Irishgamer.ie “site dead?” asks users
Irishgamer.ie which named it self “the only Irish games website which is updated regularly” is no-longer doing so.
The site’s news section was last updated almost two months ago on Thursday, September 28.
Games Toaster was previously told by site
editor Noel Brady the site was “glad to be filling a niche as the
only Irish games website which is updated regularly”.
Before the stop in updates the site had included regular retail
price checks, reviews, general games news, interviews, other features,
and a reasonably busy discussion forum for a new site.
Replying to site users over a week ago Brady wrote on site’s
forums that “The site isn’t dead. We’re going to try and get some
content up and running soon. I’m still writing games content for
Campus. Just been too busy with work to concentrate on IG.
However, the last games reviews published on campus.ie’s games
section were 24: The Game, Fight Night Round 3, and BLACK — all
released some time ago.
Furthermore, between September 20-21, admin Andy “There has been
no new games out recently…. IrishGamer will be hitting peak, along
with MS and Ninty…. Loads of early reviews and a new design will be
coming along shortly….” and Brady wrote after him “Nothing major
is being released lads. We’ll be back in the next few weeks with some
improvements!”. That was around eight weeks ago.
The ‘General Chat’ section of Irishgamer.ie’s forums contains
a number of threads asking about the site’s health, including threads
titled “erm……. site dead?” and “wakey wakey“.
One forum user even set up and suggested using a blogspot.com blog named “Irish Gamers Ressurected!” (igressurected.blogspot.com) to replace the site.
Separately, the website Xbox Ireland,
which previously was accessible vie the address XboxIreland.com, has
now closed with an advertisements website taking its place. Site owner
Jason Powell had told us that “xboxireland.com is coming back bigger
and better then ever before”.
XboxIreland.com to re-launch
After sometime with no updates, XboxIreland.com is set to re-launch next Wednesday, July 19.
Jason Powell, the England-based site owner, told us that
“xboxireland.com is coming back bigger and better then ever
before”.
Powell says their forums will reward users “when people post on the
forum they will get points and when they get say for example 1000
points they will win a prize”.
Talking about other content he says “you will also see up to date
news reviews and we are also teaming up with www.worldgamerlive.com
and are hoping to make a cup competition for team of gamers to win this
will include team ireland , team england . team wales . and team
scotland this is a major competition in the making but that is what is
going to make this site big in the coming months”.
Xbox Ireland now under new ownership
The former owner, and the editor, left separately for personal reasons
In December 2005, XboxIreland.com
was sold to Jason Powell with an address listed as ‘Joseph Gardner
Way, Liverpool, GB’. Mark Scully, the previous owner and creator of
the site, is no longer involved with Xbox Ireland — according to Cian
O’Mahony, the then editor, Scully left for “personal reasons beyond
his control”.
Speaking to Games Toaster, Cian O’Mahony
said that he left “because of university and work commitments”,
adding “to give the site the attention it deserves I decided that it
would be best if it were managed by someone else. I may return in the
distant future”
An apparently unregistered ‘Guest’ user on the sites forums
named ‘the Chief’ who’s posts have become official announcements,
lists user ‘xXCKY2K’ as ‘Content Editor’. ‘The Chief’ also
lists new ‘Site Contributors’ as ‘crazy gooner’,
‘olie3146′, ‘Scrapper’, ‘AwakeDreamingUK’, ‘wind it
up’, ’sunny_boy’, and ’skantmaster’. Jason Powell, the
site’s new owner told us “I would also like to state that the staff
list is in the process of getting up dated”.
Also, on the main section of the site, a statement reads - “The
Xbox Ireland team would like to apologise for the recent activity on
the site. Due to management issues as well as other matters, the site
hasn’t been updated on a regular basis lately”.
Related articles
Clarification: XI: we used facts, we did not infer or imply (Dec 10, 2005)
XboxIreland.com launches, backed by publishers (Nov 28, 2005)
Clarification: XboxIreland.com article - we used facts, we did not infer or imply
Games Toaster takes complaints seriously, so seriously
we are publishing this clarification in the same way we publish all of
our content. This post is a clarification, not a correction. At this
point, we see no reason to edit the article in question in any way.
On November 28, 2005, we published an article titled
‘XboxIreland.com launches, backed by publishers’, we have received
anonymous complaints, apparently but not certainly, from the one person
vie our comments system.
The article deals with the facts as we have established. In this
case, all such facts are available in the public domain (ie on websites, including
In the article, we do not give our feelings of support or otherwise
for the site, there is one exception to this, after the use of the word
‘Irish’ was wrongly used as ‘irish’ we inserted ‘(sic)’, this is
commonly used with in print media to display a grievance distasteful
use of the written English language. Besides this we do not infer or
imply any thoughts on how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ the site in question may be.
One comment stated, “By linking their staff member to Microsoft’s
marketing company as if it means that they are biased”, we did not link
their ’staff member’ to a marketing company which works for Microsoft,
we merely publicised the fact that such a link is a realty, we said
nothing of bias. We did not infer or imply any ethically complicity of
somebody working on an ‘Irish Xbox community site’ and working directly
or indirectly for the Xbox maker. To infer (to form an opinion or guess
that something is true because of the information that you have — Cambridge),
is something the complaint did, not us, we just provided what we know
as the complete information, which we could not find on Xbox Ireland.
Another comment stated, “This quote: “Games Toaster has identified
least one person listed as a ’staff writer’ [of XboxIreland.com] as
being an employ of an Irish marketing company who works for Xbox
manufacture Microsoft. The site is billed as an ‘Irish Xbox community
site’.”: Yas make it sound as if yas have identified him from a
criminal line-up! ” To the best of our knowledge, to the term
“identified” is not solely generally associated with a “criminal
line-up”, or any other “criminal” activity. We do not believe many of
our readers will confuse our use of English in this way.
In this case, the complaints were published publicly in our comments
system, if you have a complaint and want to issue it confidential you
can email or write to us (see the contact page),
if you wish we will only publicly deal with the nature or the complaint
without quoting the whole complaint. As always you can also post using
our comments system with or without entering a name or email address.
Again, this post is a clarification, not a correction; as such, we
see no reason to edit the article in question about XboxIreland.com in
any way.
XboxIreland.com launches, backed by publishers
XboxIreland.com has launched, it is “backed” by games publishers Microsoft, UbiSoft, Activision, Sega, Eletronic Arts, and Codemaster. Games Toaster
has identified least one person listed as a ’staff writer’ as being
an employ of an Irish marketing company who works for Xbox manufacture
Microsoft. The site is billed as an ‘Irish Xbox community site’.
A post on Boards.ie
says because of their publisher backing, they will “have great
competitions and tournaments, as well as insider news and reviews”.
The poster ‘XboxIreland’ states, “Also, news updates throughout
the day from a uniquely irish (sic) perspective”. A banner ad for the
Irish GameStop outlets is featured on the site.
The domain name was registered in September to ‘Xbox Ireland’,
under the name Mark Scully, registered with an address of Dungannon,
Northern Ireland.
Listed on the site’s staff page is Mark Scully, Armagh, Ireland,
and Jonathan Bucktrout, Leeds, England as ‘management’; Cian
O’Mahony, Cork, Ireland — Editor; Mike Cass, England - staff writer;
and Gamecon organisers Jermain Williams and Travis Mack, both in Dublin
and staff writers. Jermain Williams is ‘Interactive Creative
Director’ at the Dublin based marketing company Dialogue.