• more about

    #iac

    The Media Holiday Party Circuit: Drunken Ragers, Danceoffs, and Food at the ______ Party

    Is Ricky Van Veen Spending Too Much Time with Ben Silverman?

    Ben Silverman's New College Buddy

    read more: #acquisitions, #iac, #barrydiller, #garagegames, #videogames, #valleywag

    Barry Diller camps on GarageGames

    Barry DillerBarry Diller is easily bored. First, he was entranced by the promise of e-commerce, assembling an empire that includes such diverse offerings as Evite, the Home Shopping Network, and Ticketmaster. Then he turned his attention to search and snapped up Ask.com. With such a motley portfolio, why not add a jack-of-all-trades videogame company to your portfolio? Diller, the CEO of holding company IAC/InterActiveCorp, is focusing his energies on the videogame sector now. By acquiring a majority stake in GarageGames, which does everything from development tools and game creation to indie game publishing, Diller hopes to complement the yet-to-be launched InstantAction.com. But as usual, Diller's strategic vision isn't matched by his grasp of the technical details.

    InstantAction, you see, will host 3D browser-based games. It's an effort to find an intersection between the growing "casual" market and traditional, processor-intensive gaming fare. Of course, the main problem is most casual game players are addicted to 2D puzzle games like Bejeweled and most hardcore gamers need DirectX 10-powered graphics, a level of power most workaday PCs lack. Have fun with that Venn diagram.


    Contact information for this author is not available.