Regional Websites
Since 2006, IGN Entertainment began launching regional versions of the website for various countries and pan-regions. Initially, IGN began opening new offices outside the United States in order to support those regional websites, but later IGN began franchising its brand as a more cost-effective means of globalization, wherein it licensed various media publishers in many countries to use the IGN brand and manage regional websites on their own. When visiting www.ign.com from an IGN-supported region, the site automatically redirects visitors to their localized version using geolocation software, based on their countries' IP addresses. Each version of the site has a modified logo with their country's/region's respective flags near the IGN logo. However, it is still possible to access the original American website using a navigation bar on top or below (depending on regional website) the page's master template.
IGN opened its first offices in the UK and Australia in 2006, which both share the same information as the American site but with added content authored from editors within each respective region. Other licensed regional publishers work on their own servers, albeit can link to IGN's HQ database, where they can import and/or translate articles, and use videos uploaded on IGN's servers that use IGN's own hosted video player.
On May 15, 2012, in collaboration with the Emirati-based company t-break Media, IGN Middle East was announced for the MENA gaming community. The site replaces t-break Media's own ME Gamers website, which was formerly one of the largest Middle Eastern-based gaming media outlets that was originally launched in 2006. ME Gamers' entire staff converted their duties to IGN Middle East, importing and/or translating many of IGN's English articles, whilst writing up their own articles, especially for Middle Eastern-specific events. IGN Middle East is available in both English and Arabic languages. Whilst the site was initially launched to cover only video games, t-break Media announced in September 2012 that they started posting movie-related articles under the IGN brand as IGN Movies Middle East, merging most of the duties from their own ME Movies website, which was originally established in 2009, under a similar manner to their video game content. Unlike video games, however, most movie-related content will be in English only.
In September 2012 the Italian edition of IGN launched, managed by a local team, providing both original and translated contents.
Read more about this topic: IGN