Serious concerns have arisen in the USA that AOL may be closing its gaming site Joystiq. Many leaders in the gaming industry are voicing their support for Joystiq.
The site Re/code reports that AOL intends to shut down its gaming site Joystiq as part of a “cleanup” effort, where they are distancing themselves from sites that fall short of expectations. Joystiq is associated with the MMO site massively, the WoW fansite “WoW Insider“, as well as the general gaming site Joystiq. It is still unclear how a closure of Joystiq would affect massively and WoW Insider. It seems quite likely that they would be shut down along with the “mother site”.
Joystiq published an article about the rumor. It is hard to say whether irony or resignation is present when a “source from within” reports that the employees are aware of the closure but have not been officially informed yet.
Meanwhile, a hashtag campaign is taking place on Twitter under #SaveJoystiq, featuring people like SOE President John Smedley (H1Z1, Everquest), YouTuber TotalBiscuit, or Trion Worlds CEO (ArcheAge, Rift) Scott Hartsman.
Competition or not, they do good work and enrich the industry with their presence and that’s far more important. #SaveJoystiq
— TotalBiscuit (@Totalbiscuit) January 27, 2015
Thoughts going out to the #SaveJoystiq family of sites. Made many great, enthusiastic friends via @massively when it first came on the scene
— Scott Hartsman (@hartsman) January 27, 2015
Really need to #savejoystiq – @massively does a great job in our industry and they need to be doing what they’re doing for a long time!
— John Smedley (@j_smedley) January 27, 2015
