AOL Acquires GameDaily From Gigex

AOL LLC announced that it has acquired GameDaily, one of the Internet's leading independent video game publications, from Gigex, Inc. AOL's agreement with Gigex closed on August 10th, 2006. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Founded in 1995 and based in San Francisco, CA, the privately-held Gigex serves the mainstream gaming audience with its GameDaily.com website, one of the top three most visited video gaming information destinations on the Web. In addition, the company reaches industry decision makers each day with the GameDaily Biz newsletter, the most widely read video game trade publication.
As part of the agreement, AOL will acquire both the GameDaily consumer website (http://www.gamedaily.com) and the industry-leading newsletter, (http://Biz.GameDaily.com), which just received a "New First" award for its outstanding ongoing coverage of the video games industry by AEIM*. GameDaily will become the flagship video games brand within the AOL Games network, and will be united with content and community features currently found on the AOL Video Games website (http://www.aol.com/videogames).
In addition, the AOL Video Games editorial team will be integrated into the GameDaily editorial staff to create the new GameDaily editorial team. The GameDaily Biz newsletter team will also operate under the newly combined AOL Video Games-GameDaily editorial team. Additionally, certain GameDaily content partnership agreements will be transitioned to AOL.
"Video game 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," said Ralph Rivera, Vice President and General Manager, AOL Games. "We look forward to continuing to serve this audience, maximizing GameDaily content with AOL's community features, and further expanding the AOL Games community."
In addition to GameDaily.com, the AOL Games network also includes AOL Games (http://www.aol.com/games), one of the Web's best destinations for casual and downloadable games from leading publishers; AOL Video Games (http://www.aol.com/videogames), gamers' leading online resource for video game news, previews, cheats and original programming such as the interactive Inside the Game feature; and the recently acquired Games.com, an extension of AOL Games' best-of-breed casual games available at one of the most popular URLs among Web users seeking games content.
GameDaily is AOL's fourth announced acquisition of 2006, following the acquisition of Userplane last week, Lightningcast, Inc. in May, and Truveo, Inc. in January. Other recent corporate acquisitions by AOL include Music Now, LLC, Weblogs, Inc., Xdrive, Inc. and Wildseed, Ltd. - all in 2005.