Informa Merges Digital Business of Its Tech Division with TechTarget

The new B2B powerhouse Informa TechTarget will be listed in the US, have over 2,000 employees and over 7,500 customers. While the GameDeveloper website is changing hands as well as Omdia, the Game Developer Conference seems to be staying with Informa.

The press release announcing the merger does not mention individual brands, but GameDeveloper has already commented on the change of ownership on its websites. There, the outlook on the merger is optimistic: "Our editorial footprint is greatly expanding. The combined Informa TechTarget newsroom features many of the most trusted publications in B2B media, over 300 world-class business journalists and in-depth coverage across 30+ technology segments and 45+ industry verticals", writes GameDeveloper-Publsher Alissa McAloon. All other leading editors of the websites belonging to Informa TechTarget, including Michael Eckert, Editorial Director of the German ComputerWeekly, the group's only German-language medium, posted similar articles.

At the Game Developers Conference (GDC), however, the situation is not quite so clear. The British company Informa had divided its business into different sections. The vast majority of events and trade fairs are assigned to Informa Markets, which also includes the Licensing Expos and Brand Licensing Europe, for example. But not the GDC. Like GameDeveloper.com, it formally belonged to Informa Tech, whose digital business has now been merged with TechTarget. As a result, the GDC appears neither in the portfolio of the new Informa TechTarget nor in that of Informa Markets. The former website of Informa Tech links to the new Informa TechTarget. Since the new B2B unit Informa TechTarget has no other events in its portfolio, it seems rather unlikely that a transition has taken place. Especially since the GDC site still has the Informa header.

The situation is clear, however, for the market data provider Omdia, which also works with the games industry. Omdia, which was also part of Informa Tech, now belongs to Informa TechTarget.