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Role Playing (Games) Businesses The Almighty Buck

WoW Database Site Sells For $1 Million 132

MattHock writes "Wowhead (a WoW information database) has been sold to ZAM (Affinity Media) for the price of $1 million. ZAM is the owner of several other WoW databases, including Thottbot and Allakhazam. Until recently Affinity was also the owner of IGE, a highly controversial company that sold in-game wealth for real life money. Affinity recently sold IGE, which Wowhead claims as the reason they allowed the sale to go through. But did ZAM really sell IGE? The blogger who put this story online doubts that IGE and ZAM have actually distanced themselves. He believes that the supposed sale was just actually a means of restructuring to hide the relationship, similar to how IGE's relationship to Thottbot was hidden for a number of months through a convoluted set of parent companies."
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WoW Database Site Sells For $1 Million

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  • by FireballX301 ( 766274 ) on Sunday June 24, 2007 @05:35AM (#19626607) Journal
    From wowhead's press release, they were explicitly told that neither ZAM or its parent companies controlled IGE or other gold-selling operations, and that no gold-selling ads would appear on wowhead.

    Ultimately, as long as no gold selling ads appear, the wowhead user won't see a difference, and the wowhead staffers pocket a good chunk of change. Whether ZAM in fact does own IGE or support chinafarmers isn't relevant as long as it's properly compartmentalized away from wowhead.
    • by klingens ( 147173 ) on Sunday June 24, 2007 @06:33AM (#19626791)
      So it's OK to do bad things if you don't see them?

      So it's ok if the FBI uses illegal means to snoop on citizens phones cause they also hunt serial killers, just as long as it's properly compartmentalized? Hezbollah can kill as many Israeli civilians as they want as long as they keep their soup kitchens for the poor Lebanese and build social housing for them?

      If it's true that IGE is still owned by ZAM or involved with them, then wowhead is in the same position as an italian restaurant owned by the Mafia: while the restaurant itself does nothing wrong and might not even cheat on taxes, it's still part of an illegal crime operation.

      Also: ZAM did own IGE in the past which means the money ZAM paid to wowhead owners was earned with chinafarming. It is "dirty" money.
      • Why do people not get this:

        Who the hell cares?

        There is a market for gold, people are getting paid for it. Not every single GP is from chinese farmers and anyone who claims that it "ruins the game" has no idea what they are talking about. The latest enhancements have made it so that you have to do actual work on your character to get the best gear (actually fight other players) which gold can not buy you.

        IGE has hired former Blizz execs. And this whole "class action lawsuit" against IGE is a load of BS. Gold
        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          You sound somewhat biased towards the secondary market there, I'm curious to know if you have any (reliable) sources for the claims you are making? Specifically the "hired former Blizz execs." Anyone can make wild claims based on pure speculation and rumour, but you really need to be able to back them up when trying to dismiss an argument.

          My understanding of the secondary market is that it encourages the exponential creation of game currency in order to have currency to spend. As the amount of game curre
          • Gold farmers don't simply farm gold. While they are killing mobs they are also accumulating drops. So while they are increasing the supply of the gold they are at the exact same time increasing the supply of uber rare items. Whenever supply is low enough for an item the gold farmers see the higher prices as a chance to make a profit and farm those items to sell for gold that they can then trade for $$$. I remember back when I played WoW and certain essences were impossible to buy off the auction house, when
            • Gold farmers don't simply farm gold. While they are killing mobs they are also accumulating drops. So while they are increasing the supply of the gold they are at the exact same time increasing the supply of uber rare items. [...]

              I call bullshit. Gold farmers don't farm Molten Core every night; they farm areas with lots of weak mobs that they can AoE to death. Blue drops from garden-variety mobs are almost unheard of, so the result is that the green "Bastard Foo of the Whale" drops are overrepresented (

    • by Snaller ( 147050 ) on Sunday June 24, 2007 @08:28AM (#19627221) Journal
      He worked for them.
      He bought thottbot for IGE.
      He has more cred than you.
    • It's the same deal you already have on thottbot and Allakhazam (no gold selling ads). WoWHead was interesting because it wasn't owned by a Gold Farming company and well maintained - at least one of these advantages is now gone.
  • dollars?!? (Score:5, Funny)

    by doxology ( 636469 ) <cozzyd@NOSPAM.mit.edu> on Sunday June 24, 2007 @05:37AM (#19626609) Homepage
    how much is that in gold?
    • I don't know what the conversion rate is anymore, since 2.1 was rolled out.
    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      *puts pinky to mouth* It's ONE HUNDRED gold!!! Muwhahahah!
    • That's 50 VW beetles. ... ow, you wanted it in gold?
      That's 500 arcane crystals please!

      or no .. as the best gnome I can be .. I will tell you for a price, how about that?
    • by sohp ( 22984 )
      The best deals current run about 10g per US dollar, so that's 10 million in WoW gold. Enough to buy epic flight training for you and all your guildies and have enough left over to get that [Elegant Black Dress].
  • Wait how do they make money?
    • by Kidbro ( 80868 )

      Wait how do they make money?

      Ads, of course.

      • by WarJolt ( 990309 )
        That amazes me. How many of you clicked on that ad to make the site worth $1 million?
        • All these high dollar buyouts seem to taking a bubble shape once again. Sure ad revenues provide more solid revenues than the late 90's bubble, but I'd imagine there will be a breaking point at some point in the future.
          • by flitty ( 981864 )
            Well, as long as the developer has their hearthstone going, the bubble collapse should not affect them.
      • Selling gold, of course. Even if they've sold off IGE they still made INSANE profits when they owned 'em. Considering how IGE has been more or less endorsed by Blizzard, you just KNOW they made a shit-ton of cash.
    • "Wait how do they make money?"

      Simple. They just buy it!
  • Then what the hell did my doctor prescribe me? I'M SO ANXIOUS.
  • by niceone ( 992278 ) * on Sunday June 24, 2007 @06:00AM (#19626713) Journal
    The rsit like of TFA:

    There's a lot of buzz in the World of Warcraft fan site universe this morning, with reports and rumors flying about fan sites being sold, about $1 million sale prices...

    not quite as exciting as the slashdot headline I guess...
  • this is just an attempt to suck someone else into buying into it. no wow site is worth 1 million or even CLOSE
  • Wowhead (a WoW information database) has to ZAM (Affinity Media) for the price of $1 Million.

    Has to what? WHAT?! DAMN YOU, MattHock! I NEED TO KNOW!
    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Can't you read? They have to ZAM, at least if they want the million dollars they do.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    but 'just' goes after 'actually' and you can't remove the verb 'bought' from the first sentence just because it's in the headline. I hate to be this guy, but that blurb was just about the most painful read I've experienced in recent memory.
  • Send in the clones. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Funkcikle ( 630170 ) on Sunday June 24, 2007 @06:26AM (#19626765)
    The reason Wowhead is, in my opinion, the best WoW database around is the quality, depth and range of the content followed by the actual design of the site. Compare it to Alla's/Thottbot's/etc hideous design and swollen out-dated information, filled with crap comments, spam and overloaded with adverts. It's a bit like how Google was a few years ago compared to Yahoo and Alta Vista.

    This sale is probably a bad thing, in terms of quality of the site as it currently stands. Thottbot was used to launch that .ani vulnerability [worldofwarcraft.com] a while back too. I expect more adverts, changes in the design to accommodate more adverts, a flood of new users filling it with crap and spam just like all the other sites...

    Still, not bad money for what is essentially a pretty front-end to content other people have created for you! What a shame that something about the whole deal just seems...suspicious. The press release [wowhead.com] is cringeworthy - full of "We're sure these guys are HIP and COOL!" and "We'd NEVER do anything EVIL! We're not GOOGLE!" crud.

  • English? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Richard W.M. Jones ( 591125 ) <rich@annexia. o r g> on Sunday June 24, 2007 @06:42AM (#19626833) Homepage

    Can someone translate this article into English for the rest of us please?

    WoW? WoW Database? WoWHead? Database site?

    Rich.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
      From the attached icons, something to do with "role playing games", whatever they are.
    • Re:English? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24, 2007 @07:54AM (#19627097)
      WoW: World of Warcraft

      Wow Database: A database which contains information useful to players of the game. This information includes items usually obtained by killing monsters in the game, recipes obtained from vendors and also from monsters, character classes, races, locations, quests, etc.

      WowHead: Located at www.wowhead.com it has become the most popular WoW Database site since Thottbot, www.thottbot.com was sold to IGE. IGE is a site that sells in game gold for real world money. The virtual economics of doing this are beyond the scope of this post, but it generally ruins the complex virtual economies of the games. WoW is by far not the only MMORPG (Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game) to have virtual currency being sold by IGE and others for real world money.

      Database Site: A web site which is primarily used as a database. This could be for an online game, an inventory checker, values for your collection Beanie Babies, anything. Just raw data that can be searched and compared with other data. In a gaming database such as WoWHead, this would allow you to see if your "Sword of Ultimate Doom" has an upgrade available, and which monster you'd need to kill or quest you'd need to complete in order to obtain this upgrade.

      Rezzah
      70 Priest of Radiant Dark
      Windrunner Server - Alliance :)
    • Re:English? (Score:5, Funny)

      by eht ( 8912 ) on Sunday June 24, 2007 @11:28AM (#19628039)
      If you don't know, telling you won't make you care.
    • Sooo, you need 'database' explained to you, and you read Slashdot?
  • ... go to someone who can sift through the rumors and tease out the facts, if any, in this story...

    • by ringbarer ( 545020 ) on Sunday June 24, 2007 @07:21AM (#19626987) Homepage Journal
      FACT: ZAM now own the three most visible sites which support players of World of Warcraft. These sites provide in game support, listing rare in-game items, as well as locations of rare spawns. Combined, these three sites could provide a goldmine of information about what is popular and what will sell well at the moment.

      FACT: ZAM once claimed ownership of a Gold Farming and Selling business, IGE. These businesses thrive by attempting to gain a monopoly on popular and rare in-game items which are then subsequently sold for real world cash.

      FACT: Both Alkhazam and Thottbot were recently 'compromised' by an Internet Explorer vulnerability that installed a keylogger. This Keylogger gathered WoW login details from unsuspecting visitors, and used these details to dissolve the players' virtual assets - transferring them to Gold Farming and Selling businesses. This occurred after ZAM claimed to have sold their stake in IGE.

      SUPPOSITION: WoWhead will find itself similarly 'compromised' in the future.
    • While I'm not sure since I am a bit unfamiliar to WoW since I sold my account to IGE (ironic, eh?), but apparently character selling/buying and gold farming is a very lucrative business. Yes, I know that selling characters is a contraversial legal issue, but I had to. Making a profit from playing a video game is very appealing. For those who buy characters for a large sum of money... I don't quite understand it. You are essentially paying someone to play a game that you pay for. Seems like a lot of pay
      • by ortholattice ( 175065 ) on Sunday June 24, 2007 @09:28AM (#19627477)
        I am not into WoW and barely know what it is, but my son has is trying to sell his character and has gotten several offers of $200-$400. But selling them has so far proved impossible due to fraud. Since he is underage, he has been using my PayPal account, so I know what's going on there. So far, he has been scammed no less that FOUR times trying to sell his WoW account - each time the payment was reversed after several days by PayPal because the payment was "unauthorized". Most recently, he thought the problem could be solved by selling only to a PayPal "verified" account; the money actually went through and I successfully initiated a transfer to my checking account. No go - a couple of days later, the transfer was reversed by PayPal because the transaction was "unauthorized".

        Each time he has given the WoW character to the buyer when the payment came through, and each time he was able to get the character back via Blizzard. But they must be getting tired of this, and I don't know how long they will keep giving him back his "stolen" WoW account.

        I told him to wait for a week (or two?) until the money has finally cleared before giving the WoW account to the buyer. He says no buyer would go along with this - how do they know he's not just scamming them?

        Overall, this has been a unpleasant experience. I have no idea if these fraudulent transactions are threatening cancellation of my PayPal account, hurting my credit rating, or whatever. Another mysterious thing - someone (unrelated to any purchase) deposited $0.01 into my PayPal account.

        Each one of these buyers, when contacted via email, simply didn't answer. If their accounts had been stolen - say via all those PayPal phishing emails - as PayPal suggests, one would think they would at least have the courtesy to reply that "yes, my account was stolen, and I didn't authorized that transaction" - but no, silence. Weird.

        So, I have no idea how he can sell his WoW character reliably. As an outsider, to me the WoW community looks like a den of thieves and scammers. How do other people sell their characters? How does the seller insure the buyer won't reverse the payment? How does the buyer prevent the seller from taking it back, claiming it "stolen"?

        • by Fex303 ( 557896 ) on Sunday June 24, 2007 @10:35AM (#19627803)

          So, I have no idea how he can sell his WoW character reliably. As an outsider, to me the WoW community looks like a den of thieves and scammers. How do other people sell their characters?
          It's not that WoW is a den of scammers. The character buying and selling is where the scammers are. You're dealing with a bunch of people who want to buy a character and pretend that they did all the work for it. By definition, these people are somewhat dishonest.
          • It's not that WoW is a den of scammers. The character buying and selling is where the scammers are. You're dealing with a bunch of people who want to buy a character and pretend that they did all the work for it. By definition, these people are somewhat dishonest.

            I think it's unreasonable to jump to a claim of dishonesty.

            I've had an account since the day of release, and I haven't reached level 60 with any character, although many people I know have several. I simply have neither the time nor the incl
        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by BrerBear ( 8338 )

          I am not into WoW and barely know what it is, but my son has is trying to sell his character and has gotten several offers of $200-$400. But selling them has so far proved impossible due to fraud.

          Just so you know, what your son is doing is against the Terms of Use [worldofwarcraft.com](Section 8) of the game. So you shouldn't be too surprised to encounter shady dealers in the process.

          Each time he has given the WoW character to the buyer when the payment came through, and each time he was able to get the character back via Blizzard. But they must be getting tired of this, and I don't know how long they will keep giving him back his "stolen" WoW account.

          Somehow, I'm guessing the phrase "the person we sold our account to never paid up" did not occur during these Blizzard support calls.

          • Thanks for the info, I didn't know that. It seems they are saying that selling the character would violate their copyright ("Blizzard owns, has licensed, or otherwise has rights to all of the content that appears in the Program"). However, this seems to go against the first-sale doctrine [wikipedia.org]. I guess it would boil down to whether the "Terms of Use" constitute a legal contract that trumps the buyer's rights under copyright law. Or something like that.

            Anyway, perhaps I should give my son a "timeout" for do

            • My understanding is that Blizzard leases with you the right to play with their "toys", that Blizzard, rather than the player, owns the character, and that the items within the game are not considered goods as such, any more than the score of a baseball game is a salable good.

              I do not find this completely convincing, myself, but it is consistent in its way.

        • So, I have no idea how he can sell his WoW character reliably. As an outsider, to me the WoW community looks like a den of thieves and scammers. How do other people sell their characters? How does the seller insure the buyer won't reverse the payment?

          One word: Cash.

          • by LocoMan ( 744414 )
            Even then (from what I've read in the WoW forums), you can revert the info on an account using the original credit card it was signed up with in the first place... at least I heard there of a couple of cases of people that bought a character, and after the payment went trough and they changed the account details, later found it reverting back to the original owner and password changed.... so it's really a two way avenue, you can't really insure you'll get the payment anymore than the buyer can't assure you'
        • So, I have no idea how he can sell his WoW character reliably.

          Selling an account violates the terms and conditions of playing the game in the first place (as does buying gold). So I wouldn't hold your breath looking for a reliable way.

          As an outsider, to me the WoW community looks like a den of thieves and scammers.

          Well you are dealing with a section of it that runs scams (i.e. T&C violations). So that isn't surprising.

          BTW, how can you stand to use a 'payment' provider that just takes back money that is
        • Your son is attempting to sell something that does not belong to him. That is where the fraud begins.
        • Think about it this way - your son could have sold his account four times, kept the money, and had Blizzard give the account back to him every time, doing exactly what ya'll have done thus far (if he could have found buyers who would not cancel the payments). Doesn't that sound a little fishy? The ripped off buyers couldn't complain to Blizzard because buying an account is against the ToS anyway.
  • I contributed to that database, as did many other players. Where's our cut of the profit for the sale of our game data?
    • Um, sounds like what Gracenote did to the CDDB, doncha think?
      • by Rakarra ( 112805 )
        Um, sounds like what Gracenote did to the CDDB, doncha think?


        Only if WoWhead starts charging for their database and starts banning you from running gather addons for other databases at the same time.

    • I contributed to that database, as did many other players. Where's our cut of the profit for the sale of our game data?


      I don't know - what did it say in your contract when you agreed to begin contributing?
    • Can you read? Cause there was a nice long agreement you agreed to by posting that said you don't get any of it.
  • I don't get the "money" tag.

    Is it used to tag stories that are about money? Obviously not, because this about the specific sale of a site, not about money itself.

    Is it used to tag stories that involve the transaction of money? Possibly, but so many things in our commercial world involve the transaction of money, the tag would become useless if applied with any consistency. Besides, the "business" tag is far more appropriate.

    Is it used with a negative connotation to demonise certain parties in certain mutual
  • I have no idea what you just said.
  • by loki_ninboy ( 992401 ) on Sunday June 24, 2007 @12:16PM (#19628335) Homepage
    I used to work for Allakhazam, and I was employed around the time of the Affinity Media/Allakhazam merger, and I can tell you, before the owners of Allakhazam.com signed any papers to sell the site, they wanted to make sure that the site was as far removed from the IGE portion of the company as possible. Their stance has always, and probably will always be that the selling of virtual currency degrades the experience for everyone. There was a huge uproar on the forums about this merger just for the possibility of there being gold selling ads on the site, and the site lost a few subscribers based on the fact the Affinity would be involved somehow. But it was always the stance of the admins and owners of the Allakhazam site that RMT ads were not tolerated in any way, and worked hard to stamp out those ads.
    • they wanted to make sure that the site was as far removed from the IGE portion of the company as possible

      What does this mean? That they have desks at the opposite corners of the building?

      Ultimately, "owned" is "owned." What RMT operations want isn't just ad space: it's insight into the mechanics of the games and the players' behavior in those games, to design both services that they can sell (such as power leveling) and to determine mechanisms for generating in-game money (farming spaces, high-value quests,
      • What does this mean? That they have desks at the opposite corners of the building?

        ZAM, to my knowledge was still handled out of Philly, while the rest of the sites were handled elsewhere.

        As for the data-mining process, the databases and client list were and I believe still are, completely seperate. Yes, the compaines such as IGE would regularly hotlink items they are selling to sites such as Thottbot and Alla, but I know when I was working for Alla, even after the merger, we would still block the access to hotlink items from the IGE site. The only way Alla and Thott ever got the item

        • The databases that I am talking about are the game-driven ones: items, jobs, quests, crafting, etc. The stuff that is more the stuff of Thotbot, but which is part of every major game site. It reveals a lot of the mechanics, and particularly where supply isn't meeting demand, or where opportunities for (in-game) profit are.

          I don't have a big stake on the RMT question myself. The fact that there is the possibility for interesting contradictions, and that people with very different views on the topic are inter
  • by sabernet ( 751826 ) on Sunday June 24, 2007 @01:03PM (#19628575) Homepage
    How can I believe any of this is true? I read on another site that a former employee says this is all false.

    John: I would strongly caution people not to believe all the rumors they read. For example, it came to my attention that the individual who leaked the story about the Wowhead sale supposedly not only owns competitive content properties but also is the partner in a successful RMT site. Like all Internet rumors, it is just that, but please consider the source when you hear damning stuff. Why not take a free shot at your top competitor. If the rumor above is true about the source of these comments, it is of course the height of hypocrisy.

    So you are sure Wowhead will not have gold ads now?

    John: 100% sure. Neither Wowhead or the ZAM Network have ever had gold or powerleveling ads, and they never will. We sold IGE. We are clearly separating our business from those practices. Why would we start running gold ads now?


  • by jadin ( 65295 )
    Wowhead had an april fools joke on their front page about being bought by blizzard for 7 million. Funny that their joke is now reality.

    Blizzard itself now has a WoW Database online. It has a lot of functionality and unique aspects.. the only thing it's missing is exact percentage of drop rates. I wonder if a third-party database is worth anything outside of advertising for gold sellers. I'm guessing Wowhead owners saw this as their chance to get while the gettings good.

    Lastly, after thottbot was bought out,
    • by Old Wolf ( 56093 )
      Blizzard itself now has a WoW Database online. It has a lot of functionality and unique aspects.. the only thing it's missing is exact percentage of drop rates.

      Well, thottbot drop rates are not very accurate either, for quest items.

      Also, sometimes even the drop rate for non-quest items just seems to be wrong, leading me to suspect that the rate has changed at some point but Thottbot is using all historical data to calculate the percentage. It should include the option to limit drop info to say the last mont
      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Kabal` ( 111455 )
        The reason that quest item drop rates are particularly inaccurate is because it counts ALL kills of that mob - yet only people killing the mob WITH the quest have a shot at getting the item. Therefore the drop rates reported on thottbot are much lower than what they are in reality. How much lower depends on how popular that mob is to kill (while not having a quest to do so).

    • Blizzard itself now has a WoW Database online. It has a lot of functionality and unique aspects.. the only thing it's missing is exact percentage of drop rates. I wonder if a third-party database is worth anything outside of advertising for gold sellers. I'm guessing Wowhead owners saw this as their chance to get while the gettings good.

      Wowhead currently has 3 things that trump the Blizzard Armory:

      1) It is a hell of alot faster
      2) It has all the quests, which is one of the most important things for m

      • by jadin ( 65295 )
        True.

        I quit a while ago and my memory forgot a lot of the features.

        Being able to vote up and down comments based on quality is also quite helpful.
  • Conspiring much? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Vandell ( 1119599 ) on Sunday June 24, 2007 @05:43PM (#19630193)
    There's so much misinformation being spread, it's sickening.

    Okay, listen carefully. Affinity Media owns ZAM, and once owned IGE. Semi-recently they have sold IGE to a private investor, since others were complaining and the company was hurting AM's image.

    But, you ask, why aren't they announcing anything? There's two reasons:

    1) The sale transaction between IGE, Affinity Media and the private investor that bought IGE is, well.. PRIVATE! IGE does NOT want to be known as a 'notorious company', and have very likely bartered for privacy. So if anyone asks a suit from IGE, it is an all likelihood that they will deny saying a word about it ON PURPOSE. Also, IGE is now solely based in Hong Kong, and doesn't have really have an outlet in North America or the United Kingdoms.

    2) Affinity Media is undergoing reconstruction. Go to their website, AFFINITYMEDIA.COM, for more information.

    Also, I'd like to point out something - if you go to any website affiliated with the ZAM.com network, you will not find a single RMT-based ad, at all. I DARE you to try and find one.

    Gamasutra.com: When we first met, you said, 'Oh, I bet I know what you're going to ask me about.' What did you think I was going to ask you about?

    John Maffei (senior vice president of Affinity Media, owners of ZAM.COM and WOWHEAD.COM) : Oh, just everyone has been so interested in the IGE thing, because IGE is a controversial business. Very controversial, and we'd always kept this incredible differences between the businesses.

    If you go to any of our sites, you'll never see a gold-selling ad. The guys who founded our business, guys like Jeff Moyer and Bill Dyess, they've got absolutely nothing to do with that other side of the business.

    So for us, it was a positive, in that we thought, for the people who cared, that's no longer an issue. Since it's a private company, a private transaction, we're not releasing actual news on terms. But we're no longer in that business.

    Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?st ory=14235 [gamasutra.com]


    Prove that the VICE PRESIDENT OF AFFINITY MEDIA is lying. (See my gamasutra.com snippet above.)

    Seriously, do you all think that every company on the face of the earth is just one big corrupt entity? Lighten up, people. The marketplace is constantly, CONSTANTLY changing in order to adapt to the changing consumer. All of the websites on the ZAM.com network no longer have any RMT advertisements anymore. AT ALL. And this includes Wowhead.com.

    I honestly don't see any reason - and I'm going to bold this now, again - for THE VICE PRESIDENT OF AFFINITY MEDIA to flat out lie to everyone, only to have people scrutinize his statement with a fine-tooth comb and then have someone explode it as controversy and bad business practices. That doesn't make money.

    So, you know who has more cred than some junky blogger with a 'he said she said' news story? The vice president of a company. Shut your yaps and at least attempt to get your facts straight.

    I'm getting redundant now.

    • Redundant indeed. That's a copy paste from the official game forums and everything.
    • by aapold ( 753705 )
      Ludicrous. That would be like the Vice President of the United States flat out lying.
    • I honestly don't see any reason - and I'm going to bold this now, again - for THE VICE PRESIDENT OF AFFINITY MEDIA to flat out lie to everyone, only to have people scrutinize his statement with a fine-tooth comb and then have someone explode it as controversy and bad business practices.

      Hmm. Honestly, you have more trust in people than I do, and I consider myself a pretty strong optimist. Corporations, politicians, parents... they all lie at some point or another. They think they won't be caught, or they didn't think up a good way to spin the truth before the interview, so they lie reflexively when the question comes up. It happens, it will always happen. I've done it myself (In my defense, I was dead at the time</obscure joke>).

    • I've recently come across some important new info that has shaken my entire argument.

      The Chairman and CEO of Affinity Media is actually Brock Pierce, a major shareholder of IGE (though the source is possibly not updated) [1]. In the past (at the age of 18) he has been closely linked with the trafficking of minors for use in child pornography [1 and 2], though has been excused from these charges for undisclosed reasons.

      My opinion still stands about the company Affinity Media and that they're actually try

  • Tis a pitty really that people are citing Ahmed as a reliable source when he is actually a partner in lewt DOT com (link broken deliberatly), one of the biggest spam happy RMT sites out there. I post on allakhazam and we regualrily see spam posts from them, shortly before the administrators remove them from the site. If we're seeing them, i'm guessing there are alot of them http://img479.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ammohn9.j pg [imageshack.us] I posted on his blog, but Mr. Ahmed doesn't want you to see the truth. He did
    • Um, those links don't say the things you say they do.

      His "defense" of RMT was more like a set of observations about legal status and producer response. And his site is a (dated) guide on how to make money. Does he have RMT ties? No more than ZAM does, apparently. And the "getting rid of IGE" is something of an exaggeration: their owner seems to have transfered ownership of IGE to another founder of IGE, but the ties are still clearly strong (the owner of Alliance Media is obviously friendly with, and worked
  • I sign up to services like this with a particular format email address, usually something like "wowh_nospam@mydomain.com". I like to see who then turns around and uses my email address for either spam or as a return recipient.

    Pretty much as soon as I signed up for wowhead I found it being used in said return recipient field in a lot of spam that has come back to me since then.

    They're useless, dirty, dishonest, thieving wankers.
    • by k8to ( 9046 )
      Odd. My wowhead-specific address hasn't gathered any spam.. yet.

      Maybe it's because we use greylisting.
      • My domain only recently received an SPA line in it's settings, so that could have been a factor.

        SPA hasn't helped much unfortunately.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    The Armory [worldofwarcraft.com] started off as simply a way to get character profiles, but in the latest major revision, they added a functional item database. Now you can click on an item in a profile (or directly search for it), and get info about where it comes from. If it is a drop, it will tell you what NPC drops it. If it is crafted, it will tell you what is required to craft it. If it is a quest reward, it will tell you what quest you need to complete to get it. It displays this in a fashion very similar to Wowhead,
    • One nice thing the Armory does is they don't say it has a 1.2% drop rate, they just say rare or medium chance of drop. It really needs some speeding up though, it's dreadfully slow most of the time.
  • How much is that in Linden dollars?
  • Now that I've wrapped up my Master's Degree, I've finally found time to actually play WoW. One weekend, 8 hours of sleep, and (only) 13 levels later, I still have no idea what this article is about ;-)

    Evil evil game. I haven't had this much fun since, well, dialing-up with a friend in Warcraft II.

  • Hm (Score:2, Informative)

    by jfodale ( 1032534 )
    Why all the speculation? They've got a FAQ [wowhead.com] about the acquisition already up.

"Conversion, fastidious Goddess, loves blood better than brick, and feasts most subtly on the human will." -- Virginia Woolf, "Mrs. Dalloway"

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