Category Archives: Journalism

A team of UK journalists have announced this morning the launch of Hookshot Inc, a website solely focussed on downloadable games costing under $15.

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Staff for Australian gaming site PALGN have resigned from the site, although will continue to work on the site until end of play this Friday. The confirmation, according to MCV Pacific, came in a mail from site vet site executive editor Jeremy Jastrzab, which noted the call ” stems from an inability for the editorial team and the PALGN ownership to come to agreement on how the site would function.” It follows after a forum thread that aired internal grievances between staff and owner Roland Kulen was recently made public on Pastebin over the direction of the site.

More details at the link.

Trade side GamesIndustry.biz will drop its requirement for registration this month, and is to relaunch with editorial and sales in both the US and UK.

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Eurogamer Network traffic rose 10% year-over-year for November 2011, the company said today, quoting figures from its latest ABC audit.

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Future US staff have been culled in a wave of lay-offs, while IGN has scrapped two entire sites.

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Pocket Gamer’s parent organisation Steel Media’s announced this morning ex-Eurogamer editor Kristan Reed will become Pocket Gamer’s new Editor-In-Chief. Reed will overlook PocketGamer.com, as well as the trade-based PocketGamer.Biz, noting he was “looking forward to helping the team to take the Pocket Gamer sites to the next level.” Reed’s hiring comes on the back of two other hirings for PG, including ex-What Mobile writer Jonathan Morris and former Develop editor Owain Bennallack.

Congrats, Kristan!

Oddworld developer Just Add Water and the Oddworld website, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Gamasutra and SavyGamer have all blacked out in protest to SOPA this morning.

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Ars Technica gaming editor Ben Kuchera has bid farewell to the site in favour of a new role at Penny Arcade. Although details are yet to be locked down, it appears the site, which harbours a solid community and runs Child’s Play in addition to the eponymous comic, will soon play host to a games related news service. All the best to Kuchera in his new role.

Thanks, GamePolitics. [image]

VentureBeat has acquired Bitmob, and its founder, as well as former Ziff Davis Media editorial director, Dan “Shoe” Hsu, has been brought on as GamesBeat’s editor-in-chief. Ben Popper, one of the founding editors of The New York Observer’s Silicon Alley blog, Betabeat, was also hired on as VentureBeat’s east coast editor. VB’s goal with the acquisition and high-profile recruitment is to expand its games channel, with Hsu overseeing the changes. Dean Takahashi, lead writer for GamesBeat, and Sebastian Haley, review editor and executive video producer, will report to directly to Hsu. Thanks, IndustryGamers.

Edge has promised a cover story for The Last of Us as part of its February issue, due next week. The mag, which features new artwork not seen before, will have an “in-depth” preview of the upcoming new Naughty Dog action IP. Also promised are features on Plants vs Zombies, Zen Pinball dev Zen Studios, reviews of Soul Calibur V, Resident Evil: Revelations and previews of Ridge Racer: Unbounded, Binary Domain and The Darkness II.

The issue’s out next Wednesday.

James Binns, head of Edge and PC gaming at Future, will leave the company on Friday to concentrate on other projects, reports GamesIndustry.

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VOX Media CEO Jim Bankoff has announced on Twitter that the recently departed group of Joystiq journalists, as well as ex-Kotaku editor Brian Crecente, have joined the group.

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Kotaku editor Brian Crecente has confirmed he’s to leave the site. Crecente had been with the US blog for seven years, and makes no mention of what he’s to do next. Stephen Totilo, previously of MTV and Kotaku’s deputy editor, will assume the role of editor-in-chief. Crecente is the latest in a string of senior US games journalists to move on, following resignations from Joystiq’s Chris Grant and McElroy brothers – Griffin and Justin – over the Christmas break. The three are rumoured to be setting up a new “gaming vertical” for Vox.

Chris Grant has left his role as editor-in-chief of AOL-owned Joystiq, with the McElroy brothers – Griffin and Justin – also exiting the site.

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YouTube’s announced that Machinima was the highest-viewed channel on its website this year. The company provides machinima videos as its speciality – naturally – but also publishes video news wraps and trailers. It also hosts the Inside Gaming Awards, held the evening before Spike’s Video Game Awards. The second biggest channel besides Machinima was IGN‘s.

Thanks, Yahoo.

Time has compiled its annual top ten list of everything for 2011, and Nintendo’s 3DS came in fifth on the gadget list. The magazine’s also compiled a list of the top games of the year, full of the usual suspects.

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Good news this morning for the Imagine Publishing chaps and chapettes: NowGamer’s announced November stats in excess of 1 million unique users.

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GDC head Simon Carless has said long-term UBM blog GameSetWatch is being shelved due to its nature as an “entertaining fripperie” and an “increasing overlap with sister site IndieGames.com”.

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PlayStation Access TV, the new program from the team behind FirstPlay at Future, is the most downloaded free item from the PlayStation Network, Sony has said. SCE’s Ian Vinten told MCV that the show, named from the same community event held by Sony, had also amasssed 14,500 Facebook fans when Access took over from FirstPlay in the fall. There’s more details at the link.

Future’s announced this disappointing results for its FY11 this morning, with revenue down and debt up.

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