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

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61–70 of 219 posts

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

#61
post #21

OG founder of Giant Bomb / Comicvine / Whiskey Media here. I was also at CNET during the acquisition of Metacritic and helped build large portions of Gamespot and TV.com. I'm 10-years removed from these properties so I feel OK talking about them. The sad reality is the Internet publishing is dead and as a business that business is nearly impossible to operate if you have any moral compass. In its place we have variou…

This is hinted at by dbingham's comment elsewhere, but I believe many fan communities and information stores that host user-generated content should be run as non-profits. One of my favorite YouTube channels is PanTheOrganizer, who is effectively how I learned to detail and care for my own vehicles. Far and away the best channel in that particular niche, but something that stands out about it he is extremely professi…

I think that's valid. I guess then what I'd look to create is something akin to Stripe Atlas + a content delivery platform for non-profit communities. I think it's a lot easier to just say "make it non-profit" without understanding how hard doing something like that might be for your average content creator.

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

#62
post #21

OG founder of Giant Bomb / Comicvine / Whiskey Media here. I was also at CNET during the acquisition of Metacritic and helped build large portions of Gamespot and TV.com. I'm 10-years removed from these properties so I feel OK talking about them. The sad reality is the Internet publishing is dead and as a business that business is nearly impossible to operate if you have any moral compass. In its place we have variou…

Hey Duder! Hope you're doing well these days. Thanks for all you did at Whiskey Media, and thank you for dark mode in Kibana!

Ha! Thanks!

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

#63
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isnt this why subsets of creators are excited by web3/nft sales? Theres huge backlash from their communities but most community members don’t directly pay the creators. I suppose this only solves the Patreon piece though - distribution of content takes highly skilled labor (engineers) and capex (server infra). Had you ever tried using something like AWS MediaLive?

NFT is bullshit and doesn't address any of the problems that surround content creation. Creators who push NFTs do so either because they are sponsored in the background (paid a lump sum in fiat to engage with NFTs) or have direct involvement in the market and would like to benefit from the (temporary) speculation bubble. That bubble has now died and so will NFTs.

The bubble dying is the perfect opportunity to re-examine the technology and determine whether it is a suitable means of freeing artists and creators from the problematic revenue models of major tech platforms. I pointed to the artist omentejovem in another comment[1].

[1] https://foundation.app/collection/shapesncolors?sortOrder=DE...

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

#64
post #21

OG founder of Giant Bomb / Comicvine / Whiskey Media here. I was also at CNET during the acquisition of Metacritic and helped build large portions of Gamespot and TV.com. I'm 10-years removed from these properties so I feel OK talking about them. The sad reality is the Internet publishing is dead and as a business that business is nearly impossible to operate if you have any moral compass. In its place we have variou…

[deleted]

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

#65
post #21

OG founder of Giant Bomb / Comicvine / Whiskey Media here. I was also at CNET during the acquisition of Metacritic and helped build large portions of Gamespot and TV.com. I'm 10-years removed from these properties so I feel OK talking about them. The sad reality is the Internet publishing is dead and as a business that business is nearly impossible to operate if you have any moral compass. In its place we have variou…

This is hinted at by dbingham's comment elsewhere, but I believe many fan communities and information stores that host user-generated content should be run as non-profits. One of my favorite YouTube channels is PanTheOrganizer, who is effectively how I learned to detail and care for my own vehicles. Far and away the best channel in that particular niche, but something that stands out about it he is extremely professi…

> Why does that need to be monetized?

Because it costs money. Some things, e.g. contributing to the Wikia, don't cost money, they just cost time. You can't pay for a website with time, though, you need to pay a host.

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

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4. On mobile I can't get images to display without disabling my ad blocker. 5. Despite nominally being Wikis the Fandom wikis have effectively zero Wiki-like intrapage or interpage navigation. I remember the likes of Wookiepedia and Memory Alpha before they got Fandomed. They are sad ghosts of what used to be very good fan oriented Wikis. Fandom is a dumpster fire and I wish them nothing but ill fortune.

#5 is entirely dependent on the wiki itself, which is community-driven. Fandom only provides the infrastructure and platform, which support the feature.

But the platform affects the contributors.

The dark patterns must drive many people away completely. You have to fight them every step of the way if you use the site. Who wants to see their creative work featured on such a site for sore eyes?

If it paid some people might overcome all that but to do it for free?

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

#67
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Some of the content was beyond excellent, though. Like, a text file with a guide to the entirety of Baldur's Gate 2 with location co-ordinates to every single item and interactable object.

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

#68
post #55
post #21

OG founder of Giant Bomb / Comicvine / Whiskey Media here. I was also at CNET during the acquisition of Metacritic and helped build large portions of Gamespot and TV.com. I'm 10-years removed from these properties so I feel OK talking about them. The sad reality is the Internet publishing is dead and as a business that business is nearly impossible to operate if you have any moral compass. In its place we have variou…

I think the hard, honest answer is getting people to pay for things. Netflix, Prime Video, etc. have leap-frogged TV in terms of audience enjoyment by optimising for being a good product that people will pay for. The hard thing is getting people to recognise the options in front of them: pay for the thing you enjoy, or have it slowly turn to shit as it desperately morphs to optimise for ad money. Patreon is in a simi…

Netflix has gone completely down the shitter in the last decade.

Ruined the UI, got rid of all the good content and replaced it with C-tier series that get canceled before concluding anyway. Oh, and have basically doubled prices. I canceled a year ago and haven’t missed it in the slightest - and I had it back when it was still dvds by mail.

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

#70
post #21

OG founder of Giant Bomb / Comicvine / Whiskey Media here. I was also at CNET during the acquisition of Metacritic and helped build large portions of Gamespot and TV.com. I'm 10-years removed from these properties so I feel OK talking about them. The sad reality is the Internet publishing is dead and as a business that business is nearly impossible to operate if you have any moral compass. In its place we have variou…

You're asking tech bros who get paid $250K/year running those very scams you've just outlined.

Hey now, it should be readily apparent that most of us didn't sell out that cheaply :P
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