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The Almighty Buck

News Corp buys IGN for $650M 158

Posted by CmdrTaco from the thats-a-lot-of-psps dept.
Falconrath writes "News Corp has just aquired the gaming network IGN for $650 million Thursday. News Corp leader Rupert Murdoch said that this aquisition was one of many in order to become a "leading and profitable Internet presence." " Also here is a games section story from this morning.
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News Corp buys IGN for $650M More

News Corp buys IGN for $650M

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  • So... (Score:5, Funny)

    by lucabrasi999 ( 585141 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @03:34PM (#13512739) Journal
    Does this mean Sean Hannity will be reviewing the next sequel to Half Life?

  • Volunteers Rejoice! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 08, 2005 @03:36PM (#13512755)
    Volunteers across the IGN network rejoice as a few fat cats profit from their generosity.
    • Volunteers across the IGN network rejoice as a few fat cats profit from their generosity.

      Why would anyone volunteer for a for-profit company? If you improve a product for free, you don't get to complain when the maker of that product profits.

      • In the states, hospitals are for profit (AFAIK), and volunteering there is considered highly respectable. People probably volunteer at IGN to get the experience and hopefully get hired later, I don't see how this news changes anything.
        • Not all hospitals in the USA are for-profit. A lot of them are non-profit and, at least in my area, the non-profit hospitals have a lot more volunteers than the for-profit ones.

          • Yeah, they just don't get all the fancy things that private hospitals get. Like beds and rooms and aspirin and xray machines and qualified doctors!
            • Yeah, they just don't get all the fancy things that private hospitals get. Like beds and rooms and aspirin and xray machines and qualified doctors!

              So... you've been to Canada recently then?

              • This is off topic, but I do want to mention that I'm not against private healthcare. I think that if you're super rich and you want a really great hospital with particular doctors and have particular things done and are willing to pay for it (directly or via an insurance plan), then more power to you. I would not want my quality of care being reduced just to spread it out to other people who don't work for a living or have been washing dishes for thirty years.

                However, free healthcare (no matter how lacking)
                • Paying farmers not to farm is good. It's a way of keeping farmlands fertile while not forcing farmers out of business.

                  It seems a little out of whack, but by not farming for a year or two, and rotating crops you will actually increase the yields and lengthen the life of the land.

                  -Rick

                  • Re:Volunteers Rejoice! (Score:3, Insightful)

                    by Seumas ( 6865 )
                    Paying farmers not to farm is good. It's a way of keeping farmlands fertile while not forcing farmers out of business.

                    Aside from the assertion that we supposedly live in a capitalist, market-driven, society . . .

                    A wiser person than any who have ever served in government would realize that the same could be achieved - and more - by paying farmers to farm and distributing their product to the homeless and hungry within the states and around the world.
        • If the owner (whomever it may be at the moment) has to pay people to provide the services, the sites would not make a profit, and thus, would die very quickly.

          The volunteers do it mainly out of respect for the site, game, or topic they work under. Their work on the site keeps it running as much as the ad revenue does.

          It's a lot of tedious work sometimes, but if you like the sites, you help keep them up and running.

          H.

  • Pulling a Hat out of a Rabbit. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Thursday September 08, 2005 @03:36PM (#13512763) Homepage Journal
    Well, becoming a megamedia empire didn't work for AOL/Time-Warner, but Ruper Murdoch, against many wagers in the past has made things work, even stealing tired old NFL football from CBS and kicking some life back into it when pundits said it was doomed to failure.

    Still, there's always that first big failure. Maybe he has in mind a MMORPG Simpsons game in mind.

    Online ads?

    To purchase your very own Mystical Maul of Debugging from The Franklin Mint click HERE

  • Young people (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dep01 ( 730107 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @03:37PM (#13512771) Homepage
    First MySpace and now IGN.. They're really wanting to get that Pro-Bush message out to all them young people!

    • Re:Young people (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Red Flayer ( 890720 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @03:43PM (#13512828) Journal
      I know there's some trollishness (and probably some sarcasm) to your post, but I gotta say, the movement is VERY, VERY happy with all the hate directed at Bush.

      Bush is a lighning rod on the roof of the house of Neocon.

      Once Bush is gone, they can put someone else in place to run for POTUS, and we'll not have solved a darn thing.

      /Tinfoil hat securely on.
      • "the movement"

        What movement? The only movement our country has is the slow movement down a metaphorical toilet bowl.

      • I know there's some trollishness (and probably some sarcasm) to your post, but I gotta say, the movement is VERY, VERY happy with all the hate directed at Bush.

        Bush is a lighning rod on the roof of the house of Neocon.

        Once Bush is gone, they can put someone else in place to run for POTUS, and we'll not have solved a darn thing. /Tinfoil hat securely on.

        Sorry, I don't buy it.

        Bush is too closely associated with the neocon movement for that to work. All the anger directed at Bush is automatically transferred t
        • I would agree to a certain extent, except that they can differentiate from Bush in other ways than stands on Neocon issues. Whether it's unsolvable issues that don't matter to the Neocons, or someone who's personality is distinctly different.

          I don't think it will take a lot to get their voter base back into the fold, a lot of people will come back if there is just enough difference to make the new candidate seem to be "Not Bush".
    • First MySpace and now IGN.. They're really wanting to get that Pro-Bush message out to all them young people!

      Which is a bit like running up hill with rollerblades on, at the moment. Maybe Slick Dick Cheney can do a better PR job in the south than George. I don't think they can outsling anyone else online though, as we've seen for years that people are either very fickle or choosey when it comes to the internet and tend to gravitate away from BS. The bar for me to start my own pro or anti-somebody webs

      • Perhaps they'll start outputting highly intelligent and well-thought out content in high volume, so that the cynical users of the godless Internet will see the light and gravitate towards it like flies.
    • umm you do realize that NewsCorp/Fox Broadcasting simultaneously has the most pro-Bush programs O'reilly and Sean Hannity and the most anti-Bush programs American Dad and The Simpsons starting several years ago?

      Just some food for thougt...
      • Fox is just locked into the Simpsons because of the money it generates. Matt Groening has repeatedly done bluffs about moving the Simpsons to another network, and everytime Fox jumps back into the ring with another lucrative deal for Groening. The same thing with American Dad. They're just riding the coattails of Family Guy, and probably willingly gave in when the creators wanted to make a new series. They're not stupid, and I'm sure they realize that both of those people make them huge amounts of money.

  • Someone should .. (Score:5, Funny)

    by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <fidelcatsro AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday September 08, 2005 @03:38PM (#13512789) Journal
    Tell Rupert that he has accidentally paid for the site twice.

  • Game Spy? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by GweeDo ( 127172 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @03:41PM (#13512810) Homepage
    I wonder how this will affect Gamespy since they are owned by IGN. Gamespy is currently building the WiFi software for the Nintendo DS...
    • If they have a contract with Nintendo, and I am sure they do, it won't. Even if Murdoch wasn't happy about the deal, he would have to honor it.

    • Re:Game Spy? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Phantasmo ( 586700 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @06:43PM (#13514110)
      You mean Fox now pwns my DS?

      You have now entered MarioKartDS-US-1
      MarioBot: Welcome to the online chat!
      racerx: so who r u all voting 4?
      proluigi: cheney
      mryoshi: cheney ya
      gamemasta: i wish we could vote 4 bush again!
      collegedude: i like the look of clinton's platform actually
      collegedude has been banned by MarioBot (no political discussion please!)

  • Power...of...shit! (Score:5, Funny)

    by yoshi1013 ( 674815 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @03:42PM (#13512821) Homepage
    Unite to form...a bunch of stupid crap nobody cares about!! [penny-arcade.com]
  • What now NEWS == GAMES is always TRUE.

  • wow... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by devaldez ( 310051 ) <devaldez@comcasP ... t minus language> on Thursday September 08, 2005 @03:43PM (#13512829) Homepage Journal
    Did anyone notice the article's claim that 70 million unique visitors equates to 12 billion page impressions...

    That means that, on average, each of those 70 million look at more than 170 pages per month?!

    OMG...some people obviously have too much time on their hands...

    • Re:wow... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SlashChick ( 544252 ) * <erica@e[ ]a.biz ['ric' in gap]> on Thursday September 08, 2005 @03:51PM (#13512895) Homepage Journal
      "That means that, on average, each of those 70 million look at more than 170 pages per month?!"

      Not surprising, considering the typical game review on their sites looks like:

      [AD|AD|AD|AD]
      [company] has released a very cool new game called [title]. [token screenshot of box cover]
      [AD|AD|AD|AD]
      [NEXT] Page: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

      Click Next and be directed to an interstitial ad, then click through 12 more pages just to find out whether the game is actually worth playing or not. I've long since given up on IGN for having much actual content on their pages.

      • Re:wow... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by game kid ( 805301 )

        [AD|AD|AD|AD]
        [company] has released a very cool new game called [title]. [token screenshot of box cover]
        [AD|AD|AD|AD]
        [NEXT] Page: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

        I absolutely hate that about IGN.com, too! ...where have you BEEN all my life?!? (prepares for beating from other admirers/(present|future) husband)

        The worst part is when IGN merged with Rotten Tomatoes [rottentomatoes.com] beforehand. Since around that time, I've had to endure click-here-to-continue adpages and a first page with banners big enough to warr

      • I too was avoiding IGN for those reasons. I'd think it should be easy to find better reviews on web logs.

      • Re:wow... (Score:4, Informative)

        by Josh Triplett ( 874994 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @05:38PM (#13513772) Homepage
        Get the Anti-Pagination extension [mozilla.org] for Firefox, right-click on the Next link, choose Anti-Pagination->All, and scroll through the complete content without clicking another link.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I don't go much further than 5 pages on that site, to check the PSP and DS release date in the preview section

      That means that another user is visiting 335 pages a months!
    • You've also got to consider that every freaking article is several short pages long and there are ads between most pages in each article. One article can easily be 20 pages.
    • Come on, they just put a news on slashdot now and then et voila! 12 billion page impressions!

  • Fox News of video games (Score:4, Funny)

    by greyjoy ( 912923 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @03:44PM (#13512838)
    I'm really going to enjoy reading IGN blame homosexuals for Hot Coffee... Probably inspired by Dean's yell... Removed by Bush's fervent prayers...

    • Re:Fox News of video games (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Falconrath ( 912922 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @04:06PM (#13513038) Homepage
      Uhh, dude, IGN would never blame Hot Coffee on gay people... They'd blame it on the abortionists and the premarital sex people!

    • Strange, didn't know Fox News like Hillary Clinton (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Brian_Ellenberger ( 308720 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @05:12PM (#13513608)

      Strange, I didn't know all the conservative folks at Fox News liked Hillary Clinton. Oh, you didn't know that she was the loudest opponent of Rockstar and was the one on the news denouncing the mod and pulling out the "think of the children" card on a game already marked 17+?

      Oh, its easier to just paint all bad and evil things on GWB and the Republicans? By bad. Why not just make it easy and make all Republicans walk around with a big R on their chest? I mean, if we just "got rid" of all the Republican America would be a perfect utopia with clean air and riches for everyone. And even the trains will run on time.

      Brian

      • Re:Strange, didn't know Fox News like Hillary Clin (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        if we just "got rid" of all the Republican (sic)

        the Neoconservative and religious factions are already doing a great job of that
        • >>>if we just "got rid" of all the Republican (sic)

          >>the Neoconservative and religious factions are already doing a great job of that

          They are? It seems to me that they hold the White House, The Senate, and the House of Representatives and have not lost an important election in years.

          It also seems to me that they are poised to set the leadership of the Supreme Court for decades to come.

          They are of course being pounded in the press every day, but all their previous victories were won under the
          • They are? It seems to me that they hold the White House, The Senate, and the House of Representatives and have not lost an important election in years

            That totally went over your head. What the parent meant is that the Religious Right and the Neocons have eaten the Republican Party alive. Before it was about less taxes, fiscal responsibility, and and high military DEVELOPMENT. Now the party is about spending as much as the Chinese will loan us, ending radical Islam, and high military DEPLOYMENT.

            It use

            • Eventually all political movements overreach and the pendulum swings back. I'm not so sure why everyone gets so excited about the Chinese loaning us back all the money we spend on products from them. Eventually they will hit the same wall Japan did 15 years ago (and is now only beginning to recover from). Their corporations have the same problems that our consumers do (borrowing money they can't afford to purchase things they cannot pay for. Since it appears they are taking a similar path with their ban
      • Haha. Yeah look at what happened in N.O. Dems have been in control there for 40+ years and it's a hell-hole.

        I'll take advancement based on merrits, thankyouverymuch.
      • "Oh, its easier to just paint all bad and evil things on GWB and the Republicans? By bad."

        Just like the republitards do to hitlery clinton right? You know the women which all republitards on tv refer to as "pure evil".

        "Why not just make it easy and make all Republicans walk around with a big R on their chest?"

        There is no need for that. Just say you disagree with bush or think hillary is a nice person and the republican will be the guy whose head explodes or the guy swinging his fist at your face.

  • This should be interesting. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Scoria ( 264473 ) <slashmail@nosPaM.initialized.org> on Thursday September 08, 2005 @03:45PM (#13512848) Homepage
    Rupert Murdoch likes a cup of Hot Coffee every morning. ;-)

  • Misread this (Score:4, Funny)

    by thc69 ( 98798 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @03:45PM (#13512849) Homepage Journal
    Am I the only one who read the title as "New Corpse buys..."?

  • So....... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The question everyone is probably asking themselves right now - Is this a good or bad thing for IGN in terms of obtrusive advertisements and media content restrictions? Anyone care to provide an insight?

    I find myself nowadays not visiting IGN half as much as I used to back when the guys were covering the Japanese N64 release, and all video content was free of charge or nagging flash ads. I know the internet as a whole was very different back then, but still just remembering those innocent times makes me al
  • ARE belong to us...

    I wonder if O'Reilly can give Adam Sessler a run for his money... (Actually now that I think about it... they do look like they're related...)

    (Yeah, it's a dupe reply! Wanna make somethin' out of it!!?!)
  • but you post it again just to identify it as another section? This is why I don't like limited categorization system and why heirarchical ontologies/taxonomies are either full of exceptions like this, or of limited use.

    I have the same problem with Mambo's/Joomla's section & category mentality (effectively equivalent to slashdot's sections and topics). What is so hard about allowing a content item to exist in multiple sections?

    And I'm not talking about open ended tagging systems like Flickr or del.icio

  • This Just In: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mekkis ( 769156 ) <cyranoei@hotmail.com> on Thursday September 08, 2005 @04:04PM (#13513021) Journal
    DOUBLEPLUSGOOD NOWNEWS for 07SEP 5 yp 3rd Quarter:

    Ministry of Truth reports NewsCorp / IGN merger as doubleplusgood opp for expand of prolefeed into compnets. Oldthinking gameplayers must now reject ownlife and bellyfeel AmSoc.

    NewsCorp insists fortunate outcome: oldthinkers will learn goodthink speedwise or be sent to joycamps.

    Praise BB!
  • Fox [mediamatters.org] News! [outfoxed.org]

  • It's a media conglomerate, folks (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dachannien ( 617929 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @04:09PM (#13513064)
    News Corp [wikipedia.org] is more than just Fox News Channel and the NY Post, people. They bought out 20th Century Fox (the film studio) in 1984 and started the Fox TV network the next year. FNC wasn't started for another 11 years. As for actual "news" holdings, most of that is in Australia.

    I realize that finding ways to channel the spirit of Michael Moore onto Slashdot is an easy shot at karma, but really, by buying IGN, News Corp is just making a move toward a greater presence in Internet entertainment. There's not some vast right-wing conspiracy behind it.

    • by buying IGN, News Corp is just making a move toward a greater presence in Internet entertainment.

      Well now that depends on how you feel about IGN I imagine!
    • Of course there's a conspiracy. They are conspiring to try and get my money. You don't recognize that as a conspiracy?
    • But wait. Murdoch is an arch conservative who plows millions if not billions of dollars into media companies worldwide to advance his right wing zealotry into politics. He also finances right wing politicians. He owns multitute of newspapers, television stations, internet holdings etc.

      As for australia it is one of the spiritual headquarters of the right wing zealots. Anybody who takes even a cursory glance at what is going in the world will be able to come up with thousands of links between christian fundam
      • Murdoch reports to the institutional investors who determine his net worth daily and most of them are pissed that he (and many other famed deal makers) didn't buy up the internet when everyone was dissolutioned with it in 2002. Now all media companies are conviced that Google will eat their business in a few short years, and are jumping over themselves to show their stake in console gaming and internet media. If you doubt me, just go listen to any of the the companies that own the major studios last year
      • But wait. Murdoch is an arch conservative who plows millions if not billions of dollars into media companies worldwide to advance his right wing zealotry into politics. He also finances right wing politicians. He owns multitute of newspapers, television stations, internet holdings etc.

        That doesn't mean that everything that happens underneath the News Corp umbrella is a shill for right-wing politics. A great deal of their business is politically neutral, and some of it actually carries a liberal message [wikipedia.org] fro
    • Well, "Fox kids" had to change their name to Jetix overseas because of amazing protest from families knowing what Fox News is. (Europe) Parents simply switched channels when they see Fox there.

      Also a huge digital TV platform had to break their agreement canceling their channel because of huge amount of protest from their subscribers. I am not sure how much $$$ they had to pay removing it from package replacing it with non profit Euronews.

      Also believe me there is no Michael Moore in this thing or his evil co
  • wow...I can't help but feel News Corp got ripped off...now if it were $650 Million pennies....maybe....but even thats a little high to pay for IGN. :P

    • Re:$650 Mil for IGN.... (Score:4, Informative)

      by tokengeekgrrl ( 105602 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @05:45PM (#13513813)
      I have to concur since I used to work for IGN, back in 1997 and left a year later. I'm amazed I lasted a year there now that I think of it. There were, and maybe still are, alot of great people who worked there but the managmenet was incompetent. Absolutely no clue about application development at all. Development, test and production were all on one server.

      The guy who was my manager was an inexperienced, technically incompetent, egotistical, petty, tyrant. No one could stand him or understand how on earth he was promoted. I remember when I first started there and someone told me rife with sarcasm, you know what happens when [name of my former IGN manager] screws up? He gets a new car! You know what happens if he does it again? He gets a free vacation! He convinced the CEO to pay $50,000 for beta searching sofware because it could index images and video. I had to make it work with 5+ domains and all the domains were on SGI servers at the time and this beta software ran on Windows NT. At one point, he admitted to me that he had made a mistake and insisted that I had to make it work to cover up his error and justify the expense. On top of that, I worked minimum 14-16hr days and was paid crap, all the technical talent was paid crap. It was a nightmare.

      I did have a friend who stayed on for a while into the snowball.com days and she did tell me that, eventually, the incompetents were let go but it was long after I left.

      I do hope for the good people that still work at IGN, the merger is a positive direction for them.

      - tokengeekgrrl

  • Wow; just insane (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cpu_fusion ( 705735 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @04:24PM (#13513207)
    The prices paid for Myspace and IGN are, to put it mildly, insane. Batshit crazy.

    When business people run off and do something this retarded, it is usually with an ulterior motive. My guess is that someone is trying to reignite the insane speculation on the Internet that caused so many regular people to lose tons of cash in the stock market in the dot com implosion.

    Myspace and IGN are so easily replaceable, and hold so little in the way of solid equity, that if I was the SEC I would be looking long and hard at this.

    "Hey it's Bush on the line. He needs things to be like 1997. Pay too much for a bunch of Internet companies. We'll get the word just before the bottom falls out!"

  • Phew, good thing IGN already sucks.

    What will change when News Corporation takes over:

    If you register from a country outside of the USA it will welcome you with the text "Welcome commie pinko foreigner terrorist" whenever you login.

    If you don't have a blind idiotic obedience to the USA then any posts you make in the IGN forums will be monitored.

    If you do make any remarks or posts about USA with any kind of critcism in the slightest, then you will be reported with one of the following occuring:
    • You'll get massive amounts of advertising and "opinion" pieces but little in the way of actual content on IGN.

      I thought you were talking about things that would change.
  • Reuters - Rupert Murdoch has announced he's buying everything.

    "Yes, that's right." he confirmed via a phone call. "I've talked it over with the lawyers and some dumb Texan on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington."

    When asked why, Rupert responded, "Look, I'm going to own you, so I suggest your time would be better spent erecting seven hundred foot high statues in my honor, and sending me your nice little virgin daughters and iPods to sustain my unholy lusts. Oh, and would you mind beating Ted Turner to death
  • Games based on Fox Entertainment media, I suspect will now be better (according to reviews).

  • Oh that's right, they've allways been[AD] Fair [AD] and [AD] Balanced [AD]....
    • I remember when they were Fair and Balanced.

      Back then I wasn't looking for a decent place to get gaming info, and I was paying attention to them.

      When they got [AD]s, I got my own ADD in regards to their site.
  • I hope that they do something with all the flash-based advertisements on IGN. I had to stop browsing IGN on my mac mini because it caused my CPU load to jump up to 100%, even when in another browser tab (both Safari and Firefox). It was so annoying when I would leave the Mac on overnight, and I'd wake up in the morning realizing that I accidently left IGN open and my CPU had been running on full speed all night. I wish IGN would reimburse me for all the wasted electricity.

    • Re:IGN kills my Mac (Score:3, Informative)

      by a1ok ( 250188 )
      For FireFox, search for FlashBlock - it replaces Flash ads with an icon that you can click to actually start the flash. Quite nice imho, I definitely appreciate it the few times I visit sites loaded with Flash. Though, I don't know if it works on Macs - but since it should be in xul I *suppose* it will.
  • I remember back when IGN was owned by Imagine Media, makers of PC Gamer, PC Accelerator, and various other magazines. Back in 96 or so when the n64 section had the colored metal/flying/particle boxes from Mario 64, and I recall Toad for some reason....They were good. No constant Ads, a lot of content (much more then even Gamespot as I recall). But then Snowball bought them... Interface changed, and it eventually became nothing more then a source for more revenue to them judging by the massive number of

  • When I hear the "O'Reilly Factor" podcast, then I'll know that the apocolypse is upon us. :-D Does this mean that lies masquerading as "fair and balanced" "news" will be brought to the internet? I'm really wondering, however, what Murdoch attempts to gain in these ways. I have no experience with IGN, but MySpace is terrible software. Sure, it's convenient for me to use the social-networking aspects, but the underlying code is obviously horrible. It uses ColdFusion, so that explains some of the issues, but t

  • Which one?

    This one we're reading now News Corp buys IGN for $650M [slashdot.org]or this one IGN Purchased By News Corp [slashdot.org] posted 6 hours earlier?

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