X201
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Post by X201 on May 22, 2024 6:31:27 GMT
So, how big a whip round do we need to start our own site?
We need independent, non-American games sites.
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Frog
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Post by Frog on May 22, 2024 6:36:25 GMT
If I wanted a career that I would never make any money in, I would stay in the one I am in now.
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Tomo
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Post by Tomo on May 22, 2024 6:36:26 GMT
Wow. That is enormous news. And really, really sucks.
I remember thinking the manner in which the Gamer Network sites all simultaneously launched very similar stories about the ReedPop sale news was kinda odd and a bit ominous. Reading between the lines, I had the sense at the time everyone had no fucking idea what was going but it felt serious. Well... yeesh.
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Tomo
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Post by Tomo on May 22, 2024 6:43:22 GMT
EG has been noticeably worse since the ReedPop take over as well. Still some good articles and writers, but the good stuff just felt increasingly thinned.
RPS has had a big staff churn over the last couple of years too, albeit I think they rid through a period where I thought the output dipped quite severely. Catherine's editorship was a good one, Graham has felt like an ever-present hand in various roles and Edwin feels a lot more suited to RPS than EG.
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Tomo
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Post by Tomo on May 22, 2024 6:48:36 GMT
The enshitification of games journalism. Nothing is immune.
Sigh.
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Frog
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Post by Frog on May 22, 2024 6:51:25 GMT
I've got a tenner on Tomo to win the discussion he has going with the invisible man. You can do it Tomo, don't back down  |
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Bongo Heracles
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Post by Bongo Heracles on May 22, 2024 7:14:30 GMT
It is an odd one. Maybe this is the start of the video games renaissance. These sites and studios still made money, they just didn’t make all the money but most of them seem like they were sustainable at one point, they just grew big enough to be swallowed up by predators.
It’s a bit different but I watch a few YouTube channels that were acquired by Big Business and the staff just left and set up on their own. People still want that content, not the bland homogenous slop their paymasters were forcing on them so they seem to be doing alright.
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Gruf
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Post by Gruf on May 22, 2024 7:23:18 GMT
They would have to close almost every games site for me to go to IGN though  Never went back to Eurogamer after this place was created, and I get nearly all of my game recommendations and reviews here. Probably explains why I have a load of shit games in my collection  |
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Post by Dougs on May 22, 2024 7:24:55 GMT
It's kind of indicative of the wider media world (and beyond tbh). A few companies serving up the same old shit.
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Post by Bill in the rain on May 22, 2024 7:37:05 GMT
On the other hand, you appear to have all these people making a decent living through Patreon (?) and the apparent resurgence of newsletters.
(no personal experience of either of the above, so maybe I'm mistaken)
It feels like niche / personality driven content like RPS provide(s/d) might be better suited to those kinds of mediums. Although I think a couple of ex-RPS peeps did try the patreon route and I'm not sure if they were very successful.
'Print' media in general has always struggled for profit in the internet age, with the endless arguments about to-paywall-or-not-to-paywall from everything from small sites to huge news organizations. Not sure anyone ever really solved it, unfortunately.
I always felt like there were too possible solutions, that never really took off. One would be the widespread adoption of some 'tipping' facility like Flattr, the other would be a bunch of sites clubbing together behind a subscription paywall (which might add more value and attract more subscribers than individual sites on their own).
Other than that, I don't really see how mid-sized sites are going to stay afloat. It'll just be a couple of huge media sites, and then all the independent people on youtube/tiktok.
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Post by Vandelay on May 22, 2024 7:47:34 GMT
Yeah, John Linneman just confirmed they're not affected. They have a partnership, nothing else. The Gamesindustry.biz article mentions there is a share in Digital Foundry. Presumably it is quite a bit less then 50% and (hopefully) DF could self-sustain themselves if they had to, letting them operate fairly independently. On the face of it, being owned by IGN compared to Reedpop could be worse news, but hearing Alice Bell has already been given the boot from RPS is shit news. Obviously, we don't know the details and it might be this was a voluntary arrangement, but still she had been there a while and probably the best of their current writers. Edit - re: the Patreon and ex-RPS writers, John Walker is still doing it on his Buried Treasure site - buried-treasure.org/ I assume he must do freelance work as well though, as I can't imagine just Patreon money would sustain anyone. |
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Bongo Heracles
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Post by Bongo Heracles on May 22, 2024 7:49:23 GMT
It’s the basis of every mediocre sci-fi. Two or three megacorps everyone works for and buys products from
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minimatt
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Post by minimatt on May 22, 2024 7:49:38 GMT
from her twitter it didn't sound particularly voluntary
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Post by Jambowayoh on May 22, 2024 7:53:22 GMT
Yeah, John Linneman just confirmed they're not affected. They have a partnership, nothing else. The Gamesindustry.biz article mentions there is a share in Digital Foundry. Presumably it is quite a bit less then 50% and (hopefully) DF could self-sustain themselves if they had to, letting them operate fairly independently. On the face of it, being owned by IGN compared to Reedpop could be worse news, but hearing Alice Bell has already been given the boot from RPS is shit news. Obviously, we don't know the details and it might be this was a voluntary arrangement, but still she had been there a while and probably the best of their current writers. Edit - re: the Patreon and ex-RPS writers, John Walker is still doing it on his Buried Treasure site - buried-treasure.org/ I assume he must do freelance work as well though, as I can't imagine just Patreon money would sustain anyone. I think they operate pretty independently as it is. And I think they do pretty well financially. I believe John Walker does some work for Kotaku still I don't know how much since they were ordered to write a ridiculous amount of game guides a day. |
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Bongo Heracles
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Post by Bongo Heracles on May 22, 2024 8:04:43 GMT
On the face of it, being owned by IGN compared to Reedpop could be worse news I don't know about that, its still just a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, another faceless mediacorp who own a good chunk of the internet that makes money and shutters the parts that don't but this time the new paymasters own direct equivalents so have even less incentive to keep them open. |
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Post by zisssou on May 22, 2024 8:37:13 GMT
I find myself reading less and less gaming websites. I invest my time in paying for Retro Gamer, where the journalists spend actual time researching games.
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rhaegyr
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Post by rhaegyr on May 22, 2024 8:39:26 GMT
Honestly think I should go back to buying Edge/Retro Gamer too.
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Post by zisssou on May 22, 2024 8:48:06 GMT
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X201
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Post by X201 on May 22, 2024 9:56:06 GMT
Now IGN have taken over, the chances of seeing any review below 7/10 are also gone.
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Post by Bill in the rain on May 22, 2024 10:09:23 GMT
Especially on RPS
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Post by Mr Wonderstuff on May 22, 2024 10:09:57 GMT
Now IGN have taken over, the chances of seeing any review below 7/10 are also gone. Well considering that isn't the case it's an odd thing to say: Just filter this down to those below 6.9: www.ign.com/reviews/games |
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Tomo
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Post by Tomo on May 22, 2024 10:16:56 GMT
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Tomo
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Post by Tomo on May 22, 2024 10:18:45 GMT
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Post by Mr Wonderstuff on May 22, 2024 12:09:39 GMT
Paywall. *Edit: Registration required - then they nag you after 8 days to pay. **Edit: Oooh...maybe EG/RPS will go the FT route? |
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Post by simple on May 22, 2024 12:33:07 GMT
Is/was Oxbox part of Gamer Network?
I was halfway through typing that EG/RPS might not be able to do a Second Wind as they don’t have a view driver like Zero Punctuation to help support less profitable parts of the product but OX gets decent views. Certainly compared to what the EG channel used to get.
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Post by Jambowayoh on May 22, 2024 12:34:44 GMT
Is/was Oxbox part of Gamer Network? I was halfway through typing that EG/RPS might not be able to do a Second Wind as they don’t have a view driver like Zero Punctuation to help support less profitable parts of the product but OX gets decent views. Certainly compared to what the EG channel used to get. They are part of the network yes. But yeah I think the EG channel barely makes 10k views. |
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Post by Jambowayoh on May 22, 2024 12:59:20 GMT
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Post by Bill in the rain on May 22, 2024 13:00:52 GMT
Is/was Oxbox part of Gamer Network? I was halfway through typing that EG/RPS might not be able to do a Second Wind as they don’t have a view driver like Zero Punctuation to help support less profitable parts of the product but OX gets decent views. Certainly compared to what the EG channel used to get. They are part of the network yes. But yeah I think the EG channel barely makes 10k views. Geez. My kids get more than that. |
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Post by Bill in the rain on May 22, 2024 13:02:25 GMT
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minimatt
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Post by minimatt on May 22, 2024 13:17:53 GMT
real last day of term at a school lined up for demolition over the summer holidays feel at rps
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