Apple has reached into the world of video game journalism to head up editorial content for the game section of its iPhone and iPad App Store, hiring longtime IGN editor Matt Casamassina for the position.
Casamassina announced on his personal weblog that today was his last day at IGN, and that he will be starting at Apple as the App Store's global editorial games manager next month.
Extrapolating from his comments, Casamassina's responsibilities appear to include serving as a tastemaker for the growing game-playing audience that owns Apple's various mobile devices.
While some highlighted games are part of charts that are automatically assembled by sales figures, others such as 'What's Hot' and 'What We're Playing' -- as well as some standalone custom-compiled App store pages -- are editorial choices made by Apple staff.
"In a nutshell, I will be leading the charge for games on the App Store," he wrote, "so whether you browse through iTunes, iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, the games content you see will be handpicked and organized by me and my team."
Casamassina's last position at IGN was editor-at-large, but he is best known as one of the key figures behind its editorial divisions dedicated to Nintendo platforms, where he served his first 12 years out of his total 13 years with the online publication. Early in his career, he was a team member on IGN64.com.
Ya, IGN still has good people there, but I think they are just trying to hard to be like everyone else; trying to appear like other sites with its weaker efforts. It has become a mishmash of all the other sites, and as a result the content has become weak. The company needs to focus on what made it stand out instead of copying website layouts.
Congrats, indeed. And, I hear that the iPhone happens to be home to the world's greatest game about the Federal Reserve, which also happens to be a loving and innovative Ms. Pac-Man homage. Amazingly enough, even after multiple cordial e-mails to Steve, it has yet to be featured in any way shape or form on the App Store. I think it's called iBailout!!, or something like that.
This is a cool story, partly because it's great to see that Apple is getting some focus for the games group, but also because it's about my former co-worker and friend, Matt. I hired him at IGN in 1997 and the first thing I made him do was write a strategy guide on Turok The Dinosaur Hunter.
There is one error in this story, which you should probably fix. "He was originally hired when his website, N64.com, was acquired by IGN." Matt didn't have a website at the time we hired him (as far as I know). I started N64.com, which later became IGN64.com due to legal reasons (love you, Nintendo), and I hired him to help me. Peer Schneider came along soon after. N64.com was the first IGN site.
There is one error in this story, which you should probably fix. "He was originally hired when his website, N64.com, was acquired by IGN." Matt didn't have a website at the time we hired him (as far as I know). I started N64.com, which later became IGN64.com due to legal reasons (love you, Nintendo), and I hired him to help me. Peer Schneider came along soon after. N64.com was the first IGN site.