Eurogamer
Eurogamer is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 and owned by alongside formed company Gamer Network. In 2008, it started in the formerly eponymous trade fair EGX (Eurogamer Expo until 2013) organised by its parent company. From 2013 to 2020, sister site USGamer ran independently under its parent company. Eurogamer (initially stylised as EuroGamer was launched on 4 September 1999 under company Eurogamer Network. The founding team included John "Gestalt" Bye, the webmaster for the PlanetQuake website and a writer for British magazine PC Gaming World; Patrick "Ghandi" Stokes, a contributor for the website Warzone; and Rupert "rauper" Loman, who had organised the EuroQuake esports event for the game Quake. Eurogamer hosts content from media outlet Digital Foundry since 2007, which was founded by Richard Leadbetter in 2004. In January 2008, Tom Bramwell overtook the role of editor-in-chief from Kristan Reed, remaining in that role until he resigned in November 2014. Afterwards Oli Welsh served as editor for Eurogamer, followed by Martin Robinson, with Tom Phillips now being the current Editor. In February 2015, Eurogamer dropped its ten-point scale for review scores instead highlight some games the reviewer felt particularly strongly with labels such as 'Essential', 'Recommended' or 'Avoid'. The change was driven by doubt about the score system's usefulness and its desire to be delisted from review aggregator Metacritic because of its "unhealthy influence" on the games industry. In May 2023, Eurogamer returned to scoring reviews, opting for a five-point scale due to them being "universally understood, simple to take in at a glance, and easily shared." In February 2018, Eurogamer's parent company, Gamer Network, was acquired by Reed Exhibitions, a division of RELX. In September 2021, the community forum for Eurogamer closed, with the site recommending other platforms such as Discord instead. In the same month, Eurogamer also launched a supporter program, offering readers an ad-free experience and access to paywalled content.