After hi5 came close to calling it a day altogether, it seems as though they’re on one heckuva rebound, and obviously putting the social networking chips in the gaming basket was the right call. Announced on Wednesday, hi5 has acquired Austin, TX based social gaming company Big Six. Announced separately, Big Six’s founders Kevin Gliner, Monty Kerr, and Chad Hansing will now join hi5’s management team. These three will now also join one of hi5’s most recent acquisitions, Alex St. John.

The main draw for hi5 is/was Big Six’s proprietary commerce platform. This new acquisition will allow hi5 to expand their commerce in virtual goods and games sales. hi5 currently employs a commerce system that includes a universal virtual currency that can be spent in any of their titles. This acquisition brings new technology to hi5 in terms of payment processing, fraud detection and conversion optimization. As an added bonus to the deal, Big Six have also designed a social gaming platform that will now become part of the core hi5 site.

“The Big Six team and technology are a perfect complement to what we have already developed at hi5,” said Bill Gossman, CEO of hi5. “Over the last two years, we have made a substantial investment in building out the industry’s most robust commerce infrastructure for virtual goods and gaming and this acquisition will considerably augment both our commerce platform and domain expertise.”

“We are excited to be joining a company that shares our philosophy and vision for how social gaming will evolve,” said Kevin Gliner, co-founder and CEO, Big Six. “This deal is a perfect match because it enables us to accelerate our go-to-market plans by leveraging hi5′s huge global audience.”