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

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

#11

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

onychomys wrote: post #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…

Another 20-year GameFaqs veteran, and all I can say is, no. Dear god no. The last thing I need is a freaking autoplay video with an impossibly-tiny 'x' button in the top-right corner obscuring display of my plaintext walkthrough.

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

#12

Post by bdw5204 »

CM30 wrote: 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.

GameFAQs has already been dying for the last 10-15 years. Its amazing how most of their user reviews are from 2000-2005 or so and how frequently they don't even have guides for games anymore. Their message boards went from being notoriously overmoderated with tons of silly rules like a ban on profanity to notoriously undermoderated with very few rules (but what few they have are still enforced bureaucratically) and lots of trolls.

CBS did not do a good job of running it especially after the site's founder left so its good that they're selling it. Its just probably not good that Fandom is buying it.

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

#13

Post by unethical_ban »

onychomys wrote: post #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…

I haven't been active for about 17 years, but I got on GF in 2002 for the Final Fantasy VII walkthroughs. Then I fell into this weird roleplay community of "factions" that existed on some old game boards for Atari 2600, I was part of Z-Tack. Then there were some people who build clones of the message boards, mostly in PHP. Outboards, Darkside Legion, Magician Type 0 were some of their names. I built my own clone largely from scratch (and with some help staring at leaked source from Outboards) and that's how I learned PHP3, MySQL, XHTML and CSS while listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers and techno.

The boards now look like shit, but then, the Internet has changed in 20 years. All good things come to an end.

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

#15

Post by spywaregorilla »

CM30 wrote: 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.

I casually end up on a fandom wiki every now and then. What's the main criticism?

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

#16

Post by Macha »

CM30 wrote: 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.

Fandom is just rebranded wikia, for what it's worth

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

#17

Post by barbariangrunge »

I heard on Reddit that those gamespot shares were red hot! Joking aside, I wonder what the end result of all that on their share price was years later

I do use metacritic and gamefaqs from time to time. I wonder what will happen to them

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

#18

Post by the_lonely_road »

bdw5204 wrote: post #12
CM30 wrote: 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.

GameFAQs has already been dying for the last 10-15 years. Its amazing how most of their user reviews are from 2000-2005 or so and how frequently they don't even have guides for games anymore. Their message boards went from being notoriously overmoderated with tons of silly rules like a ban on profanity to notoriously undermoderated with very few rules (but what few they have are still enforced bureaucratically) and l…

I was a heavy user of gamefaqs for many years but had almost forgot they existed. The YouTube let’s play completely replaced it for me and I’m guessing for most of their userbase as well.

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

#19

Post by navbaker »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #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.

It's definitely a shame. GameSpot was one of the first gaming websites I found when I really started using the internet seriously in the late 90s. One of my fondest memories around gaming is Greg Kasavin replying to a question I submitted for a weekly Q&A he did where I asked about Baldur's Gate 2 and if I, as a newbie PC gamer jumping over from consoles, would be good to go starting there or if I needed to play the first one :)

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

#20

Post by Macha »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #15
CM30 wrote: 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.

I casually end up on a fandom wiki every now and then. What's the main criticism?

1. Autoplay videos done by fandom editors who may not have read the source material or even their own wiki article inserted at the top of pages just so they have video to justify video ads

2. Large portions of the page dedicated to "engagement bait", e.g. related articles in a permanent sidebar (mixed with ads), piles of random forum discussions/elsewhere on fandom links at the end of the page.

3. Open a fandom page with your adblocker off. Video ads in the header, in a floating overlay, randomly mid article, etc.

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