Playlist 3/25/22 Update

The team is firing on all cylinders leading up to Playlist being available to everyone. Last week we had some big updates hit. Here’s the details:

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Product Updates

• Dark mode style updates and refinements

• Style and spacing refinements

• “Select Multiple” option added to game action menu on public playlists

• “Select Multiple” option added to game action menu on Discover

• The “Quick add” game modal for lists and library statuses now allows for undoing games added by mistake

• Added additional animations to the side bar menu

• The default secondary action for unowned games is now “Wishlist” instead of “Add to playlist”

• Added labels for score and platforms on game pages

• Fixed an issue where long game names wouldn’t display correctly in the quick add modal.

Rank Numbers

You can now enable Rank Numbers on lists to let people see the specific rank of a game on your list.

• Added “Display Rank Number” option to list settings

• Added the ability to show numbers on public lists with rank numbers enabled

Library Search

Library search allows you to quickly locate or narrow down games in any library status.

• Added Library Search above games in all library statuses

• Added the ability to sort library search results

My Guides

The My Guides Page provides shortcuts and maps to games you’ve marked as playing

• Added My Guides Page

Known Bugs

• Logo placement in the navigation on mobile is incorrectly placed

• Certain retro titles cause the “my guides” page to not load

• Lost the ability to remove games from the select game menu

Playlist 3/22/22 Update - Game Statuses

Hey everyone! We’ve got some great updates coming to IGN Playlist from the team this week. We’re getting closer to launch this spring and this updates our game status system to where we expect to be for 1.0 launch. All IGN Prime subscribers and Playlist Early access users should see these updates rolling out this week.

How game status works in Playlist:

Any game on IGN can be added to your Playlist library. You can tap or click on a game’s status tag (the bottom right of games that appear in lists and in Discover) to access actions for any game, update your status with a game, share the game, add it to a list and more.

Default — Games you find in places like Discover, will appear with a Plus icon — this lets you know this game is new to you. 

Wishlisted — The wishlist status is all about keeping track of the games you want to play. It doesn’t matter if they’re out yet or not. Though, we wouldn’t spend a lot of effort wishing for Scalebound any time soon.

Owned — You can think of owned games as games you have access to, either physically or digitally, through direct purchase or perhaps a subscription service like Xbox Game Pass or Playstation Now. Your owned games will be a collection of all other statuses in your account, in addition to games you’ve yet to play, beat etc.

Playing — Games you’re playing is all about what you’re spending time with now. These are the games that you’re hopping on after work or school, or the games that you’ve booted up and are digging into. Visit game pages to access info like How Long To Beat times and IGN Guides.

Paused — Sometimes you need to take a break with something (Looking at your World of Warcraft). The Pause status is great for remembering what games you started but put on the shelf when life got in the way, or something else caught your eye.

Beat — We took inspiration from our partnership with HowLongToBeat.com and decided to go with “Beat” instead of just “complete” for games you want to say you’ve made it through. We know there are lots of ways to beat a game, and lots of definitions for what “beat” means to different types of people, so we say go with your gut. If you beat it, beat it. No one wants to be defeated.

Quit — Quitting might sound a little harsh, it’s hard for some to feel like they’re giving up on something. But we like to think of quitting as a way of freeing ourselves. Mark games as quit that you’ve had your fill of, or are stopping with no real plans to return to. No backlog shame here!

Game Actions

• New “Game Action” Menu
• Games not in user libraries have “add” action
• Game actions “...” hover button has been removed - now available through status tags
• Access game actions from tapping the bottom right corner of any game on mobile
• New “Share Game” action added to game action menu

Game Status Updates

• Added the ability to mark a game as any status regardless of initial ownership
• Added support for wishlisting status
• Wishlist Playlists has been changed to a status in a library.
• Updated status change modal with new glyphs and status descriptions.
• “Pause” status added for games that have been started but are on hold

Experience and Stability

• Navigation style and animation updates
• Select a game title or art from the quick search modal to view the game page
• Dark Mode updates
• Search improvements to better find recent games and popular community games
• Fixed a bug where adding games to playlist from public lists seems to make game cells go blank
• Additional stability and performance improvements

Curation

• Playstation Now Subscription Playlist updated

Known Bugs

• Creating a list with the same name as an existing list results in an error message
• “Back to top” not working properly in mobile web
• Safari address bar fails to collapse on page scroll
• Long game names can break the layout of the quick search menu

Playlist arrives for Prime

We’ve been working hard over the last year on a new type of product at IGN. One that’s designed to help gamers discover and share games with each other.

Playlist lets users search for games from IGN’s vast catalog of titles from the past 25 years of gaming, add titles to your library, and track what you’ve played, beat, or quit games when you’ve had your fill. It also lets gamers curate playlists and share them with friends who can view them right from IGN.com.

I’m so excited to share that as we celebrated IGN Fan Fest this past weekend, we also rolled out early access to every IGN Prime subscriber and that we’ll be launching this spring. Meaning that everyone with an IGN account will be able to start building their library and creating and following lists joining the thousands who have already been testing it during our early access.

With that, I’m also sharing our very first update with our users. It already represents the type of investments our team is delivering on to make Playlist the best way to keep track of what games you have regardless of where you play. Before we get to the nitty-gritty, I want to thank the team that is making this possible. They’ve moved mountains to get here and they’re just getting started!

Here’s the breakdown of the latest update for Playlist that’s live now:

Product Updates

• New Sidebar Navigation

  • Playlist removed from the account dropdown

  • Playlist Link in Navigation now takes users to a unified playlist nav experience

  • Sidebar navigation links to user’s account page

  • Library displays game count of items in each status

  • New floating mobile nav menu

  • Added the ability to remove an item from the “quick add” menu

• Game Status Updates

  • Status has been renamed and icons have been updated to “Owned, Playing, Beaten, and Quit”

  • Updated language and colors for library status indicators on games

  • You can now change the status of multiple games in a list while editing a list

  • Library buttons on game pages have been updated for the new status options

• Layout and controls updates

  • New Layout for library collection pages, and list collection pages

  • New controls on the top of list pages to edit and access playlist settings

  • Added the ability to add games and create playlists to the sidebar navigation

  • Added a share button to “My Playlists” to share every public list a user has made

• Additional updates and fixes

  • Newly created lists are sorted to the top of the list choosing modal

  • Removed redundant close button on remove from list view

  • "Back to top" button removed for shorter lists

  • Additional fixes and stability improvements

• Known Bugs

• Creating a list with the same name as an existing list results in an error message

• “Back to top” not working properly in mobile web

• Safari address bar fails to collapse on page scroll

• New header and action button style navigation issues

IGN App Update v6.1.1

A quick follow-up to our latest 6.1 update adds more pathways to access stories about particular games, and focuses on multiple improvement around the sign-in experience.

6.1.1

• Added support for Facebook and Apple sign-in
• Added the ability to tap on game, movie, and show name metadata in the story feed.
• Fixed bugs where text was unreadable in the header on game pages.
• Fixed an issue with password requirements for older accounts.
• Fixed a rare issue where the sign-in screen can freeze under certain circumstances.
• Adds in the ability to access "What's New" from the settings screen.
• Additional style and interface improvements

This latest update will be available for TestFlight participants later today, and in the app store in the coming week or so.

IGN App Update v6.1

Hey everyone, Ryan from the Product Team at IGN here. I’m happy to share with you that the IGN App update 6.1 is in the App Store for iOS and Google Play stores that includes a new search feature to the IGN App.

Here’s how search works:

• Story Search — This allows you to find headlines from IGN news. You can search for keywords like deals, or reviews.

• Catalog Search — This searches titles of games, movies, and shows in IGN’s catalog built over 25 years of IGN. You can use it to find a specific title, and read all of the latest stories associated with it.

Keen eyes will notice details like our multi-stage header scroll animations on game, movie, and show screens. New info in the app like developer, release date, and platforms, as well as a link to IGN to see details like how long to beat, and game help for titles that support it.

There are other fixes two that should fix a few memory issues that were causing some devices to drain battery when the app was in the background.

It’s been a challenging year for the IGN app team, and while we wanted to get 6.1 to you all sooner, we also wanted to make sure that we focused on critical issues like warming phones, battery and video issues, and prime members seeing ads. The team behind this has worked incredibly hard and relatively non-stop since our app update, and I’ll be sharing an updated roadmap early next year, which will obviously contain some shifted dates. We remain excited about evolving this app moving forward, and hope that you’ll check out search and continue to give us feedback!

Thanks for sticking with us.

IGN’s “Watch” video app is shutting down

Hey everyone, Ryan from the IGN Product Team here. Today we’re announcing that IGN Watch - our app for watching IGN videos is shutting down at the end of November. We launched IGN watch a little over a year ago with the hopes of giving people a streamlined and customizable video experience, and despite many new innovations from the team - like being able to follow individual games and enjoy a custom feed of content, the app never really found an audience. Plus, frankly, despite folks imagining a huge corporate operation, the number of folks in our product and engineering team is actually quite small, maybe a 6-7 pizza affair with leftovers. A team our size can’t dedicate the resources to keeping juggling things that aren’t really working.

If you use and enjoy the Watch app, I’m sorry to have to bring you this news. But I am happy to say that we’re committed to bringing the best parts of Watch to our core IGN app. We want video to feel smooth and standardized, and to give IGN app users tools to customize their story and app experience. We’re also nearing release on version 6.1 of our core app that will be incorporating the same search feature found in Watch.

Thank you to everyone who gave Watch a try, and a special thank you to those who love it and will be sad to see it go. We’re going to use our time and resources to continue our improvements to the core IGN app, and bring to life our newly announced product, IGN Playlist. We hope you’ll give them a shot, and if you had things you loved about Watch that you’d like to see in the IGN app, feel free to send us a Tweet @IGN or leave a comment below about how we can make video even better on IGN and in our apps.

New games, movies, and shows pages on IGN

After months of researching and experimenting, we are proud to launch the redesign of our games, movies, and shows pages that will deliver more value to IGN fans. This is one of many exciting projects our product development team’s cooked up that is coming your way, with more to serve in 2022!

Our goal

Our goal is to build products that enable people to enjoy more games, movies and shows and share their experiences with others in fun and inclusive ways.

In a world where your backlog grows exponentially with each passing day, it’s become harder to prioritize things that you enjoy. We recognize that people trust IGN to help. Whether it’s through our reviews, our game help, our exclusive series with beloved hosts, IGN has a unique place in your life as your go-to media entertainment news site.

We redesigned these pages to become your one-stop-shop that helps you choose the right game, movie, or show, so you won’t have to waste $60 or stay up past 3 AM grinding. Not that we can stop you, but we at least try to make you informed!

Games, shows, and movies pages, remastered

As we said before, these pages are created to help you. We asked members of IGN’s community how they decided what game to play or show/movie to watch next.

Our studies showed that:

• People watched gameplay, teasers, and first-looks to get excited.

• Knowing how much time you need to invest is important.

• Reviews, both professional and user-generated, affect purchasing decisions.

• Brands matter and hard-core fans are invested through name alone.

• Game help, no matter how old, will always be something you come back to (looking at you, GTA5)

We took your problems to heart and created a page to solve your needs. Here’s a closer look at all the new features we included in our redesign.

Before

After

An in-depth review

The first thing that’ll catch your eye is a wavy background to give a better feel for your favorite game, movie, or show. On top is a card with a centered promotional image, name, and other useful information.

For our game pages, we use HowLongToBeat to show players just how much time commitment is needed for different play styles. Clicking on the name will link to more interesting stats on the HowLongToBeat site!

If game help is available, we showcase the most relevant Wiki pages like “Tips and Tricks” and “How-To Guides”. An interactive map might be available to play around with and keep track of your progress.

Of course, all pages have images and screenshots. IGN provides the latest behind-the-scenes videos and photos for our fans to get hyped on their favorite series.

When things are released, you can always rely on IGN to provide well-researched reviews. We give you the ability to quickly see the score we’ve assigned, but we highly encourage you to read or watch the full review by our dedicated staff.

Our summary block now allows you to find other media by the developer, publisher, franchise, platform, and genre. Now you can sink deeper into the Nintendo hole or find hidden gems by your favorite game studio.

Finally, at the bottom is an endless scroll of the latest news. You can sort by video, article, gameplay, trailer, or review just like the homepage.

It doesn’t end there

You might have noticed that while we “enable people to enjoy more games, movies, and TV shows”, we don’t have anything our community can contribute to yet. Don’t worry--This is a multi-course meal, and we’re still prepping some key ingredients before we share this feature.

Stick around, explore our site, and stay safe while we wait for Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl to be released.

IGN App Update v6.0.7

It’s back to school time, and we’re closing in on a new volley of updates for the IGN app. This update is a big one for improving the experience of browsing stories and watching video.

Here's the patch notes:

• Video experience improvements, including autoplay, styles, full-screen behavior, and more

• Added sharing for stories

• Significant improvements to swipe-back behavior on iOS and Android. It should be easier to left-swipe back to the feed from a story.

• Fixed styles in stores where product descriptions would be non-accessible in their color scheme

• Fixed an issue where videos weren’t appearing at the top of some articles

• Removed non-native feed stories that were breaking navigation

• Fixed an issue where tapping a story quickly in succession could spawn multiple stories opening

• Fixed error messaging around sign in

• Added the ability to sign in via IGN username in addition to email address.

• Added a notification to sign in to bookmark stories

• Platforms are displayed at the bottom of reviews

• Fixed a bug where Prime members could see ads in stories.

• You can now tap anywhere on a product embedded in a story to visit the appropriate link for that article

• Style and consistency updates

• Fixed an issue where ads would display when disabled on certain content

• Fixed an issue where comments would display when disabled on certain content.

The update will be available soon for iOS and the Google Play Store.

We’re planning our next release to be smaller and make a few updates behind the scenes, so we can get to working on Search done next. If you’re on iOS, and you’d like to be a part of testing our updates and giving feedback on our upcoming search feature, sign up for our public beta on TestFlight.