Well, I’ve officially set up camp at IGN. As a declaration of intent, my first post was about Etrian Odyssey IV. Do you see? I am keeping it real. All that’s changed is the logo. Well, and the blogging tools. It’s pretty nice going from 1UP’s Frankenstein of a system to IGN’s clean WordPress interface.
It’s interesting, because other people seem to think it’s stranger to see my name on IGN than I do. I also think there’s a lot of revulsion, a sort of kneejerk response based on the assumption that IGN deals in lowest-common-denominator trash. That’s not true; if it were, I would have taken a layoff yesterday. The site does have a different editorial thrust than 1UP did — it takes the “paper of record” approach rather than the “weekend news magazine” style we adopted. Do I love everything they publish? No. Did I love everything 1UP published? No. Do I love everything I publish? No. Sometimes you hit, sometimes you miss.
The grim reputation IGN has comes largely from out of date perceptions. In the time that I’ve been with the company, though, I’ve observed a sincere effort to improve editorial quality, take more risks, and make intelligent use of Internet venues beyond the walls of the site itself. It’s not perfect, but nothing is. Give it a chance, OK? I promise there’s more to enjoy about the site than whatever I publish there. The sheer amount of content published in the course of the day means you might need to poke around to find something that suits your temperament, but that’s the case for any site that produces a large volume of content in the course of a day — you know, like 1UP until a couple of years ago.
Glad to see you on IGN. I know IGN has a rep, and there’s a lot of goofy stuff I see there but never click on, but as a Nintendo nerd, I like the crew they’ve got covering the Ninty beat. Lord help me I even listen regularly to the Nintendo podcast. Of course, I shall miss 1UP, in particular Retronauts, which turned me on to podcasting in the first place. A latecomer, I must have spent months rocking my baby daughter to sleep, listening to one archived Retronauts podcast every night. Best of luck, Jeremy!
Glad to see you active so quickly after the end of 1up.
Totally agreed on IGN. I’ve used it on and off for years and at it’s a very worst it’s merely been a good source of reviews for games other sites wouldn’t bother to rate. It seems the masses like to fixate on a singular bad story of a news website and then deem the whole site garbage thereafter.
Nothing but goodwill towards you Mr. Parish, as a quiet a fan of your writing since… Geez, 1997 or 1998. Thanks.
I never fully understood IGN’s rep (though the “old saying” is kind of clever, regardless). It has some stuff I can’t believe was ever allowed to be posted (more from a grammar/spelling/other errors point of view), but I’ve enjoyed a fair bit of its content as well.
It’s a shame their community set-up isn’t as robust as 1UP’s. Granted, I never found much time to use 1UP’s, and looking at it again today, I realized that’s also a shame.
Oh, and I meant to say (darn lack of an Edit button) that I am looking forward to seeing where you take things over on IGN.
I have no problem going to IGN. I’d happily subscribe to Cat Fancy, if that’s where you ended up–so long as they let you keep writing about Etrian Odyssey. I’d like to think they would.
Is there one particular section where your writing will be published on IGN or will it be across the various areas of the site (depending on topic)?
I thought a lot of the bad rep came from the reviews, which are always a little higher and less personal than other sites. But it’s just as you said… that’s just the way big sites are.
Well, that, and they used to have a section on the site called “Babes.” Ancient history, perhaps, but that’s the sort of thing that can really kill a reputation.