Find some friends that want the service as well and split the cost with them. I share my username with like 8 other people, bringing the cost per person down to about $3.10 each. Even if you only find 4 other people, that's still only $5 each.
The way I think about it is I could either get GamePro or some other magazine with all this info about games and such for like $30-$50 a year that covers only the really popular stuff with text and images, or I could spend $3.10 on something that provides coverage of almost all games, on all platforms, with text, videos, and images. Furthermore, I can also get exclusive interviews/walkthroughs/whatever through this service. Yeah, it does suck that they started charging for IGN, but when you really think about it, it's so worth it if you're into gaming.