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IGN acquired by Ziff Davis

IGN acquired by Ziff Davis

IGN and its related sites have been acquired by j2 Global through its Ziff Davis subsidiary. Although the sale price was undisclosed, Bloomberg cites sources who claim it was less than the $100 million News Corp was asking for the bundle. Ziff Davis will now take over IGN, UGO, 1UP and AskMen.com. According to j2, these sites have over 600 advertisers and 53 million global monthly unique visitors.

The historical context for all this gets crazy and incestuous, so strap in, we'll try to make this easy. The zombie Ziff Davis at the heart of this current deal was acquired by j2 Global for $167 million in late 2012, after Ziff's years of financial difficulty and bankruptcy.

The incarnation of Ziff Davis that game industry watchers probably remember is the one that once upon a time ran 1UP and EGM. Those properties were sold in 2009 to the Hearst corporation, which had also acquired UGO earlier. This led to the death of EGM and reinterpretation of 1UP.

Two years later, News Corp., which owned IGN, took over the Hearst properties and, thusly, the former Ziff Davis site 1UP and Hearst's UGO.

So, now, here we are, with the reincarnated Ziff Davis taking over IGN. We think we got all that right.