Today Humble Bundle, one of the largest gaming online retailers, announced via a press release that the company will be joining IGN for an undisclosed sum.
According to the press release, which was received by websites such as Gamasutra, Humble Bundle will continue to operate independently with no significant business or staff changes.
"We chose IGN because they really understand our vision, share our passion for games, and believe in our mission to promote awesome digital content while helping charity." stated Jeffery Rosen, one of the co-founders of Humble Bundle. "I can’t think of a better partner than IGN to help Humble Bundle continue our quest."
According to Gamasutra, Humble co-founder John Graham and IGN Executive VP Mitch Galbraith reiterated this stance personally, making clear that IGN does not intend to change how Humble Bundle operates.
"The idea is just to feed them with the resources they need to keep doing what they're doing." stated Galbraith. He also revealed that the two companies were in correspondence with each other negotiating the deal for the past year.
"We want to stick to the fundamentals in the short term. We don't want to disrupt anything we're doing right already," added Graham. "Because of the shared vision and overlap of our customer bases, there’s going to be a lot of opportunities."
Humble Bundle, one of the fastest growing online platforms today, began as a charity website in 2010, raising over $100 million in charity over the past seven years. Recently, Humble Bundle has expanded beyond its charity bundles to include game publishing and funding indie developers for what was coined as "Humble Original" titles, such as Mighty Rabbit Studios Elephant in the Room. This has also expanded to larger games like A Hat in Time, Regions of Ruin and games that began as Humble Originals for Humble Monthly like Keyboard Sports which got fleshed out for a full release.
IGN began in 1996 as the Imagine Games Network, which at the time was five separate gaming websites dedicated to specific consoles or the PC. The websites would be combined, along with several other outlets in the network, to IGN in 1999. IGN would be one of the few gaming websites to also survive the dot.com bubble of 2000 and operated independently until 2005 when it was purchased by its first parent company, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation for $650 million.
News Corp sold IGN to Ziff Davis, under the ownership of j2 Global, in 2013 after failing to spin off the website into its own separate company. Today, IGN is still a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, but its actions here regarding Humble Bundle are independent of their parent company, meaning the decision to acquire Humble Bundle was presumably made by IGN alone.
"John and I started Humble Bundle from our childhood homes." stated Rosen. "When our parents found out that our “big idea” was basically the honor system of pay-what-you-want plus charity, they braced themselves for the possibility that we might never move out. Seven years later, thanks to the generosity of over 10 million customers, we’ve now raised $106 million for charity. We are incredibly proud of this figure, of our team, and the Humble community which got us here.
But as far as we’ve come, we know we are just getting started. Even bigger things lie ahead, and we think IGN is the perfect partner to help us get there."
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