News Corp.’s IGN Poised to Sell to J2’s Ziff Davis

According to sources close to the situation, News Corp. has almost completed the sale of its IGN gaming unit to Ziff Davis, which is now owned by J2 Global.

The price the business cloud provider — with online services such as eFax, Onebox and eVoice — paid for the gaming unit is unclear, but News Corp. bought IGN for $650 million in cash in late 2005. This transaction is considerably lower, sources said.

IGN operates a number of sites, including IGN itself, AskMen.com and Gamestats.com. Ziff Davis, which J2 bought last year for $167 million, has properties such as PCMag.com, Geek.com, ComputerShopper and ExtremeTech.

It has been on the market over the last six months, after an attempt to spin if off failed and its head, Roy Bahat, left the company.

The sale of IGN is similar to the unloading of News Corp.’s Myspace in 2011.

Pando Daily also reported the upcoming sale to Ziff Davis today.