IGN and GameStop Combine Online Content and Media Sites

IGN Entertainment, the online gaming content site, and GameStop, the largely offline games retailer, are integrating their online media and retail offerings in an effort to target videogamers from discovery to purchase.

The partnership is an unusual effort, given content and retail are not often so explicitly combined.

As part of the deal, said the companies:

* IGN will be creating branded media advertising products on GameStop.com, and will be its sales representative online. Consumer advertisers will be able to buy branded ads on the retail site.

* IGN content will appear on GameStop.com, with all kinds of cross-linking, and there will be copious buttons for e-commerce on IGN.com.

* GameStop will be buying its ads on IGN.com.

* The traffic of both GameStop and IGN will be combined. Currently, GameStop has 7.2 million monthly uniques worldwide and IGN’s videogame content has 28.9 million.

IGN, which is profitable, has been pushing hard to grow its branded advertising recently, as well as its traffic.

And, over the summer, it introduced IGN Social, adding social elements, such as gamers talking with each other, to its content offerings.

(Full disclosure: IGN is a division of News Corp., which also owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)