The popular online gaming forum ResetEra has been acquired by the Swedish media company M.O.B.A Network for a sum of $4.55 million, though assurances have been made that little will change regarding the day-to-day management of the site.
As part of a press release, M.O.B.A Network announced that it had acquired ResetEra for $4.55 million. The gaming forum will add to the Swedish company's already large array of gaming communities, which includes a number of sites such as Dotafire.com and Leaguespy.net.
ResetEra is one of the world's biggest gaming forums, and was set up in 2017 after staff and users of NeoGAF broke away to form their own website, following sexual misconduct allegations against NeoGAF's owner and a subsequent ban on political discussions.
Despite the acquisition taking place, ResetEra owner Cerium has been quick to announce to the site's community that this shouldn't be cause for concern. "Crucially, they have absolutely no desire to change the ResetEra community or its culture in any way," said Cerium in an announcement post. "Their MO is to stay in the background and only handle the business and logistical end of things."
"It'll mainly just be someone else keeping the lights on," the post continues. "There will be no imposed changes to the rules or to the staff. Members will not have to change how they post." With around 55,000 members and over 45 million forum posts to date, it perhaps isn't all that surprising that the Swedish media company is looking to leave the sites day to day management largely as it is.
In terms of revenue, ResetEra makes its money through ad revenue and a subscription format that allows users to visit the forum ad-free. According to its press release, M.O.B.A Network has said that the site made around $700,000 dollars across the last year – a figure that they believe can be improved.
The Swedish media company says that the acquisition of ResetEra presents "serious opportunities to increase advertising revenue through a higher share of direct sales, implementation of new ad formats, and a long-term product development strategy." The network goes on to state that it estimates that the site will be able to grow sales significantly during 2022 while still maintaining its operating profitability.
M.O.B.A Network CEO Björn Mannerqvist spoke further about the company's decision to purchase the online gaming forum. "We are very excited and proud to welcome ResetEra.com – one of the world's largest gaming forum and community brands – to our growing number of brands," said Mannerqvist as part of the press release. "ResetEra.com has great growth potential, and we see significant opportunities to develop ResetEra.com, continue to grow traffic flows, improve the sales development and extract synergies within the M.O.B.A. Group."
M.O.B.A's acquisition of ResetEra marks just one of many to have taken place across the world of gaming recently. Industry heavyweight Sony has acquired a number of studios this year including Bluepoint Games, Firesprite, Nixxes, and Housemarque while Microsoft also announced its own major purchase in the form of ZeniMax Media – the parent company of Fallout and Skyrim publisher, Bethesda.
Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.