News Corp acquires IGN for US$650 million

US-based News Corporation (formerly based in Australia) has announced its purchase of IGN Entertainment, a

US-based online media group, for US$650 million. IGN's assets include popular video game sites IGN.com and GameSpy.com, as well as movie and game review site Rotten Tomatoes. IGN will become part of the News Corporation's Fox Interactive Media division, which will expand the company's online presence to become the fourth largest online media company, with over 70 million individual users and 12 billion page views per month when the takeover is complete.

This deal is the third purchase of an online media company by News Corp since July. The current deals followed the previous purchases of Intermix Media and Scout Media. Over $1.5 billion has been spent by the company in acquiring online media this year, with another $500 million still to be spent under the current budget.

News Corp has been criticized for spending too much to bring IGN into the fold, including paying off the latter's US$50 million debt, since IGN has never been very profitable. However, IGN revenue has sharply increased over the past year, and it may be a profitable addition once integrated with News Corp's other online holdings.