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."
Another conspiracy theorist blogger (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Another conspiracy theorist blogger (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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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
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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 farming doesn't happen in a vacuum. (Score:2)
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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 (
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If that's the case, then it damages the game economy even worse than if they auctioned their green BoEs. In that case, greens would also be subject to the same inflation that blues and purples are.
Either way, there's no flood of "uber rare items" washing through the game economy thanks to gold farming — in direct contradiction of
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It's the same 2 or 3 people because those are the bank characters for the guilds running whichever dungeon the epics came from. Those aren't professional gold farmers. Running a dungeon takes some skill and a lot of coordination, which makes dungeon runs a gamble — and thanks to quotas, that means the gold farmers are gambling with their own wages.
People in guilds who run dungeons might sell their gold on the side, but they're not the ones working in a Chinese sweatshop where all the WoW accounts
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Re:Another conspiracy theorist blogger -- No (Score:4, Informative)
He bought thottbot for IGE.
He has more cred than you.
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Fixed.
Seriously, why not? At most that site costs around $1,000 to run, obviously meaningless if they can afford to shill out $1,000,000 for the site in the first place. Probably less since it's not providing much content (such as UI mod downloads). Forcing people away from a familiar interface certainly won't increase ad revenue.
On an added note, the talent calculator is quite useful.
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It also has a very powerful and customisable search tool compared to other sites.
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dollars?!? (Score:5, Funny)
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that's 50 VW beetles ! (Score:2)
That's 500 arcane crystals please!
or no
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Amazed (Score:1)
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Ads, of course.
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Simple (Score:2)
Simple. They just buy it!
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I can't speak for all the servers but mine certainly seems to have a healthy population. I've a reasonably large guild and we've only seen one person leave in the past few months.
If you're pitching Vanguard as a better game, mainly because of its graphics, but still saying it's boring as hell, I think you
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And that was the same experience I had when I tried to play WoW a few months ago. My first thought was "
Re:Amazed (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to see that I never thought this a problem myself, it looks and feels like a 3D environment to me. When I frst started playing, I saw a lot of similarities between WoW and WCIII and that is probably why I continue to play WoW - I like the Warcraft universe and those graphics are what I expect. I suppose people will have differing opinions though on the graphics - some people prefer the more photo-realistic approach.
I like the cartoony approach because it doesn't look odd. With fantasy worlds, there's difficult decision to be made. Cartoony graphics can work very well because it's easier to reproduce fantasy monsters. If you go down the photo-realistic approach, it becomes tricky because it can end up looking bad or just plain freaky. I'm probably not doing a good job of explaining this but I've seen rotoscoping used to recreate human animation and it just looked freaky. It wasn't a photo, it wasn't a drawing - it was a strange hybrid.
I hope the wowhead thing works out, they have a nice site there. It's true that interest in all games will wane but WoW seems to be going strong at the moment. Besides, there may be more to wowhead than the site itself. I'm sure there is some expertise and technology that comes along with it - stuff that can be applied when the next big MMO comes along.
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It's a lot harder to stop paying for a President once you bought one.
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Get your prejudices straight. EverQuest and Ultima Online are pretty old... and still in operation for that matter. EQ turned eight this year, Ultima Online turns ten in a few months.
WoW and EQ2 are fairly young in comparison at just over two and a half years old.
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8 million logged in yesterday.
"At first, it just looks like a 2D game, before you are immersed enough to realize that it's just poorly done 3D cartoonish graphics."
You misspelled "brilliant graphics".
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You misspelled "brilliant graphics".
I totally agree. I started playing WOW not a long time ago and one of the things that amazes me is the beauty of the graphics. Perhaps the actual characters are not the best ever, and maybe they are not using the latest technology but the scenery is simply amazing. I think this style of graphics was an excellent choice simply because it still looks fresh and beautiful 3 years after release and will still look like it years from now. That's an important point for a MMO which is meant to last much more than
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You guys are talking about two different things.
The graphics for WoW are fairly primitive, with low polygon counts, and, yes, cartoony.
The art for WoW is fantastic.
The decision to go with great art and fairly modest graphics was brilliant. The game stays fresh as parent says, and also (importantly) runs well on older hardware.
I started playing WoW about 3 years ago during one of the betas. I was struck by how well it played on my aging PC. I tried EQ2 at rele
Allakhazam is a Warcraft database? (Score:2)
Removing the word rumor always helps (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Re:Removing the word rumor always helps (Score:4, Funny)
i call bullshit (Score:1, Troll)
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Grammar check on aisle 5, please. (Score:2)
Has to what? WHAT?! DAMN YOU, MattHock! I NEED TO KNOW!
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I hate to be the grammar nazi... (Score:1, Informative)
Send in the clones. (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
Can someone translate this article into English for the rest of us please?
WoW? WoW Database? WoWHead? Database site?
Rich.
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Re:English? (Score:5, Informative)
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)
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all my mod points... (Score:2)
Re:all my mod points... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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My son's experience trying to sell a WoW character (Score:5, Interesting)
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"?
Re:My son's experience trying to sell a WoW charac (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't Judge So Quickly (Score:2)
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
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It's a silly policy. If I choose to ignore it I risk ha
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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.
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Anyway, perhaps I should give my son a "timeout" for do
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I do not find this completely convincing, myself, but it is consistent in its way.
Re:My son's experience trying to sell a WoW charac (Score:2)
One word: Cash.
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Re:My son's experience trying to sell a WoW charac (Score:2)
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
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Re:My son's experience trying to sell a WoW charac (Score:1)
compensation? (Score:1)
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Only if WoWhead starts charging for their database and starts banning you from running gather addons for other databases at the same time.
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I don't know - what did it say in your contract when you agreed to begin contributing?
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"money"? (Score:1)
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
Uh.... (Score:2)
As a former employee of ZAM (Score:5, Informative)
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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,
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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
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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
Man, their FAQ team works fast: (Score:3, Interesting)
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?
Hmmm (Score:1)
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,
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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
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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
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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)
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.
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.
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.
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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>).
Important new info about Affinity Media (Score:2, Informative)
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
But what if your blogger souce is a RMTer? (Score:1)
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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
Wowhead is crooked (Score:1)
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.
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Maybe it's because we use greylisting.
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SPA hasn't helped much unfortunately.
Blizzard is possibly moving into this space. (Score:1, Informative)
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wowhead sold for $1 million? (Score:1)
A bit late to the party... (Score:2)
Evil evil game. I haven't had this much fun since, well, dialing-up with a friend in Warcraft II.
Hm (Score:2, Informative)