InfoSources, which Sapet had started as an
Internet service provider in 1995,[2] had branched increasingly into
content creation since 1998, and had purchased the magazine publishers
Pressimage [
fr] and Freeway in April 2000. As a result, its holdings included a number of
youth-oriented magazines and web portals, such as
ZoneJeuX.[4] As part of InfoSources' merger with
Belgacom, its content division was split off as Ixo, which successfully
went public in December 2000.[5][6]
Ixo became the French publisher of Rolling Stone in 2002.[7] That same year, Ixo began a rebranding effort to target "urban
machismo" in its publications.[8] Following a years-long series of setbacks that Stratégies described as a "descent into hell",[9] Ixo filed for bankruptcy in January 2004.[10] Its magazine publishing division was sold off piecemeal to companies such as
Cyber Press Publishing and
Tests Group as the year progressed. Because it was sold in pieces, over 100 Ixo employees were laid off.[11] The
liquidation of Ixo was announced in July 2004, after the firm was unable to find a buyer for the remainder of its business.[12]
Publications
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GameLive PC
Ixo served as the publisher of the video game magazine GameLive PC,[13][14] which began circulating in Spain during October 2000.[15] It averaged a circulation of 30,000 copies per issue during its first two years, according to France's
Circulation Audit Office,[16] and by 2002 Ixo stated that it was Spain's second-largest computer game magazine.[15] A French edition launched on March 29, 2003,[16] initially as a quarterly release.[13] It switched to a monthly schedule in France after its third issue, by which time its national circulation had reached 60,000 copies, Ixo reported.[17]
GameLive PC received praise from outlets such as
MeriStation, whose writer Francisco Alberto Serrano remarked that it "overshadowed even a magazine so settled in Spain as the dean Micromanía".[18] Similarly, VidaExtra's César Saiz called it "one of the best magazines about video games" in Spain.[19] Each issue of GameLive featured the full version of a game via pack-in CD-ROM.[13] In Spain, the magazine ended suddenly in December 2004, after running for 45 issues. It was one of several closures in the country's print game magazine industry during the period.[18] Key members of GameLive PC went on to found the magazine PC Life.[19][20][21]