It's no secret that News Corp. has been trying to sell gaming portal IGN for some time. It even floated an aspirational price to the Wall Street Journal: $100 million.

We've heard all sorts of rumors about who the buyer could be since that article -- even including at one point the raging LA upstart Machinima.

PandoDaily has learned from two sources that a deal is finally very close and that the buyer is one people weren't expecting: Ziff Davis. We couldn't get confirmation of the price, but we'll keep digging. We're told it's below the $100 million asking price, but that it was appealing anyway because it was a cash offer.

Ziff Davis is a digital media company that operates PCMag Digital Network among other properties focusing on the technology space. The company, itself, was acquired by business cloud services J2 Global Communications in November 2012 for $167 million in cash.

We'll continue to report more as the story develops.