Joystiq & Massively Joystiq Closing Down

[Deleted]

Owww shit. That sucks. All three were some of the best fan sites WoW community had. I used to visit Insider and Massively daily (though WoW Insider was kind of dead in the last year or two).
Though I can bet this won't be the last we hear from them. Its not excluded that they won't start another site themselves or that curse or wowhead won't hire them (especially this).

[Gadzooks]

Indeed.

WI started out decently but haven't felt all that relevant in recent years. I stopped reading quite a few years ago when it felt most of what they were putting out came off as either desperate Blizzard cheer-leading or sensationalist non-news.

I can think of worse sites that deserve such a fate far more then WI but I am not quite "getting" what all the mourning is about either.

Have to agree - they were a site that looked at Blizzard critically, but as they grew and started getting treated like press rather than a fan site, the were like everyone else and just repeated the PR fed to them. "Want get your Blizzcon press passes, early PR packets so you're ahead of your competition? We'd like to see less critical articles." Happens in every industry. But, they had some talented and passionate writers - their lore articles were great, and a great source for those moments playing, and you go..."what's the deal with..." and they'd have an article on it. The class articles were great - the mage and warlock writers had a fun rivalry going for years. Plus, they got Sacco, who was a Blizzard CM in the Customer Service forum, who was very creative and entertaining.

Oh well. All things come to an end. People these days want sound bites and top ten lists to kill a couple minutes, not in depth articles and such - it's like most of media these days. Wow has lost a lot over the years - Turpster and Total Bisquit breaking up, Andy and that French guy and Randy leaving the Instance podcast (they're still around, aren't they?), Now WoWinsider. I remember when traffic here was much higher than it is now (been reading for years). Is the future of WoW coverage Trade Chat and Preach on Youtube, who are also doing the "10 things you didn't know about..." format? (which is why I rarely look at their content now)

[Katchii]

Sad day when legit gaming journalists (or anyone for that matter) are getting canned because corporate douche bags have no idea what they're doing.

I'll miss them, I got a lot of information I could trust from them, now I have to read other stuff and filter it through the community to see if it's bullshit.

[SodiumChloride]

The thing is, clickbait works... and not just sort of it works REALLY well. Clickbait articles get substantially more views than many real and thoughtful articles. basically thousands of clicks verses a few hundred (to give a bit of a idea on scale). It's why there always seems to be more clickbait out there. It works.

I'm rather sad to see it joystiq and it's divisions go It's kinda rough out there, but I hope they find good things quickly.

Well, I suppose the fools that buy tabloids outnumber those of us that want decent content. Oh well.

I have stopped reading most gaming/tech news sites. It's mostly BS anyway. Click bait or copy-paste PR material - can't trust anyone these days.

What's there to read about really? Just play the games and use your gadgets.

[Acidbaron]

Well, I suppose the fools that buy tabloids outnumber those of us that want decent content. Oh well.

I have stopped reading most gaming/tech news sites. It's mostly BS anyway. Click bait or copy-paste PR material - can't trust anyone these days.

What's there to read about really? Just play the games and use your gadgets.

pcgamer is still fairly decent and honest about their reviews beyond that i can't think of any other gaming site. Guess those coming from the written "paper" press still got some decent quality standards, while those who became writers from blogs mostly think what's the best way to create as many clicks as possible and using that to evaluate how good they are, by quantity rather than quality.

[Madeupfriend]

I have no idea what I'm going to use for my MMO centered news now.

I've already lost The MMO Report and now I'm losing Massively. I read their blog everyday and really enjoyed their staff's views on the gaming industry. Hope they can land on their feet or better yet, start their own blog. Good luck guys. You will be missed.

[Edge-]

The MMO Report

UGH!

Way to remind me that the show hasn't been around for years. I really liked the hell out of it, too : (

[Deleted]

Awww, man! I follow religiously Wowinsider since 2007... it sucks!

[Madeupfriend]

The MMO Report was so good! It had a great balance of comedy and news.

The fan mail section, the coffee mug, and the beard. Nothings been like it.

[Edge-]

The MMO Report was so good! It had a great balance of comedy and news.

The fan mail section, the coffee mug, and the beard. Nothings been like it.

Way to make my day start off even more depressing than yesterday : (

I wonder what Casey is even up to nowadays, he was an awesome dude.

[darxide]

That's what happens when you sell out to AOL.

[Fencers]

I did not find either of these sites valuable to the intellectual discussion of video games. Indeed, I often found these sites to be corrosive to the discussion of video games- not the least of which were comments below.

The closure may be financially suspect based on the limited amount of investigation I did last night when first coming across the news on Reddit.

[Madeupfriend]

I wonder what Casey is even up to nowadays, he was an awesome dude.

Honestly I haven't seen a thing about the guy but hes probably not in gaming journalism anymore, sadly.

[Arlee]

UGH!

Way to remind me that the show hasn't been around for years. I really liked the hell out of it, too : (

The MMO Report was so good! It had a great balance of comedy and news.

The fan mail section, the coffee mug, and the beard. Nothings been like it.

Seriously... now I have even more sads

[Ferocity]

Sad to see it go, was a fun read sometime.

Btw, was it Joystiq and Co who had comics on adventures of WoW heroes - dwarf warrior Flintlocke (?), elitist gnome mage, human priest and hunter? I've read those quite a time ago, it is time to save them if they were on that site :)

[Lusitan]

This is very bad news.

Massively was my go to MMO news site. I fell sorry to all that lost their jobs and wish them all the best in their job hunt.

now i have nothing to read while at work.

[MrExcelion]

Podcast is up:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2015/01...-long-goodbye/

[Kelathos]

I will dearly miss WoW Insider, but MMO-Champ at least exists...

What about Massively? They were absolutely invaluable to the genre...I know of a few places for MMO news but they all pale in comparison.
Anyone got tips for where to go now? I checked Massively daily.

[Edge-]

Anyone got tips for where to go now? I checked Massively daily.

There's no place that was as reliable as Massively, IMO.

There are others, but you'll have to put together a hodgepodge of sites.

MMO Bomb has some pretty good articles and a great podcast (the one with Jason Winter), though they pretty much cover F2P games and don't put out much editorial content.
MMORPG covers a lot of news including non-MMO's, but their articles aren't on any set schedule and IMO their editorials/op-ed pieces are pretty "bleh".
MMO Site has awful writing, like, truly terrible, and pulls heavily from community/fan-posts for their content, but they do have a solid stream of news about Eastern MMO's.
On RPG/MMO Hut are alright. They cover a solid amount of news but they're nothing too special.
And that's really about it. ZAM is far too inconsistent in their news coverage nowadays, TTH barely writes anything and when they do it's generally pretty bad IMO, then a number of smaller sites that may or may not be worth peaking at (MMO Life, F2P.com, MMO Play, MMO Games etc.)

But really, I don't think there's any place that can come close to Massively : (

[Naxere]

Such is life in the blogging business.