IGN Buying The Gamer Network Is Bad For The Games Media Industry

I am going to preface this article by saying I quite like IGN. Sure they have had some ups and downs but the current editorial team in my opinion is amazing. I love watching Nintendo Voice Chat which I think Seth Macey does a great job of hosting and showing his fun personality. I think the fellow panellists are also great, for example, the award-winning Rebekah Valentine who has done some amazing work in getting some big stories out there, Kat Bailey who I think is great whenever I manage to catch her independent podcast Axe of the Blood God and the recent addition of Logan Plant who is incredibly knowledgeable of all things gaming, especially Nintendo.

I think IGN often gets a disproportionate amount of hate because they are the biggest outlet. They have a wide range of opinions, so we will all inevitably disagree with someone.

Despite this however, I am not happy about the recent acquisition of the Gamer Network which includes notable outlets such as GamesIndustry.biz known for their focus on the business side of the industry as well as Eurogamer which is one of the biggest games media organisations in the UK and Rock Paper Shotgun to name a few.

IGN Entertainment has previously purchased Humble Bundle and How Long To Beat already. The former is already a bit alarming to me because as a media outlet impartiality I feel is important at least when not writing opinion pieces such as reviews but Humble Bundle also publish games. Therefore there’s already a conflict of interest there in my opinion to push the games Humble Bundle publish just so the group's revenue increases. That’s not to say this is happening and I have no reason to believe it currently is, but the opportunity is there which is too close to comfort for myself.

Capitalism has proven before that sometimes the best way to eliminate the competition is to buy out competitors and then close them down. There have already been signs of this within this acquisition because it’s been announced that redundancies will happen in the UK offices for some of Gamer Networks' organisations. The UK doesn’t particularly have many big outlets as it is so it means some major voices are about to be lost which will have a cultural impact on the UK gaming scene.

This has been a particular problem in UK journalism as a whole. Most of the largest organisations are now owned and run by a select handful of right-winged people. It’s led to blatant lies being posted about anyone who even tries to represent liberal views. As a result, the Labour Party which is supposed to be the left-wing socialist party is right-wing but less so than the current Conservative Party. This is partly because if they don’t pander to the media, they will be completely obliterated. The British press has shown that they can ruin people’s political careers just by a badly timed photo of eating a bacon butty for example.

Various independent voices are more important than ever so we can all learn from each other. With IGN buying out another big group, it can potentially create an equivalent problem to the British press.

This issue cannot be automatically patched with great content creators. I hugely respect content creators and I guess blog writing also makes me one too, but there is also value to be had in traditional press; both need to exist to ensure the truth is being revealed.

Redundancies also mean that the lives of some people are about to be ruined and this comes with a significant mental health impact as well as financial all to ensure an organisation's vast amount of profits keep growing. Whilst the UK has good employment laws compared to other parts of the world, media jobs seem to becoming rarer so it will take a while for these employees to bounce back, if they don’t decide to leave the industry instead. There will be job losses in other departments too, not just editorial.

Respect for employees has been questionable as of late at IGN already. Recently their parent organisation voluntarily recognised a union created by employees which was amazing. More unions are needed in general as collective bargaining is the only hope of protecting employees in today’s economic climate.

However, shortly after recognising the union, they announced layoffs and claimed that the union didn’t need to be informed beforehand because these layoffs were already on the cards. Maybe this is true but ultimately it feels fishy.

It’s also particularly alarming that for Joshua, a senior editor who was laid off which will likely lead to a lack of proper health insurance resulting in him having to undergo his cancer treatment all on his own. On the one hand, I want to say I am surprised at the callous treatment of one of their now ex-employees. The reality though is too often companies forget they have a responsibility to look after their employees. Often we spend more time at work than we do with our families. This is also why I feel we shouldn’t crunch for organisations because firms expect us to break our backs to keep things going but the company won’t break their backs to help staff members during their time of need. Senior leaders seem to forget that they can’t make their huge profits and salaries without the support of all the people further down the chain. Senior leaders manipulated HR departments to act like the police to protect the company’s interests, rather than being a layer of support internally.  Sadly though recent world events as well as history have shown the lack of humanity, empathy and care humans can actually have towards each other and therefore I honestly am not surprised that Joshua has been pushed into this horrible situation. I truly hope his treatment is successful and it doesn’t lead to financial ruin.

I recently wrote about how Microsoft buying up loads of studios has caused problems too. Embracer Group also bought a huge amount of studios and has announced a mass amount of layoffs too. Even Sony has proven to be struggling with their redundancies and there are so many more organisations doing this. Ultimately consolidation of any industry is bad and it simply needs to stop. When consolidation happens the people who lose out are employees and the end consumer, not shareholders or senior leaders.

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