Mark "TheFreshMaker" Surfas GameSpy Founder
This week I had the pleasure of dropping the proverbial bomb, announcing that IGN and GameSpy intend to merge together into one massive gaming organization dedicated to fans, developers, publishers, and anyone who cares about gaming. That's huge: the kind of news that sends my phone off the hook and lights up forums like a forest fire. For some of our longtime fans and readers, it's also a little bit scary. But I can feel this one in my bones: It's all good.
Why Merge the Two Companies?
GameSpy and IGN fit together like peanut butter and jelly, and by that I don't mean to imply that one of us is nuts. The two businesses offer a lot to compliment each other. GameSpy is the leading multiplayer technology provider, powering a majority of online PC AND PS2 titles, a business we love that is simply unmatched. Period. We've also got the leading File Download service, which is essential for any serious gamer. Then you've got IGN, who bring to the table content that is incredibly important to every gamer, like their comprehensive console cheats and codes database. The list goes on.
We've also got tons of editorial content between us, where we have two voices and, it ends up, two similar but distinct voices. Maybe surprisingly, the two companies have very little overlap in their audience. Combined, we'll reach 22 million unique people a month. That's like the entire population of the state of Texas every month! HUGE. It makes me all tingly .. you know, down there. As Fargo pointed out in his recent column, the combined companies are a more popular destination each month than Vegas!
What Can You DO With an Audience That Big?
But the reason I'm excited is because of all the stuff we can now offer to so many more people. We can do everything we're doing now, only bigger! And better!
For example, the people who run the community sites on GameSpy's network are now reaching a bigger audience; a whole other network will be able to cover what they're up to, addressing a whole new audience.
We always say that communities like what's in the GameSpy Arcade software are only as valuable as the people who use it: the more the better. Doubling our audience this way means that more people can find out about and use our software. With the new version of GameSpy Arcade, new and old users alike can create your own group rooms: it's gonna be bigger than ever.
Gamers are more empowered by the merger. Take a look at something like the Desert Combat modification for Battlefield: 1942. A team of guys got together and created something immensely cool. Thanks to FilePlanet and PlanetBattlefield.com, we were able to help them get the word out by making sure that millions of gamers had the opportunity to hear about, download, and play it. Now that our companies have joined forces, the sky's the limit -- or at least its doubled: we've got the single largest audience of gamers in one place. When something like Desert Combat hits the net, there's no reason EVERYONE won't be able to hear about it the day it's released.
Ultimately our combined subscribers will have access to way more content and services. It opens opportunities for our readers that weren't available before! Advertisers should welcome the opportunity to reach more gamers, more easily than before, enabling us to invest in more services and content.
What Will the New Company be Called?
We don't know yet. Does it matter? GameSpy.com, IGN.com, FilePlanet, Arcade, the Vault Network, the Planets, these sites will all stick around because -- as I said earlier -- there's not a lot of overlap in the readership. Each site has its own distinct audience. And they'll all be around to provide the coverage that people want. The name of the big company doesn't matter. Viacom owns MTV for example, but we all still call it MTV; it's the same story over here. (Although I'm not sure what happened to the actual music videos, but whatever!)
The Perfect Pair: What We're Doing in the Years to Come
IGN and GameSpy are alike in a lot of ways. They both are around the same size, they both are successful, and the heart and soul of both companies is dedicated to games and the people who play them. Don't worry about major changes to either property; we're keeping what works. Instead look ahead -- as I do -- to the BIG things we'll be able to accomplish by working together.
I'm dreaming about the next 7 years and thinking about creating a company that invests heavily in tools and services for gamers that don't exist today. Games are coming online in greater and greater numbers, and this means that the gaming experience for gamers can and will fundamentally change. GameSpy is about to release a new global rankings/laddering system to be built into games across all platforms. We hope to make in-game laddering the standard -- not the exception. This is the power of a well financed company, run by gamers, looking to create a new world for themselves.
But, for the record, we can cream anyone at IGN at Soul Calibur. No question about it. •
-Mark "FreshMaker" Surfas [Talk to me!]
GameSpy Founder
and man-with-the-plan
