IGN Garage Sale, Only $850 Million

[Evil Avatar]

VE3D is reporting (http://ve3d.ign.com/#629201) that IGN is looking to sell themselves off (http://www.gamedaily.com/general/article/?id=8911&game_id=&source=00001) for the whopping price of $850 Million.

According to the NY Post, IGN Entertainment is seeking buyers for their internet empire. Reports say the company is looking to sell for nearly $850 million, and may go public. Great Hill partners purchased IGN in 2003 for $26 million. Lehman Brothers, a global finance firm, is helping the company explore its options and large media conglomerates, such as Viacom, are among IGN's top suitors.

According to Media Metrix, IGN and its sister sites attract over 25 million users a month. This includes GameSpy, RottenTomatoes, FilePlanet, TeamXbox, and VE3D. IGN also provides online gaming technology for hundreds of video game developers.The most hated video game network on the Planet is looking to sell out? Almost a crying shame.

[Genital Eclipse]

Hated. Roger that f5 f5

[Evil Avatar]

Hey, as long as people are selling out, I'll sell EvAv.com for say... $2 Million and change. And you can get that without the pop-up, pop-unders and interstitial ads. ;) What an amazing bargain.

Just mail the check to...

[bapenguin]

Man...850 million for that Junk? It'll cost that much just to "clean up" all those sites :)

[Heretic Machine]

I'll buy that for a dollar.

[ReaverX]

Hey, as long as people are selling out, I'll sell EvAv.com for say... $2 Million and change. And you can get that without the pop-up, pop-unders and interstitial ads. ;) What an amazing bargain.

Just mail the check to...
Wow man, you've changed... You used to be about the music...

[Evil Avatar]

Wow man, you've changed... You used to be about the music...

It isn't me. I've been beat down by da man. :(

[zipR]

rottentomatoes is pretty good. The rest of it is pretty "meh."

[DevDict]

"When IGN network discovered that three quarters of their workers were illiterate, a decision was made to hire private tutors for their employees. The total price of educating their employees rose to 849 999 999$ as few professionals were willing to undertake the said task."

I wonder what will happen to GameSpy, my favorite corporate gaming website.

[Justin_McElroy]

I want to meet these goddamn financial wizards at Great Hill that apparently increased the value of IGN 32 times over in the middle of the dot-com bust.

Oh, and also, when Electronic Arts buys the whole thing, I'm just gonna start slapping first-graders.

[sebastard]

Believe it or not, an Internet portal that can attract 25 million viewers a month, in the _very_ attractive 18-34 male demographic is worth alot of money these days. The dot-com bust is long gone, and everyone's moved on and there's alot of money in the web content space again.

I'd be curious to see what their sales vs profits look like, but I'm sure they make good money (a private equity firm would never have gotten involved if that wasn't the case even when they were first bought for $26M).

I work in the middle of this particular industry, and while things aren't quite the way they were before (you can't walk into any VC and walk out with $40M), it's a good time to sell these kinds of properties at the moment.

Plus they're asking $850M but they'll probably settle for half that if a serious offer comes around and it's cash on the table.

But you are all correct, if it sells, the websites will only get worse in terms of ads and monetizing "features", as whoever buys them will want to squeeze every penny out of the properties to recoup their investment.

Gamespy is another story though. Their game server browser middleware is actually quite popular, and robust, and is being used by a multitude of top-level game publishers, so that part of the company is no doubt contributing heavily to the high asking price for the network.

[ÜberJumper]

Hmmmm I wonder who will buy them?

[Deadend]

Remember, were in the dot-com bubble part 2 : Google can, so can we!

Google is worth shit-tons, so every other website must be worth shit tons too, espically if they get hits.

IGN moves slow and has horrible layout for finding news and their layout completely sucks for finding new thing.

I could see it being worth $850,000,000 just because it gets hits and you decide to divert it into the worlds biggest spyware/porn site, or some other way of measuring hits being similar to money, because IGN gets pageviews like none other, but really making money? I just don't see it.

[KarmaGhost]

rottentomatoes is IGN owned? I had no idea; that would be the only IGN site I enjoy, then.

[Justin_McElroy]

Rotten Tomatoes is great, but you're dead on about IGN.com itself. Trying to get to the new Transporter 2 trailer today...ugh. It's the ugliest, slowest-loading site ever. It's like a Blockbuster Video threw up on my computer, and then someone poured molasses all over it.

[screwtape]

How much for the 9.5 review score generator?

[Goronmon]

You have to remember, IGN isn't just IGN.com.

What you get along with IGN.com (http://corp.ign.com/properties.html)

[snubber]

How much for the 9.5 review score generator?

Hahah.....

[netcraazzy]

I think a big publisher like EA could profit from the gamespy browser since they could include it in all their multiplayer games without paying a 3rd party to license the technology but I don't know what they would do with the rest of those sites.

[mister_slim]

Maybe MS will buy them and tell Nintendo: "No online service for you!"

I'd laugh.

[RMan]

I guess they noticed that Google is worth nearly 100 times that and figured they'd take a shot that there were more crazies out there looking to get fleeced.

[ElPresidente]

Taken from another news article today...

"Likewise, it is up to you to monitor how companies are doing and report every dip in stock price of manufacturers of other consoles. You're all experts in the fields of economics and finance, so your analyses will always prove correct."

Amusing that despite such an attitude being ridiculed in an earlier article today that people so quickly trip over themselves in a race to throw themselves under the scrutiny of the above statement.

This price is not so amazing for IGN, especially when you take into consideration all its assets. Internet marketing is my job and I've seen dot coms sell for much higher than this and seen its investors see a return even on such large sums.

[bjornbarspingvinen]

I want to meet these goddamn financial wizards at Great Hill that apparently increased the value of IGN 32 times over in the middle of the dot-com bust.

Oh, and also, when Electronic Arts buys the whole thing, I'm just gonna start slapping first-graders.
They have been putting cash into their pockets for years anyway...
:D