An unconfirmed rumor also names Wilson as possibly the person behind the last-minute offer to buy Hardcore Gamer. The New York Times quotes mag owner Tim Lindquist as saying that an unnamed suitor "who had recently sold his video game business" dropped by an hour before the auction was due to close and offered a bit more than Lindquist's asking price.

The deal for the mag, rights and associated domain names, isn't quite done yet, but is expected to be finalized this week.

Reached for comment Tuesday afternoon, Wilson was first coy about the possibility that he sold his game publishing company to SouthPeak only to jump into the video game journalism business.

"Awesome rumor! I hope (the magazine I own is) Tiger Beat!"

But later said that he did talk to the magazine.

"I did talk to them and would love to help the guys find a way to stay in business, because they do it just for the love of it, and you know I have a serious soft spot for dedicated indies. But I did not and am not buying them."

But is Wilson perhaps part of a group picking up the magazine? Wilson declined to say.

He did say that he's currently currently entertaining offers for SubstanceTV.com and that he's busy putting on a charity burlesque event in Austin, Texas for Valentine's Day.

We only have the rest of the week to wait to see if he is a part of the upcoming mag deal mentioned in the New York Times.

Seemed a desperate gamble from an owner that, from his selling brief, sounded like he was in the business for the wrong reasons anyway. Yet...success! The NY Times caught up with Tim Lindquist, owner of HG's publisher Doublejump books, and learned that he somehow found a buyer for the mag.

The unnamed suitor, "who had recently sold his video game business", dropped by an hour before the auction was due to close and offered a pinch above Lindquist's asking price for the mag, rights and associated domain names. While the deal isn't done just yet, it's apparently in the later stages of negotiation.

Oh Ziff. You should have tried eBay! Maybe then you'd have found somebody who wasn't UGO.

With Magazines Folding, One Finds a Surprising Bid [NY Times, via Go Nintendo]

And that's not even the best part. No, the best part is that owners Double Jump Books are selling the magazine on eBay. So to get it, you'll have to bid. $42,001 is as good a place as any to start.

Not sure you should bother, though, as crassly, when settling on a sales pitch, Double Jump haven't exactly chosen to extol the virtues of the magazine's contribution to the medium. Instead, they're flogging it off as a swag-n-junket extravaganza.

Want your own video game magazine and have all the big game companies beg you to cover their latest games before they're released? Want to be wined and dined by Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Rockstar, Capcom, and Konami, to name a few? Want to have your editors flown on all expenses paid press junkets to Japan, the UK and all across the US? Want exclusive-access passes to attend closed, industry-only trade shows, like E3 and GDC? Good luck with that if you're starting from scratch. We've already got what takes years to build right now and it could be yours now instantly.

Enticing, sure, but with a corrupt attitude like that, it's no wonder they're being forced to sell it off in the first place. What is this, 1994? It's 2009, that kind of shit just doesn't fly.

Besides, as the EGM shuttering has shown, these days it's survival of the fittest, not survival of the fattest.

Nationally distributed video game print magazine [eBay]