Lycos to Buy Gamesville.com in Effort to Boost Usage, Ads

Lycos Inc., one of the most widely used Internet search services, agreed to buy Gamesville.com, an online gaming and marketing company, for $207 million in stock to add users and advertisers. Lycos would pay about 3.7 million shares based on Monday’s closing price. It also will assume the closely held company’s stock options. Watertown, Mass.-based Gamesville.com, which is expected to have $25 million in sales this year, lets consumers play trivia, sports and card games for prizes on its Web site free of charge. Its sales and profit come from selling advertising space. It also provides information on its 2.2 million registered users to marketers.

Lycos said it expects the purchase to boost the average daily usage of its network by 20%. Gamesville.com is adding about 10,000 users a day, each of whom stay an average of almost 18 minutes at a time--second only to EBay’s auction site, Lycos said. The company, whose slogan is “Wasting your time since 1996,” has 70 employees.

Separately, Lycos said it’s expanding its game site, adding a puzzle game from Abject.com, casino games from Interactive Gaming & Communications Corp., an investment game from Maxinvest and multiplayer parlor games from Go2Net Inc.

Shares of Waltham, Mass.-based Lycos rose $2.25 to close at $58.25 Tuesday on Nasdaq.