Report: IGN Buys UGO, Splitting From News Corp. to Become Standalone Web Business

Only a few days after the Wall Street Journal reported that News Corp is shopping Myspace on the cheap, All Things Digital is reporting that News Corp’s IGN — best known as a video game culture destination — has bought the similar, though smaller Internet network of sites, UGO, which is probably best known for video game site, 1up.com. It is being reported that the acquisition and merger will be announced within the next few days, but that isn’t all: IGN is planned to split from News Corp and act as a standalone business that will keep its focus on video game culture, news and reviews.

Roy Bahat, who has been running IGN since 2007, is planned to run the standalone IGN for News Corp. All Things Digital reports that the plans to move IGN outside of News Corp isn’t similar to News Corp’s attempts to sell off Myspace — IGN is currently quite successful — but is a move that is thought to help IGN grow more quickly, without News Corp hindering its progress.

IGN is currently worth more than UGO, and News Corp will have a controlling stake in the new company. Comscore shows that IGN has a larger audience than UGO, at 19.7 million U.S. visitors compared to UGO’s 13.1 million.

(via All Things Digital)

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James Plafke