News Corporation buys game sites for $650 million

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IT'S OFFICIAL - IGN Entertainment, the owners of super-popular gaming website IGN.com, has signed a definitive agreement to be bought out by Murdoch's News Corporation. News Corp will pay $650 million for a set of sites.
For those not in the know, sites under the IGN network include IGN.com, GameSpy, GameSpy Arena, FilePlanet, TeamXbox, 3D Gamers, Direct2Drive, GameStats.com and a handful of sites under the Vault and Planet networks.

IGN and its network will all become part of News Corporation's Fox Interactive Media unit, according to a News Corporation press release. This move is part of News Corp.'s plans to increase its presence online and follows the acquisition of Intermix - which ran MySpace.com - and a college sports outlet Scout Media.

Altogether, with IGN now part of the many Fox-branded sites, News Corporation's total US web traffic will hit about 70 million unique users and over 12 billion page views per month.

Rupert Murdoch put down his can of Fosters for a moment to say, "with the acquisition of IGN and its 28 million users, we have gone a long way toward achieving two of our key strategic objectives in our efforts to become a leading and profitable internet presence." Those objects were to enhance online reach and to "leverage the unique competencies the company enjoys with its news, sports, and entertainment assets to create a leading internet destination." Bonza!

IGN Entertainment's Mark Jung commented on the deal: "We believe that Fox Interactive Media is an ideal fit with IGN Entertainment," so it's nothing to do with money, then? He went on to say that he and his company are absolutely thrilled with the acquisition and "can't wait to get started." µ

Source: Inquirer