“Cloud TV” provider ActiveVideo Networks has bought streaming games provider Tag Networks. Terms weren’t disclosed. The deal will help San Jose, CA.-based ActiveVideo broaden its entertainment offerings to cable operators, while Tag Networks gets wider distribution. Release

GoTV Networks, an Los Angeles-based mobile video company, has bought a handful of assets from Hands-On Mobile. The new chapter for Hands-On Mobile must be a bit of a let down after once being the fourth largest U.S. mobile game publisher. The company had raised more than $100 million in…

RealNetworks’ GameHouse is launching a new social gaming platform designed to transform single-player games into connected experiences—and to make it easier for developers to publish games across gaming portals and devices. It’s supposed to be able to “massively” scale for hundreds of millions of players. The first example of GameHouse…

After Google (NSDQ: GOOG), social gaming startup Playdom may just be the busiest internet company shopper right now. The company just made its sixth investment since raising $43 million in its first round of funding in November. Playdom’s latest purchase: Merscom, a 16-year-old company which has developed more than 250…

News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) has acquired Irata Labs, a developer of social games across Twitter and Facebook. The deal’s terms weren’t disclosed. The San Francisco company is not expected to be folded into MySpace or game network IGN Entertainment, according to the LAT, which cites unidentified sources. But Irata will…

Time (NYSE: TWX) Warner’s Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group is buying Turbine Inc., the heavily-backed massively-mulitplayer online gaming company. Financial details weren’t released, although The Boston Globe puts the sale price at $160 million, including earn-outs. Turbine had raised more than $88 million in funding from investors, including Time Warner,…

When he’s not thinking about managing DVD distribution deals with movie studios, Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) CEO Reed Hastings is thinking about math. Operating outside of his Netflix role, Hastings has acquired DreamBox Learning, which bills itself as an e-learning company. The acquisition was made in a partnership between Hastings and…

Reliance Big Entertainment, which owns Indian gaming firm Zapak, is buying a 50 percent stake in British video game maker Codemasters. Balderton Capital, which had accumulated a large stake in Codemasters between 2005 and 2007, is the other major shareholder; Balderton bought the Codemasters shares it didn’t already own in…

Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield has raised $5 million in funding for his new online gaming venture, Tiny Speck. Word that Butterfield, along with some other former Flickr employees, including chief architect Cal Henderson, were working on a gaming startup first surfaced last spring. The company is developing a massively multiplayer…

Social network Hi5, which has been morphing into more of a social gaming service, has received about $3 million in debt financing a big $23 million in funding, in a mix of equity, debt and warrants, according to two SEC documents filed this morning (Update: The company PR says these…

Tim Merel, a director at IBIS Capital, the media investment bank based in London, just came out with a very informative report on the deal activity in the gaming sector, and we’re publishing some highlights below, with the full report embedded after the jump. On the pure console video games…

Beijing-based online game developer Perfect World has bought Japanese rival C&C Media from Atlus Co. for $21 million. While the Chinese online games industry is still growing rapidly, the purchase allows Perfect World (NSDQ: PWRD) to expand into the more established Japanese market. Perfect World develops MMORPGs, and though most…

Can India do a South Korea when it comes to online gaming? Hundreds of thousands of teens there, and in China, lead the way in multiplayer games, spending committed hours at their screens. Now India’s UTV wants in on the act, setting aside $100 million to invest in freemium games…

It hasn’t been the best year for in-game ad networks, with major layoffs at Microsoft’s Massive and a poor prospects forcing IGA Worldwide to put itself on the block. But Double Fusion has nevertheless managed to raise a new funding round led by Jerusalem Venture Partners. The company isn’t saying…

Chinese online game developer The9 Limited has acquired a majority stake in Red 5 Studios, the internet gamer led by members of the team behind World of Warcraft, for roughly $20 million. The investment comes just three months after Irvine, CA-based Red 5 initiated a major restructuring that resulted in…

Popular online golf game World Golf Tour has raised $10 million in a third round of funding, which the company says demonstrates that “investors believe online sports to be a big growth area.” Have to say, however, that it’s been rare lately to see stand-alone game sites like World Golf…

Social gaming startup Playdom is putting this past fall’s $43 million funding round to quick work lately. The San Francisco company is investing $5 million in Argentina-based social gamer MetroGames as part of the South American company’s first round. The investment comes a barely two weeks after Playdom acquired Offbeat…

At the Abu Dhabi Media Summit last week, I ran into Edward M Prince Jr., COO of National Geographic Ventures, the commercial arm of NatGeo, who professed to be a big fan of ours. So lo behold, considering the opportune moment, I did a short interview with him there, on…

The long-rumored Sony (NYSE: SNE) Playstation phone is now becoming a reality. Sony is developing a new lineup of handheld products, including a smartphone that would be capable of downloading and playing PlayStation games, as well as connecting to Sony’s online media platform, reports the WSJ, which quotes people familiar…