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Fandom Acquires GameSpot, Giant Bomb, GameFAQs, TV Guide and Metacritic

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1–10 of 219 posts

Re: Fandom Acquires GameSpot, Giant Bomb, GameFAQs, TV Guide and Metacritic

#2
Oh god this is worrying. Fandom has already made Wikia an absolutely unusable, ad ridden nightmare, to the point many communities set up their own wikis to avoid dealing with it.

I hope they don't apply that same monetisation to GameSpot, GameFAQs, etc. Otherwise those sites will die almost overnight.

Re: Fandom Acquires GameSpot, Giant Bomb, GameFAQs, TV Guide and Metacritic

#3
Fandom has absolutely ruined all the GameSpot and GameFAQ wikis and resources I use while gaming. Their left-side nav with flyouts that don't disappear is so goddamned annoying. Fortunately, uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, and Pi-hole kill all the ads.

Re: Fandom Acquires GameSpot, Giant Bomb, GameFAQs, TV Guide and Metacritic

#6
post #2

Oh god this is worrying. Fandom has already made Wikia an absolutely unusable, ad ridden nightmare, to the point many communities set up their own wikis to avoid dealing with it. I hope they don't apply that same monetisation to GameSpot, GameFAQs, etc. Otherwise those sites will die almost overnight.

Agreed, though somehow fextralife manages to be even worse

Re: Fandom Acquires GameSpot, Giant Bomb, GameFAQs, TV Guide and Metacritic

#7
post #2

Oh god this is worrying. Fandom has already made Wikia an absolutely unusable, ad ridden nightmare, to the point many communities set up their own wikis to avoid dealing with it. I hope they don't apply that same monetisation to GameSpot, GameFAQs, etc. Otherwise those sites will die almost overnight.

> to the point many communities set up their own wikis to avoid dealing with it.

Which is a good thing honestly. There's such a big difference in usability between the independent internet that exists out of genuine passion/interest and the internet that's run by advertising companies and people looking to make money off advertisements.

Re: Fandom Acquires GameSpot, Giant Bomb, GameFAQs, TV Guide and Metacritic

#9
I've been an active gamefaqs user for over 20 years now (I actually have more GF karma than HN karma, and you only get 1 GF karma a day!), and I'm honestly kind of okay with it. Yes, Fandom's sites are filled with terrible ads and autoplaying videos and all the other things that make the internet lousy. But I'd much rather have owners that are at least somewhat related to the content than be owned by some acquisition company or giant megacorp like CBS. It just seems like Fandom will be less likely to randomly shut us down someday.

Re: Fandom Acquires GameSpot, Giant Bomb, GameFAQs, TV Guide and Metacritic

#10
post #7
post #2

Oh god this is worrying. Fandom has already made Wikia an absolutely unusable, ad ridden nightmare, to the point many communities set up their own wikis to avoid dealing with it. I hope they don't apply that same monetisation to GameSpot, GameFAQs, etc. Otherwise those sites will die almost overnight.

> to the point many communities set up their own wikis to avoid dealing with it. Which is a good thing honestly. There's such a big difference in usability between the independent internet that exists out of genuine passion/interest and the internet that's run by advertising companies and people looking to make money off advertisements.

True. Wikia's existence meant things like the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance and Square Enix Independent Wiki Alliance could put out some actually good wikis about the games they cover. Stuff like Mario Wiki, Bulbapedia, the Super Smash Bros Wiki, etc are significantly better than their Wikia/Fandom counterparts, and have proved you can defeat the service in the Google rankings by providing a better service.

Just hope your owners don't decide to cash out and sell the site to Wikia/Fandom later on, otherwise the whole branching stuff will have to be done all over again.

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