Google's Got Game

One of the most popular pastimes of any group of games business types gathered together is to speculate and swap rumours about the pending entry of some giant corporation into the industry. A volatile combination of paranoia and anticipation, it's a topic of discussion which assumes that the world's top media and technology firms will eventually notice the explosive growth of gaming and step in to take their slice of the pie, show us all how it's done, or put everyone else out of business - depending on who you listen to.

Of course, there are plenty of giant media and technology corporations already engaged in gaming. We have platform holders like Sony and Microsoft, and latterly Apple - while the wholly games-focused Nintendo is a giant global corporation by anyone's standards. Disney, Viacom and Time Warner are engaged, on various levels, with game development and publishing.

Still, that doesn't take the excitement out of rumour-mongering. For a long time, the beast at the gates was News Corp, Rupert Murdoch's globe-spanning media empire, which includes IGN Entertainment, but from that has a massive game publishing shaped hole in its otherwise fairly comprehensive portfolio. The rumour mill had them poised to buy Eidos on both occasions when the British publisher was sold, and a popular (if unsubstantiated) piece of gossip suggested that EA's controversial acquisition of a large chunk of Ubisoft shares a few years ago was designed as a spoiling tactic to prevent Murdoch from getting his hands on the resurgent French firm.

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