Source: Game Research Society
Maybe some people will wonder, IGN is just a game media, how can it buy other companies with so much money?
The wind of acquisition in the game industry has finally reached the field of game media.
In the early morning of May 22, IGN Entertainment, the operating company of the well-known game media IGN, announced the acquisition of Gamer Network, a British game media company.
Gamer Network is a company mainly engaged in digital news media. It operates many famous game media, including Eurogamer, Gamesindustry.biz, Rock Paper Shotgun, VG247 and board game media Dicebreaker.
In addition, Gamer Network also holds some shares of the well-known "Digital Foundry", NintendoLife and other game websites. Before the acquisition, these media websites were influential in the game industry.
Although the specific terms and amount of this transaction have not yet been disclosed, we can still see the context of this acquisition from some news six months ago - last November, Reed Pop, the parent company of Gamer Network, was already considering whether to sell Gamer Network and its related businesses. According to Reed Pop's statement at that time, the emergence of the epidemic forced them to cut their businesses, and the game media just became victims.
Reedpop acquired Gamer Network in 2018 and described the acquisition as a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity". However, under the management of Reedpop, the operating condition of Gamer Network is getting worse and worse, and layoffs have become a common occurrence within the company. By 2020, the founder of Gamer Network left his job resolutely, and now it is not surprising that he has fallen to the point of being acquired by IGN.
At the same time as the acquisition, Gamer Network experienced another round of layoffs. We don't know how many employees were affected by this layoff. At least, the chief editor and deputy chief editor of Gamesindustry.biz and Rock Paper Shotgun have indicated the fact that they were fired on social media.
Maybe some people will wonder, IGN is just a game media, how can it buy other companies with so much money? However, in the recruitment information of IGN, they have disclosed to all applicants how large the game media is today:
"IGN has more than 286 million users worldwide every month, and more than 56 million fans on social media and YouTube. Every day, IGN publishes content on 35 platforms, including TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat Discover."
20 supported languages, 30 global divisions and 110 countries After the news of the acquisition came out, netizens generally took a pessimistic attitude towards it. Everyone was worried about whether IGN would grow into a giant enterprise monopolizing the market, and whether the acquired game media could write independent and objective news and evaluation in the future. However, Dark1x, a member of the Maoist Society affected by the acquisition, dispelled netizens' concerns on his Twitter: "We are safe! We will even become better."
This is certainly not the first time that IGN has acquired other companies. As early as 2017, Humble Bundle, a digital game store dedicated to charity, has been acquired by IGN Entertainment.
At that time, the co-founder of Humble Bundle announced that IGN would help the company continue its mission of "developing charity while selling wonderful digital content"; The executive vice president of IGN also said that they did not intend to make any changes to Humble Bundle's operating model. To this day, they are still raising donations for charities, which can be regarded as their original intention.
In any case, the acquisition of Gamer Network is just to further strengthen IGN's already stable position in the game news market. As for whether the media acquired by IGN can maintain their original intention in the future, it may be time to prove.
