News Corporation has secured the purchase of American online gaming firm IGN Entertainment, gaining access to around 28 million male internet users, with sites covering video games, films, music, sports, cars and girls.
The deal, worth $650 million, sees IGN incorporated into News Corp’s Fox Interactive Media Unit, extending Rupert Murdoch’s online activities to around 70 million users a month, with the corporation now producing 12 billion pages of content each month.
Explaining the reach of the new acquisition, Murdoch said in a statement: “With the acquisition of IGN and its 28m unique 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.
“By acquiring IGN and its compelling sites, we now have top entertainment sites to go along with FOXSports.com, as well as our myriad news sites, headlined by FOXNews.com.”
The deal sees News Corp take control of sites such as GameSpy, AskMen.com, Rotten Tomatoes, FilePlanet, TeamXbox, 3D Gamers, Direct2Drive, GameStats.com and IGN FilmForce, securing a wide range of men’s interest locations.
The move continues Murdoch’s drive to extend his company’s internet presence, an area in which it has lagged behind the competition for some time. Earlier this year News Corp scooped web community Intermix Media for $580 million, as well as sports news network Scout Media for $60 million.
This summer, News International (NI), the publishing arm of News Corporation, was reported to be inviting potential bids for the Times Educational supplement along side other specialist titles, with the education business valued at approximately £250 million (see News International To Sell Education Titles).
According to the Financial Times, Rupert Murdoch has discussed the potential disposal of the assets at a News Corporation board meeting in London in June.
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