The online gaming world just got a little smaller as Uproar.com Wednesday acquired competitor iwin.com.
What this means for marketers is the gaming site will likely work its way into their media buys.
Not including overlapping users, the combined population of unique visitors for the sites combined is 9.2 million people.
While iwin.com had worked to create promotions and sweepstakes for clients such as Fox, this activity will take a back seat to beefing up Uproar.com as the top gaming destination.
“The strategy in our minds is really a consolidation strategy to get big,” said Chris Hassett, president of Uproar.com, New York. “The emphasis going forward is on the destination.”
Exceptions may be made, however. “We may help out key customers [by building programming],” said Hassett. This was something Uproar.com has dabbled in by “dipping our toe in the water.”
Still, the idea is bigger is better. “Given the demand for profitability, the fastest and best way to do that is to consolidate with other industry leaders,” said Hassett.
“Our primary business is running the largest destination site in the online entertainment space and leveraging the user attention that’s given to our site. That scale will allow us to get to a new level. We’re now 60 percent larger than our biggest competitor — Disney,” Hassett said.
Because of the acquisition, the site expects to generate enough ad revenue to become profitable by the end of next year vs. the end of 2002.
