AOL acquires GameDaily
by Ludwig Kietzmann 
{ Aug 16th 2006 at 1:55PM }
It seemed just like every other morning at the GameDaily offices. Writers furiously hunching over their laptops, an antiquated espresso machine spluttering in the background and an irate Chris Buffa demanding to know why the cleaners still hadn't removed the decomposing horse from his office. Alas, the quiet productivity came to a grinding halt as soon as the ceiling caved in and a dark shadow fell over the office complex. Moments later, squirming and screeching GameDaily employees were carried off by what witnesses could only label as a "giant ball of random stuff."
AOL's business katamari has officially picked up the GameDaily group and lumped it together with the AOL Games division. The AOL Games team will be integrated into GameDaily's editorial staff, though it is unclear at this time as to who will form the head. Ralph Rivera, Vice President and General Manager of AOL Games, explains that gaming sites "have become a valuable resource for advertisers wishing to reach the young male audience, and GameDaily is a brand that resonates with these highly sought after consumers. We look forward to continuing to serve this audience, maximizing GameDaily content with AOL's community features, and further expanding the AOL Games community."
To assuage the inevitable fears that an evil, corruptive force will somehow alter GameDaily's editorial content, it is worth pointing out that AOL acquired one Weblogs Inc. last year, a deal which included an obscure gadget blog and some other, thoroughly outrageous video game blog. We don't care who's pushing the ball -- we're enjoying the view, same as always. Welcome to the family, GameDaily.
Read - AOL acquires Gamedaily from Gigex
Read - AOL's Ralph Rivera explains the GameDaily purchase
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
machewchew @ Aug 16th 2006 2:07PM
I guess they'll have to remove the "independent" from their tagline. Is there a video game news site out there not owned by a megacorporation?
Agent MOO @ Aug 16th 2006 2:11PM
Let's see how many kamatari images joystiq can put in one news day... lol
http://agentmoo.com
AoE @ Aug 16th 2006 2:12PM
"though it is unclear at this time as to who will form the head."
ROFL! Joystiq would make a great black lion, my vote goes to you guys.
v @ Aug 16th 2006 2:12PM
Machewchew: if a site is successful, it will attract interest. Readers show up. Investors show up too.
If a site's been independent forever, chances are the product stinks so much that obody wants to buy it.
The very best news in the world is produced by organizations that are owned by Mega Corps. I challenge you to find an indie rag that matches the integrity and quality of the WSJ, Economist, or New Yorker.
tactics @ Aug 16th 2006 2:24PM
mmmm... am i the only one that thinks of tasty deep-fried strips of squid when i see the world "katamari"? :D
-"superfan" tactics.
webhead @ Aug 16th 2006 2:29PM
Technically, it is still independent. AOL doesn't develop or publish video games, so there's no conflict of interest. CGW changing to Games for Windows mag, on the other hand, is a huge conflict of interest. Can you expect unbiased reviews for PC games published by MS games studios?
Fronz @ Aug 16th 2006 2:30PM
Nice pic!
Andrew @ Aug 16th 2006 2:33PM
I hope this doesn't GameDaily's Podcast, The Gaming Noise.
R @ Aug 16th 2006 2:46PM
The fact that this isn't a good thing for GameDaily starts right where they state it's purpose (to them) is to "have [it] become a valuable resource for advertisers wishing to reach the young male audience." Shouldn't the purpose be to...I don't know, be a valid journalistic entity. The New York Times might be profitable but I don't see anyone claiming it's purpose is to print the Classifieds.
Sinnix @ Aug 16th 2006 2:48PM
So much for "Your independant voice of gaming"...
OtakuCODE @ Aug 16th 2006 3:31PM
Oh great, just what we need. Yet another gaming news place that insists games are limited to young males. Doesn't matter if we do a bajillion studies showing the gender split is almost nonexistent, or that the age of most gamers is 30 and climbing... they just keep on pounding the pavement and screaming at the sky that only 12 year old boys play videogames!
obo @ Aug 16th 2006 3:32PM
It probably won't affect content, but you can bet it'll affect advertising. And while AOL doesn't publish games now, it'll be easier for them to promote them – or, more realistically, those of their advertising partners – now that they own two quite popular gaming sites. In fact, their buying up these gaming sites just lends weight to any speculation that AOL will either get into gaming themselves or partner up with some other company to try to enrich their portal content a la Yahoo! Games.
And there's always the chance that AOL'll pull a snafu like they did with WoW Insider and run Flash ads for goldfarmer IGN alongside staff articles cursing goldfarming ads — something that wouldn't happen on an independent site with editorial control over its ads.
On the other hand, GD gets tons of financial support to do their jobs and won't have to worry too much about revenue - unless they miss the targets corporate sets and they get shuttered or rolled into Joystiq or some future media purchase.
Anyway, I can't read either article because they crash my browser.
Urbanstorm @ Aug 16th 2006 4:16PM
People still use AOL.............
Sorry figure I go there because no one else didnt.
Robin @ Aug 16th 2006 4:30PM
@v - The 'best news in the world' isn't "produced," it's just accurate. The New York Times is a good example of a 'indie rag' that hasn't been bought yet, but since neither the WSJ or The Economist are owned by megacorps either it hardly seems necessary to debate this point. Unless you consider being owned %50 percent by a publishing company as being owned by a megacorp.
Basically, your logic is terrible, and everything you wrote was untrue to begin with. Just a heads up.
BPM? @ Aug 16th 2006 5:46PM
Serious question:
Are you guys (Joystiq) allowed to badmouth AOL, even though they own you? Or do you have freedom of speech "except for that"?
v @ Aug 16th 2006 11:02PM
Robin implies the NYT, WSJ, and Economist group are, somehow small little independent organizations despite these figures:
NYT Co.: 12,000 employees; $436m annual revenues
Economist Group: 1,000 employees, $412m annual revenues
WSJ (Dow Jones): 7,000 employees, $1.8b annual revenues
At what level is a publication "independent"? What is meaningful independence? If GameDaily were purchased by THQ (a games company), it'd probably be less independent than if it were purchased by AOLTW (a content company).
Being indie is not a guarantee of quality. Editorial quality has far more to do with the management and processes in place than it does with the percent ownership of various shareholders.
Johnny G @ Aug 17th 2006 2:37AM
AOL's acquistion should shake up the gaming information publishing industry. If any of you have access to Media Metrix reports you will know that a lot of money is made according to audience reach. A lot of effort goes into getting top ranking. Right now the top two gaming sites are IGN and Gamespot respectively. They have had those spots locked in for some time. With AOL in the mix it may shake things up because AOL brings a large audience to the category and that in turn means more ad dollars going their way.
Keep an eye on what the Magazine Publisher sites do, (IDG, Future and Ziff-Davis) because this AOL deal has the potential of taking away business from these guys. IDG has had the highest ranking of the three thanks mainly to starwars.com (a non-gaming site they claim in Media Metrix as part of their gaming audience). Future has had a high ranking thanks to cheatplanet being rolled up into gamesradar.com (a terribly designed site), and Ziff-Davis gets a boost in traffic from Filefront a downloading site, formerly a UGO affilate that Ziff purchased. None of them are serioius online players. Thay all risk losing market share now. If they lose enough online advertising dollars because AOL, IGN and Gamespot take the lion's share of the advertising revenue, maybe these magazine publisher sites will fold up and go away (let's hope so) or get gobbled up themselves by a larger online entity. Bottom line, AOL's move into the gaming space by acquiring GameDaily is a smart business move.
BAd AsS @ Aug 17th 2006 4:54AM
Oh no more biased news from another Website! AOL, is looking like a little Micros(hit)oft to me.
- BAd AsS Aol Shitter
C. Grant @ Aug 18th 2006 3:18PM
obo: The WoW Insider ads thing has nothing to do with AOL. We use Google AdSense, and keyword filtering is very difficult. These gold farmers manage to get around our links.
BPMΩ: Sure, we have complete editorial control. We can write whatever we want, whether it's about GameTap (owned by AOL-TW), AOL Games, GameDaily now, or any other company. That's what AOL Games' Ralph Rivera was referring to when he said they didn't interfere in our coverage. Why buy a blog known for their editorial independance only to undermine that very same independance?