Home News Hilary Goldstein Leaving IGN

Hilary Goldstein Leaving IGN

Tristan Oliver
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The current editor in chief of IGN Entertainment, who caused a stir when it appeared he didn’t wholly finish Sonic Unleashed before giving the game a poor score, will soon be the former editor in chief.

Hilary Goldstein announced he is leaving the company on his personal website today.

“I’m not being laid off, forced out, or pressured to move on. I’m being selfish,” Goldstein said.  “For nearly 10 years, I’ve given everything of myself to IGN. I’ve been happy to allow it to consume my life — to own so much of me every day and night. But lost along the way has been my passion and commitment to myself. To grow as a writer, to grow as a person, I need to leave and find something new.”

Channelling Goldstein’s personal experience enduring the death of his mother from a brain tumor, Goldstein says he wants to make his own mark in the industry–not merely relay and critique someone else’s.

“It’s no longer enough to talk about games, to offer critical feedback — I want to have a direct influence,” Goldstein explains.  “I want to help shape games either from the development or publishing side. Either by utilizing my creative abilities or by doing something that frees me to create for myself at night.”

Thanks to Silverwind for sending us this tip.  If you have news to share, click the Tips like at the top of every page and tell us what you know.

This post was originally written by the author for TSSZ News.

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Tristan Oliver

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34 Comments

  2. @Komodin
    I dont know if i should cheer, or not. On the one hand, this biased jerk is leaving ign. On the other, he lost his mom to a brain tumor. and feels used by a company he apparently worked for for 10 years. I dont know whether to mock, or sympathize with the guy 🙁

  6. I DON’T CARE IF HE LOST HIS MOTHER!! HE GAVE MY PRECIOUS SONIC GAME A BAD SCORE!!11@@@

  9. Ok being an IGNorant jerk is one thing, but the fact that his mother is dead is a completely other thing. I feel sorry for him, screw the shitty reviews, they belong to the past. I wish him the best of luck for his future.

  10. Im sorry about his mother’s death, But i dont care about that guy. Maybe, one day he manages to make his own game, i hope the person who reviews it doesnt complete the game and gives him a poor score, as he did with Unleashed.

  11. And nothing of value was lost.
    Okay, the tidbit about his mother is sad, but that isn’t enough to give sympathy for him.

  12. Well I like the fact that he wants to do something better with himself. We often do forget to work on ourselves as we go through life. I feel sorry for his Mom though.

  15. Why I am happy: That biased asshole is leaving IGN
    Why I am sad: He lost his mother to a brain tumor

  17. 2006 is pretty much the same all the way through, but sonic unleashed gets way better with more werehog moves and levels! He should have at least played through it

  18. Random note: Hilary is a girl’s name. Just sayin’ I thought the story was about a woman. . .

  19. Wow some people are dicks to still bring up the Unleashed review. Don’t like the fact that he gave your precious game a bad score? Too bad, his opinion. He did finish the game by the way. Why even post this here? The only association this has with Sonic is the fact that he gave a two and a half year old game a bad review.
    Some people need to know how to show a little respect.

  21. OMG YES I HATED THAT GUY!!!!
    *reads the part about his mother dying*
    ………….great now I feel bad for hating him for so long.

  22. @TGT: It’s not so much that IGN gives Sonic games bad scores, but the fact that they (probably purposely) neglect to finish the games before they pull their half-hearted attempts at reviews out of their asses. If IGN would cut the crap and fairly review games instead of nerd-gasming over stuff like Halo and CoD, they’d have a BIT more respect than they do now.

  23. I feel sorry for him about his mother, but I’m not really seeing the “game developer” image in him.

  24. Didn’t really care about his Unleashed review, I think he gave Colors and Sonic 4 positive reviews. Good luck to his next job, and too bad about the part of his mother.

  25. Here we go again with the IGNorant puns. I’m pretty sure the only review of Hilary’s anyone here has knowingly read is Sonic Unleashed.
    So a guy gives a poor score to a game you like and suddenly everything he writes is worthless and everything anyone else at the same company writes is worthless? Most people probably never even read IGN; they just hear the score they give to a game from someone else then start shouting “YOU CANT SPELL IGNORANCE WITHOUT IGN”.
    If you actually read their reviews or listened to their podcasts then you’d have a better understanding of why they give the scores they do. You don’t have to agree with it, but at least you can understand why THEY didn’t like it. It’s certainly better than “RAWR STOP DISLIKING WHAT I LIKE! ALL U PLAY IS COD AND HALO”
    As for the Sonic Unleashed review specifically; I don’t think playing through the full game really matters. The second half is the same as the first half. There’s no point where the game suddenly becomes amazing. If you’ve formed and opinion on the game after the first 3 continents, it’s not going to change during the next 4.

  26. @thiswholedagnabdiscussion Yes, let us all hate on a guy for having an OPINION! I don’t care whether in his former position he should have remained impartial! He is a free thinking individual and it is his prerogative to hate Sonic! You can hate his opinion, but it doesn’t make him a bad person! He has sensibly formed an opinion. Y’know what? Fuggitaboutit, be that way. I applaud him for moving up from simply seeing how good a game is, to making sure it is good. 😉
    P.S Hilary, your mother is in our hearts and minds and prayers.

  28. If this guy ends up in SEGA of America I going to laugh my ass off for the irony.

  29. Jesus, i cant believe people are still giving him a hard time over the whole Unleashed thing. Apart from the fact that the game is crap (apart from that 20% spent in daytime stages), why are you going to let one slip-up completely sabotage your opinion of a person. We’ve all done stupid things, so stop bringing up a three year old review when there was no abusive comments about the guys who gave SU 9/10’s which was a much more unfair score, in fairness.

  30. “Apart from the fact that the game is crap (apart from that 20% spent in daytime stages), ”
    Opinion =/= fact. Just sayin’…

  31. @Komodin
    I disagree but of course it’s your opinion
    @JackTheInfinite101
    As happy as I am he’s leaving IGN I’m also sorry that he lost his mother but I don’t really care for him so :/

  33. @Komodin and True Sonic
    Fair enough, but thats all Hilary’s review was wasn’t it, an opinion. I also don’t know why people are upset about him not finishing the game.
    OK so in principal he should have done his job and all, but if anything, it would have probably lowered the final score. All that changes in the second half really, is that you suddenly need heavy medal requirments to progress. Hardly fun, since unlocking daytime stages requires you to go do night stages, and from what i remember, most of the Act 2 night stages are far more difficult then the Act 1 ones.
    And Hilary isn’t anti-Sonic, he gave Sonic 4 a very respectable 8 out of 10, whereas alot of the critics and fans of the series wouldn’t give it a score anywhere near that high, so my point was, people are being too hard on him.

  34. @Gooch
    When I first saw the review with Unleashed I wasn’t impressed I thought he was being payed to give it a bad review but if he was reviewing the game for real it sounded a lot more like a rant than a review if that was him playing then I’m sorry but he wasn’t even trying….Mashing the boost button, Jumping over a ramp causing death on the first level (possibly on purpose), explaining how he likes the day stages then later explaining how he didn’t like them…
    Also the Night Stages are more challenging than the day stages but they are the same length except Sonic goes much more faster in the day stages and I didn’t think the Werehog was slow, he just ranted on how boring the stages can be without not at least expieriencing new things that were yet to be brought in the night stages
    I’d enjoyed playing in Sonic’s Werehog form more than Treasure Hunting, mech shooting and fishing 😛 Unleashed got a worse review than most other past titles (excluding BK) sure it wasn’t perfect but neither was Adventure or Adventure 2
    I am sorry for his loss though but I’m happy he’s leaving I just didn’t like him and his reviews ugh but Sonic 4 wasn’t too bad I suppose but still..
    And I don’t think of him as a Sonic hater…I don’t think he gave this game more of a chance as well as the rest of IGN for the past titles The past 3D titles aren’t perfect but not horrible unless you think of (06) but the Sonic 2D games weren’t perfect either in the past 😛 I really hated that Unleashed review

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