. He was fired for giving a "fair" review to Kane and Lynch and letting one of the reviewers under him give a 7.5 to Ratchet and Clank: Future Tools of Destruction. Both of these games signed on for marketing deals with Gamespot and he was told he had to give them higher scores. When he refused they fired him. A bunch of other Gamespot guys left with him to start Giant Bomb.

These are the kind of conspiracy theories you hear about with the bigger game websites but apparently this one is true. When Giant Bomb was brought under CNET, the same company that runs Gamespot, all the non-disclosure closes were dismissed and they were allowed to talk about it publicly.

They put up a 3 hour podcast every Tuesday and only about half of it usually relates to games. They also do "quick looks" every week that are usually about an hour long. Sometimes these are let's plays of the current big games and sometimes they are random older games or obscure PC titles. They have a Roku app so I will sometimes throw one of these videos on the TV while I'm doing something else.

There is also Greg Miller and Colin Moriarty who recently left IGN to make their own gaming website. These were probably the two most recognizable personalities IGN had.

The point of this long post is that it's not all youtubers coming out of nowhere and taking the market share. There are also plenty of people leaving the traditional big boys to start their own websites. It turns out you don't need to be owned by a huge media company to make a successful gaming website. Things like youtube have made that much cheaper. The big boys like IGN have tons of overhead to cover while these smaller companies are much leaner. They don't need to bring in nearly the same amount of revenue to make a living for these smaller teams.

 

[Derwin0]

youtube commentators have killed those sites. When people want to know about a game, the first thing they do is pull up a youtube video of it