IGN and UGO (1Up) to Merge Reportedly

All Things Digital is reporting that IGN, owned by News Corp, is to merge with UGO, owned by Hearst, and the new company will be moved off to its own with the parents owning pieces of it. UGO owns 1Up while IGN, owns GameStats and Direct2Drive.

The new company would garner about 30 million visitors a month if you were to combine the numbers for the two main sites. The goal is to take on Gamespot (which owns both Metacritic and GameRankings), who is in turn owned by CBS Interactive.

What’s it mean for gaming news? Well, in the realm of gaming reviews, none of them have really been all that great for some time with ad dollars getting in the way and mostly limiting the score range from about 6.0 or 6.5 to "best game ever!" sometimes requiring them to make a "Bestest game ever" peg on the scale to top the previous best game ever statement.

A consolidation of them all means less diversity for you, the gamers seeking valid information about games. Plus, they will all probably have to tow the company line which means that corporate money and politics will most likely get in the way from time to time.

The whole idea of spinning it off to its own company is that it will be able to grow faster. Perhaps it will also mean more autonomy for the editors, but with the big companies looking over their shoulders and expecting profit in return for the initial investment it could still be problematic.

Then again, if you’re reading GDN, you probably don’t go over to those big-corporate mega-sites all that much already, right?