A company owned by the daughter of disgraced media-mogul Rupert Murdoch has entered the social gaming industry for the first time. Elisabeth Murdoch’s Shine TV production company, owned by News Corporation, purchased the social gaming start-up Bossa Studios.
Murdoch identified that “As a global content company, we are committed to producing exceptional experiences across multiple platforms and developing direct-to-consumer models.” She added that they have “identified social gaming as a critical component to this strategy.”
Critics will point to the fact that the last time News Corp decided to go all social on us was the ill-fated purchase of MySpace. When it was at its height the site was the place to be before being beaten to a mere glint in Facebook’s eye. Murdoch will be hoping that doesn’t happen here.
Elisabeth shouldn’t be taken lightly either. She attempted to kick off a catfight between herself and Rebekah Brooks by telling the redhead she had “fucked the company,” in the wake of phone-hacking allegations that are still ongoing.
The social gaming industry is one that many in the gambling industry are trying to take advantage of with Zynga leading the way with their Texas Hold’em poker product. Virtual currency is also something that will have an undoubted influence on social gaming industry sites in the future due to the fact that governments have little control over the spread of it and it gives citizens a lot more choice. Sites like BitCoin, although in their infancy, have already started to penetrate and with Facebook credits and zCoins used by Zynga, it has quite the presence already.
Facebook relaxed its rules in terms of gambling industry advertising just last month and it may mean that we see the presence of the gaming industry stepped up on social networks in certain locations. As for News Corp, just remember that now you’re in the gaming industry, it doesn’t mean you can start hacking all out phones. I’m not sure you’d like what you find either!
For anyone that missed it here’s Rupert getting a pie in the face:
