News Corp计划收购UGO和1UP，将二者与IGN Entertainment打包组成独立公司，这种做法看起来像是能给公司带来福利的老式买卖行为。但这个事件揭露出更深层次的内涵，即游戏媒体领军人物正面临难以逾越的挑战。媒体再次步履蹒跚地朝新方向前进，这些站点的读者对游戏及自身的看法也正发生改变。

2005年News Corp购买IGN之时，后者在网络领域羽翼丰满，就像是个意气风发的青壮年。也正是此刻，公司收购了MySpace，试图用此社交网络将该领域竞争者（游戏邦注：也就是Facebook。）击溃。News Corp现在想要摆脱IGN是因为后者从未真正符合公司文化，不再契合前者报道重要新闻的战略。而公司想摆脱MySpace实是因为后者已成为累赘。

关于IGN公开销售事宜，外界已盛传多年。有传言称坐拥大笔资金寻求可靠网络战略的GameStop可能成为IGN新东家，而且IGN和这个业界尊敬的零售商存在内容和流量的交易。GameStop并非游戏媒体新手，公司自有的杂志已出版十年有余。但到目前为止，还未出现购买IGN的迹象。

IGN

所以，现在News Corp决定通过某些容易收购的网站来为IGN添砖加瓦。然而为游戏业魅力所诱惑的主流媒体巨头Hearst，其心思最终被行业诡异的行为方式搅得心烦意乱。UGO和1UP的加入将给予IGN迫切需要的流量和资源，让其看起来尽量动人，为革新和后续销售（游戏邦注：出售该网站是News Corp的愿望。）或首次公开募股做准备。IGN需要资源以增长其收入，该网站迅速成长的时日已经过去，上述方式可能让其走出困境。

20世纪90年代，IGN和GameSpot成长迅速的原因在于它们比市场上其他网站做得更好，这主要归功于那些运营网站的明智人士。它们跟随互联网崛起，建立牢固的用户基础。过去十年来，由于市场形态发生改变，二者主要的增长得益于它们在Google上占有的显著地位。因而，增长完全是网站过去地位所做的贡献。但网站将来的成长必须仰赖于更深层次的领域。

追随媒体界同仁，IGN和GameSpot也希望通过社交媒体得到新读者。但使用社交媒体同样存在问题，因为读者会在那里花上大量的时间，而不是逗留在网站上。Facebook就成为了竞争对手。而且，与Google排名不同的是，网站大并不能确保所有事都进展顺利。确实，为赢得受众欢心，主编很可能需要从编辑处搜寻新奇之物，这些内容应该值得用户阅读。

Facebook时代与之前IGN和GameSpot遇到并取得胜利的时代不尽相同。现在的消费者喜欢游戏，但这只是众多娱乐方式的一个选项。很少人会对游戏细节感兴趣，自诩为“玩家”。在此，Colin Campbell并不是想暗示现在已不存在传统硬核玩家，只是说现在玩家的增长速度已不如以往。许多人花大量时间玩游戏，却并没有像他们叔叔二十年前那样花如此多时间阅读游戏相关文章。

GameSpot

作为主流消遣方式，现今游戏的状态已削弱了专业媒体的存在必要。必须说明的是，别误解了Campbell的意思。如果有人正在营销游戏，最好与这些媒体巨头合作，它们能提供大量最忠实、博学和活跃的消费者。但在这些公司的会议室中，今日的状况和地位不是讨论的主题，需要关注的是他们的未来。当年这些媒体最终打败运营老式印刷业务的不幸者的事情不可遗忘，他们不想同样的事情在自己身上发生。

说了这么多行业分析，回到现在正进行中的事情，UGO和1UP未来的处境如何呢？如果IGN想要夺取它们的资源，那么就不会把它们关掉，至少在短期内是这样的。但是对公司来说，运营三个做几乎相同事情的网站也没有多大意义。让网站跟上市场变化可能需要做些许工作，UGO在这个方面已表现得甚为强劲，无需担忧。或许1UP可以将自己打造成社交媒体，因为在它未受外部干扰的光辉岁月里，曾经是个强劲的社群和社交中心。

有说法表示，IGN可能挑选另一个落选网站，构建中端游戏媒体业务。此次做法过于简单，无法让人认为IGN及其附属公司将占据令GameSpot相形见绌的市场份额。而且从长期和战略的眼光来看，这种做法意义不大。这无疑是个短期的策略，IGN精明的管理层肯定知道自己不能在悬而未决的未来中探索前进的道路。该计划是为了让公司脱离News Corp，改变的目的是增长，而此次收购行为仅仅是公司摆脱包袱的方式。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Opinion: The Games Media Prepares For Major Changes

On the face of it, News Corp’s plans to buy UGO and 1UP, bundle them up with IGN Entertainment, and roll the whole package out as a separate company, looks like a matter of convenience and an old-fashioned traffic play. But it reveals deeper truths about the formidable challenges faced by the games media’s leading players. The media is once again lurching in a new direction. And the readers of these sites are changing in how they view games and how they view themselves.

When News Corp bought IGN in 2005, it was all a-flutter with the notion of an online play that would give it access to the 18-35 male demographic. This was also the time when the company bought MySpace, then running at social network warp speed 9, and about to slam into Planet Gargantua, aka Facebook. News Corp wants rid of IGN because it never really sat well in the company’s culture and no longer fits in with its hard-news strategy. (It wants rid of MySpace because it’s an embarrassment.)

The chatterers have been saying for a few years that IGN is open for a sale. There was a rumor doing the rounds that GameStop, sitting on a mound of cash and seeking a credible online strategy, might become the new owner, especially as IGN and that venerable retailer have a content-and-traffic deal. GameStop is no stranger to the media, being a publisher of its own magazine for over 10 years. But an IGN purchase hasn’t emerged.

So, here’s News Corp fattening up IGN with some easy-buys, courtesy of Hearst, yet another mainstream media giant allured to the games industry’s comely charms but ultimately confused and dazed by our wily ways. The addition of UGO and 1UP will give IGN much needed traffic and inventory, allowing it to look as big and impressive as possible for the spin-off and subsequent (hoped-for) sale or IPO. IGN needs inventory in order to show fiscal growth. The days of rapid organic growth in this sector have long-since fled, and this is where we get to the problems facing such outlets.

In the 1990s IGN and GameSpot grew because they were better than anything else on the market and, mostly, run by smarter people. They rode the rise of the internet and built up loyal fanbases. In the last decade, as the nature of the market has changed, both have seen most of their growth come from their preeminence on Google. So growth in the past has come from benevolent circumstances. But in the future, growth must come from a darker place.

Like everything else in the world of media, IGN and GameSpot look towards social media for new readers. But social media is also a problem, because readers are spending an awful lot of time over there, instead of over here. Facebook is the competition. Also, unlike with Google rankings, bigness is not a guarantee of anything. Indeed, in order to woo this audience, editorial directors are likely to seek novelty and innovation from their editors, which ought to be a thing to see.

The Facebook generation is different from the previous generations that IGN and GameSpot have courted and won. Consumers today love games, but only as part of a wider entertainment buffet. They are less likely to be entranced by niche, to be interested in detail, to be self-identified “gamers.” I’m certainly not suggesting that there is no such thing as a traditional hardcore; only that it will not grow as it has in the past, and many people who spend a lot of time playing games do not spend as much time reading about them as their uncles did in the previous two decades.

The success of games as a mainstream pursuit has lessened the existential point of the specialist press. Now, don’t get me wrong. If you are marketing a game and you are NOT partnering with these media giants, you ought to be fired. They deliver committed, knowledgeable, active consumers in huge numbers. But in the boardrooms of these companies the discussion is not about their relevance and dominance today, but of their position tomorrow. It’s worth remembering how these guys utterly dismantled the hapless dudes who ran the old print business back in the day. And they aren’t about to let the same thing happen to them.

So much for the big picture. Back in the here and now, what will happen to UGO and 1UP? If IGN is making an inventory grab, it doesn’t make much sense to shut them down, at least not in the short term. But it also does not make sense for a company to be running three networks that all do much the same thing. There may be mileage in pitching one network towards the younger end of the market; UGO is already strong here. Perhaps another could throw itself wholly into the world of social media. 1UP, in the glory days before it was gutted of any and all extraneous costs, was extremely strong as a community and social hub.

Word is that IGN may pick up another one of the also-rans that make up the middle-end of the games media business. The play being too simply to look as large as possible, and to state the case that IGN and its affiliates have a market-share that dwarfs GameSpot. But from a long-term, strategic point of view, this doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s a short-term gambit. IGN’s smart management surely understands that they cannot acquire their way into the uncertain future. The plan to spin the company away from News Corp leads to change and thereby, to growth, and this acquisition is merely a means to an end. (Source: Game Set Watch)