The latest big-company-acquires-other-big-company news for once doesn't concern Embracer or Tencent — instead, it's all about Fandom, a for-profit wiki hosting service covering news and information from a huge range of media, in an acquisition that seems to have surprised many.
In a post on Monday, October 3rd, Fandom announced that they had "acquired a portfolio of entertainment and gaming brands" for a reported $55 million, according to the Wall Street Journal (paywall). The deal includes GameSpot, Giant Bomb, GameFAQs, and Metacritic from Red Ventures, the previous owners, who had themselves acquired the portfolio from ViacomCBS.
Metacritic is an aggregation site for game review scores, which is notable for providing an average score for games — a fact often used by development studios as a benchmark for a game's success.
GameFAQs has been around since the '90s, as perhaps one of the most memorable places to find ASCII walkthroughs and answers to obscure questions about puzzles and boss battles.
GameSpot is notable for launching the careers of names like Greg Kasavin — mostly known now as the writer and creative director at Supergiant Games — and Jeff Gerstmann, who was fired from GameSpot in 2007 over a negative review of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, which had led to publishers threatening to withdraw their advertising from the site.
Gerstmann would go on to found gaming website Giant Bomb in 2008 with fellow former GameSpot editor Ryan Davis. In 2012, Gerstmann was brought back into the fold when Giant Bomb was acquired by GameSpot parent company ViacomCBS as part of a combined gaming portfolio, but ViacomCBS later sold the site to Red Ventures.
Rumours have been swirling around Giant Bomb since a mass departure of talent in mid-2021, when veteran 'Bomb cast members Vinny Caravella, Alex Navarro, and Brad Shoemaker left all at once to start their own project, Nextlander, having been at Giant Bomb since the beginning. Gerstmann himself left the team in 2022.
Fandom spoke on their announcement post about their plans for the sites, which revolves around providing "immersive content for our partners, advertisers and fans" as well as expanding their "global fan platform to super serve entertainment and gaming fans":
The new combined platform will drive engagement across every step of the consumer journey - reference, community, trends, ratings, reviews, news and commerce.
With the addition of these gaming, movie and TV platforms, Fandom will extend its 360 programs for its advertising partners - including game publishers, studios and streaming services - and enhance the data and insights within FanDNA, Fandom’s proprietary data platform.Additionally, the deal will fuel Fandom’s affiliate and commerce efforts including accelerating revenue on Fanatical, its gaming commerce business.
This acquisition — which also includes Comic Vine, Cord Cutters News, and TV Guide — is the latest in a string of purchases for Fandom, following on the heels of Screen Junkies, Gamepedia, D&D Beyond (which they sold on to Hasbro), and Focus Multimedia.
Let us know your thoughts on this latest round of acquisitions in the comments.
[source about.fandom.com]
Comments 43
That's a big get. I use Fandom sites a lot in my day-to-day browsing (the amount of wikis I've visited under their ownership is staggering) so this is a nice bit of news to hear when I also use sites like Metacritic and Gamefaqs a ton.
My only concern really is that they'll try and change the layouts of the site since, while the wikis I've visited work, they're usually a bit temperamental so as long as that doesn't change, I'm cool with this.
Gamefaqs RIP, it was nice knowing yah. Couldn't care less about any of the others.
Just really hope they don't break GameFAQs...
I've followed Giant Bomb since its conception, through ups and downs. It currently has a good crew with a nice amount of content going out.
Hoping they'll be able to stay strong.
NL. Promise me you will never, EVER run ads the way fandom does. We need a light
I'd noticed fandom wikis becoming more common, but I didn't realize they were making enough money to buy other major gaming sites. I only rarely use any of these, but I hope they mostly leave them the way they were.
At this point this might actually count as a monopoly
Fandom SUCKS with their ads, they’ve become a lot worse since they changed their name from Wikia to Fandom.
Not good. When I first got the internet in 1999 you'd view hundreds of different (uncensored) websites made by ordinary people while "surfing the web" and it was a fascinating time but I've seen the Internet getting smaller and smaller, more and more corporate, with search results usually sending you to the same dozen websites. Now it seems it's on it's way to becoming smaller still... 😑
Wow, play taps for Metacritic, Giant Bomb, and Gamespot. This isn't good.
Welp, GameFAQs had a good run
Didn’t Wizards of the Coast recently but D&D Beyond (to fully bring it into the D&D family)?
so they're all going to total trash like every gamepedia-based wiki then huh
So many buzzwords, so little sense.
Fandom really has that much money?! Guess it makes sense seeing how much ads there are, but still!
Also RIP Gamefaqs.
I followed Giant Bomb since its inception, and it's sad to see it continue to lose its identity, and gradually get worse, year after year.
So some guy in a suit has thought they can monetise popular sites, I guess. Erm...yay?
nooo i hate fandom mediawiki wiki.gg and gamepedia are better
I remember joining Gamefaqs in 2000 and then Gamespot and IGN in 2007. I found the Communities unfavourable let's just say so I came here in 2013. I just regret not joining sooner as I used to visit this website a LOT before joining.
I just know Fandom as that company that makes every wiki really annoying to browse, so this doesn't seem like great news.
@yuwarite their podcast is in dire need of an editor — it pushes three hours, half of which is just the hosts talking over each other about irrelevant topics.
@Clyde_Radcliffe Yeah, going on the internet used to be an adventure
I hate Fandom (even though I edit on it daily), and I hate GameSpot, so it's like a match made in heaven. Or hell in this case.
Back up all your nice plaintext gamefaqs, because Fandom is coming with intrusive ads, autoplaying videos, and other garbage you don't want!
I stumble onto fandom every now and then and it is the most annoying experience to use on a cell phone. Whether that’s by design to get you to accidentally watch the videos/ads or if they’re just out of touch thinking that the video doesn’t take up much of a computer monitor (meanwhile taking up half of my phone’s screen) either way it’s a terrible experience every time.
Welp it was a good run gamefaqs.
Well, they sure spent that money that they got from Hasbro for D&D Beyond fast.
So guess they'll all turn into video-clogged messes that basically don't function without adblock on then.
@KateGray Fandom didn't buy D&D Beyond they sold it to Hasbro.
Most of these sites have been terrible for a long time now. Gamespot is one of those big early gaming sites that really lost it's appeal over the years and fell apart for me. Gamefaqs is still a good site for looking up games, but the rest of the site has aged poorly. Metacritic has always been a useful review site but it's always been a rather poorly ran website as well.
@Clyde_Radcliffe Yup, everything on the net these days seems to be owned by some massive entities and controlled by corporate interests. It's why the "dead internet theory" has become a somewhat popular thing.
I feel like the internet used to be like walking through a forest with different plants and animals and it felt like exploring. Now it feels like this huge monoculture field of corn from Interstellar...
I acknowledge the rose tinted lenses, sure, but still. 😕
GameFaqs got me through a lot of tough (gaming) times back in the day. Other than that, all of those other sites are garbage sites I pay no attention to.
I haven’t used GameFaqs since the dot matrix printer era, but it’s sad to hear it’s gone downhill and now been assimilated. The other sites I’ve never visited (was GameSpot a print magazine once?) so no big loss.
I get all the gaming news I need from NL and a few Japanese retro game streamers on YouTube. Here’s hoping you don’t get sold out anytime soon!
😭GameFAQs was the last site, if not only site, that felt like it was run BY Gamers.
I only use gamefaqs (and not in ages) so none of this means much to me except cementing greed is a rampant mental illness that is actually celebrated.
@PBandSmelly It's 2022 and you don't use an ad blocker? What? Don't think I've seen an ad in years on my phone.
I wonder what ever happened to CJayC on GameFAQs. I used to live on those boards in the late 90s. Ah well... Another day, another monopoly...
Just went to GameFAQs and they put a poll about if people liked the acquisition... basically everyone hated it
55 MILLION dollars and yet their wiki still has the worst ads on mobile I've ever seen lol
I don't care much for the others (haven't used or visit them since atleast seven years ago) but I can only hope Fandom leaves GameFAQs as they are, but thats obviously asking for too much.
@Tasuki Thanks for that! I've edited it.
Wait, "TV Guide" still exists?! Who still reads such an archaic publication anymore?
@Clyde_Radcliffe Then again, this method of consolidation and professionalism has also served to make the gaming info you find online much more accurate, while the remaining inaccurate info out there can be easily debunked with just a little more searching.
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