On the 4th of September 1999, three men with very different backgrounds decided to build a new kind of video game magazine without a single printed page. John Bye, who had previously managed the website for the game PlanetQuake, Patrick Stokes, a contributor to the online community Warzone, and Rupert Loman, who had organized the EuroQuake esports event, formed the core of what would become Eurogamer. They launched their site under the company name Eurogamer Network, creating a platform that would eventually become the official online media partner of the 2002 European Computer Trade Show. This was not just another blog; it was a deliberate attempt to bring the chaotic energy of the early internet gaming scene into a structured, professional format that could compete with traditional print journalism. By the end of 2012, the site and its ten European foreign-language versions had seen visitor numbers increase by over ten percent compared to the previous year, proving that the digital model was not a fad but a sustainable future for the industry.
The Score That Changed Everything
In February 2015, Eurogamer made a decision that sent shockwaves through the gaming journalism world by completely abandoning its ten-point scale for review scores. The editors felt that the traditional numerical system had lost its meaning and was being used to manipulate the industry rather than to help players. Instead, they introduced labels such as Essential, Recommended, or Avoid to highlight games the reviewer felt particularly strongly about. This move was driven by a deep-seated doubt about the score system's usefulness and a desire to be delisted from the review aggregator Metacritic because of its unhealthy influence on the games industry. The change was not immediate; it took years of internal debate and public scrutiny before the site returned to scoring reviews in May 2023, opting for a five-point scale because they were universally understood, simple to take in at a glance, and easily shared. This journey from numbers to words and back to a simpler number system reflected the evolving relationship between critics and the games they covered.The Rise and Fall of Regional Empires
The expansion of Eurogamer across Europe was a complex tapestry of partnerships, closures, and strategic launches that mirrored the shifting political and economic landscape of the continent. Eurogamer.de for Germany was launched in co-operation with Extent Media on the 24th of August 2006 to coincide with that year's Games Convention exhibition, while Eurogamer.es for Spain and Eurogamer.pl for Poland followed in their wake. Eurogamer.pt for Portugal was launched in partnership with LusoPlay in May 2008, and Eurogamer.fr for France was established as a joint venture with Microscoop in October 2007. However, not all ventures survived; Eurogamer.it for Italy closed in 2022, and Eurogamer.se for Sweden, established in 2015, closed in 2016. The site also saw the rise and fall of Eurogamer Benelux for Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg under Eurogamer.nl, launched in August 2008 and headed by Steven De Leeuw, and Brasilgamer for Brazil, established in 2012. These regional efforts demonstrated the ambition of the network to create a truly global voice, even as the challenges of local markets and changing consumer habits led to the eventual closure of several of these outposts.