Just a few weeks after UGO bought out 1Up.com, a somewhat smaller but similar game media deal was announced on Tuesday night. Gamefly, best known for their console rental business, bought out popular indie game site Shacknews and its corresponding file site FileShack. Big Download chatted with Gamefly co-founder Sean Spector on the phone briefly today to talk about the purchase.

Believe it or not this is not Gamefly's first such deal to purchase a gaming content site. Most people may not be aware of this, but Spector told us that the company also owns and operates three cheat code web sites (CheatFreak.com, ConsoleCheatCodes.com, and CheatServer.com) along with a free casual game site (Ponged.com). However this is by far the most high profile deal that Gamefly has made in this space. Spector told us that they initially approached Shacknews founder and owner Steve Gibson "about six months ago" to first discuss the acquisition.

As to why Gibson himself is not staying on board at Shacknews, Spector told us, "He's been running the site for a long time and he wanted a more normal life," Spector said that while Gibson won't be working on the day-to-day operations at Shacknews anymore, he will still have some kind of involvement in the site with Spector saying, "He and I have become friends,". Another co-founder, Maarten Goldstein, will stick around in some capacity for now. The other two editorial writers for the site, Nick Breckon and Chris Faylor are now, 'full employees of Gamefly," according to Spector. Spector said that other unnamed members of the Gamefly team will be in overall charge of actually running the site.

Spector said Shacknews, which includes a huge community that generates thousands of comments a day, will remain the same, saying, "We don't want to change the site in a meaningful way," However he does see the possibility of Shacknews' content expanding its reach, including syndicating its news to other sites including Gamefly.com. And what about buying other such game content sites? Spector told us, "There might be others. There's nothing I can talk about at this time."