In Russia, the Afisha entertainment publisher and Rambler web portal, which were last year merged by their respective owner ProfMedia, are buying the majority of Kanobu Network, which publishes video game-related content online.
Kanobu is described as “IGN.com for Russia” by Yakov Sadchikov. It operates Kanobu.ru, OGL.ru and GamesLife.ru. Vedomosti estimates the deal at $3.5 million.
“The number of online games is growing, but the quality of the environments is still a bit low,” writes Afisha-Rambler’s product director Pavel Rogozhin. “With Rambler-Games and Kanobu Network, we are Striving to develop a uniform framework of media and services.”
Rambler’s existing games portal claims 1.1 million monthly uniques whilst Kanobu has 3.1 million, which grew 10 times in the last year. The parties expect the online gaming audience in Russia to reach 25 million by 2015.
The monthly audience of service “Rambler-Games,” $ 1.1 million unique users (TNS Web Index, March 2011). The monthly audience of resources Kanobu Network – 3,1 million unique users (Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Analytics, March 2011), and the year it increased by 10 times and continues to grow.