What being part of IGN really means to you
For thirty years, IGN has served as a compass for generations navigating the expanding universe of games, film, and digital culture — and now, at that milestone, the company turns the question back toward the people who followed it. Having already commissioned a rigorous study of 6,250 entertainment consumers across three countries with UC Berkeley and Kantar, IGN is inviting its own audience to step into the research, seeking to understand not just how the market behaves, but how its community — shaped by decades of shared discovery — differs from it. It is a rare moment when an institution pauses to ask not what it has built, but what it has meant.
- A media company turning 30 faces the quiet urgency of proving that longevity is not the same as relevance — and IGN is meeting that pressure head-on.
- The initial 'Generations in Play' study mapped how Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z discover and trust entertainment content, but it captured the broad market, not IGN's own faithful.
- The gap between knowing your traffic numbers and understanding your community's loyalty is exactly the tension this second survey phase is designed to close.
- By partnering with UC Berkeley and Kantar for the foundational research, IGN has given the follow-up survey academic credibility — the audience's responses will be measured against a serious baseline.
- The survey is now open to anyone in the IGN community, framing participation not as data collection but as a collective act of reflection on three decades of shared cultural life.
Thirty years is long enough to shape how people discover what they love — and IGN, marking that anniversary, is now asking the community that grew up alongside it to help explain what that relationship actually means.
Earlier this year, the company commissioned the 'Generations in Play Audience Insights Study,' surveying 6,250 entertainment consumers across North America, Australia, and the United Kingdom in partnership with UC Berkeley and Kantar. The research focused on Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z, mapping how each cohort discovers entertainment, decides what to trust, and moves between gaming, film, television, and digital media. The underlying premise was that IGN's audience might behave differently from the broader market — discovering things through different channels, trusting different voices, returning for different reasons.
But a carefully constructed market study tells you about consumers in general. It doesn't tell you about your own people. So IGN has launched a second phase: a follow-up survey aimed directly at its readers and viewers, designed to compare the community's habits and loyalties against the broader findings already in hand.
For a media company, this kind of research is ultimately about identity. Knowing that millions visit your platform is one thing; understanding why they chose you, and what you've come to mean in the texture of their lives, is another. The survey asks participants to articulate exactly that — how IGN shaped their relationship with entertainment, and what three decades of community have been worth. The invitation is open to anyone, whether they've been reading since the 1990s or arrived only recently.
Three decades. That's how long IGN has been threading through the lives of gamers, film buffs, and digital culture enthusiasts—long enough to shape how entire generations discover what they love and decide what to trust. Now, as the company marks its 30th anniversary, it's asking the people who made that run possible to help it understand exactly what that relationship means.
The question isn't abstract. Earlier this year, IGN commissioned a substantial piece of research—the "Generations in Play Audience Insights Study"—that surveyed 6,250 entertainment consumers across North America, Australia, and the United Kingdom. The work was done in partnership with UC Berkeley and Kantar, two institutions with serious credibility in understanding how people actually consume media. The researchers focused on three generational cohorts: Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z. These are the people who grew up alongside IGN, who discovered games and movies and TV shows partly through the lens IGN provided.
What the study set out to map was behavior—how these audiences discover entertainment, how they decide whether to trust a source, how they move between gaming and film and television and digital media more broadly. The underlying premise was simple but important: IGN's community might not look like the general entertainment market. They might discover things differently. They might value different voices. They might have different reasons for coming back.
But a survey of 6,250 people, however carefully constructed, tells you about the market. It doesn't tell you about your own people. So IGN is now running a second phase. The company has launched a dedicated follow-up survey aimed directly at its own audience—the people who actually read IGN, watch IGN videos, engage with IGN's coverage day after day. The goal is comparison. Take what we learned about how Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z consume entertainment broadly, the company is essentially saying, and now show us how our community does it differently.
This is the kind of research that matters most to a media company, because it's about identity. It's one thing to know that millions of people visit your site. It's another to understand why they chose you, what you mean to them, how you fit into the texture of their lives. The survey is asking people to articulate that—to explain what being part of IGN actually means, how the brand shaped their relationship with entertainment, what role it played in their own story.
The invitation is open. Anyone who's been part of the IGN community—whether they've been reading since the mid-1990s or discovered the site last year—can participate. The company is framing this as a conversation, not a data extraction. Thirty years of community, the announcement says, made all of this possible. Now the company wants to hear directly from that community what the last three decades have meant to them.
Citas Notables
30 years. Millions of fans. One community made it all possible—and we want to hear your story.— IGN Entertainment
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does a media company need to know how its own audience differs from the general market? Isn't the traffic enough?
Traffic tells you people are there. It doesn't tell you why they chose you over someone else, or what you mean to them. IGN's been around for 30 years—that's long enough to shape how people think about games and entertainment. Understanding that relationship is the whole point.
So this survey is really about loyalty, then? Proving that IGN fans are different?
It's more subtle than that. The initial study looked at how Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z discover and trust entertainment. Now IGN wants to see if their own community does those things differently. Maybe they do. Maybe they don't. But knowing the answer tells you something real about what you've built.
What would it mean if IGN users turned out to be exactly like everyone else?
It would mean the brand hasn't created a distinct culture—that people come for the content, not for something unique about how IGN sees the world. That's useful information. But I suspect they'll find something different. Three decades is a long time to shape how people think.
Why partner with UC Berkeley and Kantar for the initial study instead of just asking their own audience from the start?
Because you need a baseline. You need to know what the broader market looks like before you can see where your community diverges. It's the only way to know if you're actually different or just telling yourself a story.