News Corp. Seeks Help From Bank To Shift IGN

[drop2]According to reports coming from the Wall Street Journal (via AllThingsD and VG247) News Corp. has failed to find a buyer for IGN Entertainment, the group of websites (which also included the closed down TeamXbox) the corporation bought for $650 million in 2005.

It’s now enlisted the help of Allen & Co. and is apparently banking on an auction to shift the network. It’s expected that it’ll reach around $100 million. Break Media and SAY Media are both interested, according to rumours.

News Corp.’s other recent purchase and sales include Myspace, which is paid $580 million for but only managed to sell it for $35 million. IGN is in the top 500 websites in the world, according to Alexa, and is easily the biggest gaming site out there, massively dwarfing pretty much everything else in terms of traffic.

Just goes to show, eh?

14 Comments

  1. is this a reflection on the gaming journalism world, in that people do think too highly of it, or is it that people just don’t see IGN as worth buying for some other reason, despite the fact that it is one of the largest out there?

  2. i think over the years IGN has lost its ways..
    i used it as a cornerstone for my reviews and news.
    but times have changed.
    there are a large number of “indie” style web sites that take a gamers approach to the reviews and news of gaming..
    not sucking dick but TSA Is the perfect example it never feels generic here.
    when you read a review on IGN it feels almost robotic , you kinda know what they are gonna say.
    if all fails and they get thrown to the streets the Chobot can come and live with me!

  3. I just think that there is too much competition out there. IGN used to be the premier gaming website (and probably still gets the most hits), but the market share has definitely spread. This spread in market share probably has also affected advertising revenue as advertisers now how other alternatives that are probably cheaper.

  4. The issue with the big sites (like IGN) is that they don’t do anything dozens of smaller sites do anymore. IGN used to have a stranglehold on exclusives too, but that’s rare these days with sites like ours beating them to stuff like the new PSN Store by hours.

    Even their game database stuff is handled much better elsewhere, like on OneHitPixel. I rarely visit big sites now, grass roots writing appeals to me much more.

    IMO of course.

    • That is true, never really see them get the big exclusives like they used to. Perhaps they get to release a review a little in advance, but nothing worth trumpeting horns about. Even when it comes to foreign game shows, other websites still have the means to get reporters there.

      My big issue with IGN now is the amount of video they are pushing. It is clearly an ad revenue thing; the more videos they can release, the more video advertising they can implement. I’m not hundred percent sure, but I think that video advertising gets more $$ than simple click ads. Simple news stories that would fill a simple paragraph are getting videos instead, a video with a un-skippable advert.

      • I swear on slow news days, they resort to reuploading old trailers in an attempt to get cash from adverts as they have spammed by YT sub box a few times. Those few times also happened to be slow news days. :-/ Whereas, i suspect Peter will just get Kris to dance then upload it to Youtube. ;)

    • I agree there are many things IGN can’t beat smaller game sites at but I do think that there are some things they are doing that grass roots sites can not. Whether these are important to you is another matter.

      The first, is video. Krugsy has mentioned this as a bad thing but I for one will often watch their video reviews before I look at other reviews. It is one thing to read a description of a games visuals, it is another to see stills and yet another to see it in motion. Same goes for audio. IGN also do a lot of video interviews with developers which are usually a lot more interesting than reading interview transcripts.

      The second thing I think IGN does better than a lot of other sites is the level of interaction with developers. Out of their interaction with Insomniac IGN got access to the design material for a game, Monster Knight, that was never created. This was a fascinating read and not something you often see.

      I am of the opinion that no one site can provide everything I want. Obviously I would much rather read/post comments at a site like TSA than go anywhere near the comments section on IGN. That said, I would be missing out on content I can’t get anywhere else if I weren’t keeping an eye on IGN.

      • If I could like your comment I would. Pretty much my opinion summed up. Sometimes I have to go to the bigger sites to get the sorts of things only the big sites are capable of. If TSA was able to cover them too then I’d just use TSA but unfortunately TSA doesn’t quite have the same budget.

  5. I only really use sixthaxis….

  6. this is what happens when a company gets too big and forgets why it became popular. IGN is rubbish, I visit it there not very often and when I do I don’t think I’m on it for more than 5 minutes because its poorly designed and full of crap articles.

  7. I haven’t been on IGN for ages, since I sound this site.

  8. Newscorp owns IGN? Everything makes sense now.

  9. Haven’t been on it for years

    Going to get incredibly tough at the top for the big US biased sites.

    Even just to retain their market share in the face of Vox Media’s Polygon launching they’d have to spend shit loads on redesign and finding their own unique path again.

    Nofi’s comment above is bang on, independent sites pull in all the stories now anyway & they’ve not used their size and the influence of large readership to bring quality, unrivalled ‘insider’ articles to viewers.

  10. IGN seems to be a bit baised sometimes. And i really despise their habit of uploading an ending of a game before release! I only subscribed for trailers and i just know some barsteward will ruin the game for me if i look at videos of the game.

    TSA have managed to beat them to the punch multiple times. But they did use us as a source when they tried to take something out of context when Al interviewed the developer of velocity. Can’t remeber the last time i visited their site. And the amount of trolls, flamewars that goes on in their comments. If those people said that stuff on here, chances are we would gang up on them and give them the old TSA treatment.

    They may be the biggest site on the net but they lack the spirit of the TSA community, the non-baised reviews and news reports(unless it’s peter and stars wars, i’m kidding) and the way that Peter and Al listen to us. :) IGN seems to have forgotten what made them thus ensuring their eventual demise.

    I already knew that newscorp owned them as they had banned their writers from speaking out against SOPA. I wonder if TSA could buy them with just a few cakes and one pizza?

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