A few weeks ago, we got reports that Ziff Davis had purchased IGN, 1UP, UGO, AskMen, and GameSpy from then-owner News Corp. The news we’re getting today is a bit more upsetting, as Ziff Davis has announced the closures of everything except IGN and AskMen.
As of this writing, UGO and 1UP are live, though GameSpy displays IGN’s logo in the address bar and shows off a site consisting of only two forward slashes. The former two sites have also put up (rather different) farewell messages, so check out both UGO’s as well as 1UP’s. (If you can only read one, check out 1UP’s farewell. Jeremy breaks it down perfectly.)
This really doesn’t come as a huge shock since the gaming outlet couldn’t really have three sites competing over the same space, and it also allows them to streamline production of content as they bring some of the writers and creative team into the IGN family.
IGN didn’t make out completely clean, however, losing Ryan Clements and Colin Campbell, both relatively big names at the company. They’ve taken to Twitter to thank their fans who’ve shown their support, and we don’t know if they’re the only ones. It could be that other IGN (or AskMen) staffers are going to get the boot, too, but we have no reports on that just yet.
It’s rumoured that Ziff Davis is already looking to offload IGN Pro League, the gaming site’s pro online sports tournament system. This year, they’ve announced that they’re holding competitions for Dead of Alive 5 and Super Street Fighter IV, among others.
We’ll keep you updated on any more news we hear about IGN or the other sites.