Karma? Bad business decisions? Bad luck? Or just the beginning of the end for mainstream gaming journalism sites? Whichever it may be, that can’t hide the fact that IGN will be up for auction soon by its parent company News Corp. This comes after news from the Wall Street Journal that the company has been unable to find a buy for it’s gaming and entertainment sites. News Corp will now be working with investment bank Allen & Co for auctioning off it’s sites.
Consider that News Corp purchased IGN for $650 million USD in 2005, besides also purchasing gaming network UGO, which included properties like 1Up.com, which were then consolidated into a single entity. There have been other sales over the years by News Corp, which includes Rotten Tomatoes, Gamespy and Direct2Drive and now IGN, which is expected to go for $100 million USD.
Who are the interested parties thus far? Break Media and SAY Media, the former being a digital video publisher with a reported audience of over 200 million people and the latter being an internet publisher and advertising network with over 100 million users. Will IGN still retain its identity post the auction? That remains to be seen.
Source: GIBiz
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