News Corp. launches social network for gamers

Posted by Leah McBride Mensching on July 29, 2010 at 3:38 PM

News Corp.'s video game site, IGN, is looking to make it easier for gamers to connect with one another, rate games, follow games and find out the latest news relating to games, paidContent reported. The website launched a gamer-focused social network yesterday, called MyIGN.

In June, almost 103 million users visited online gaming portals, with WildTangent Network taking the top spot, with 17.3 million. Next was GSN Games Network And CPMStar (16.9 million), Nickelodeon Casual games (15.3 million), Electronic Arts (EA) Online (15.1 million) and Disney Games (14.9 million), according to Gamers Daily News.

Other sites are looking to profit from the growing gaming sector, such as Facebook and Google, which recently bought a stake in Zynga, a social game maker, GDN noted. Google is also rumoured to be in talks with EA, and EA-owned Playfish, and was in talks with Playdom (recently bought by Disney), MediaPost reported. However, MyIGN's launch beats Google to the punch, as Google is likely looking "to create a social-network to rival Facebook."

AT&T is MyIGN's first top sponsor, according to MediaPost.