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GameFAQs Acquired by CNET
Gamefaq addict writes "GameFAQs has apparently been sold to CNET. The operator says it will stay free for now, but premium services may be introduced later." Looks like a good deal all around. CNET gets the first site most people turn to when they need to get past level two of the dungeon, and GameFAQs gets an added boost. Makes me curious what premium features they have in mind, and how useful they'll be.
I think I liked the internet much better when information was listed on websites for the use of everyone, not to sell to a large company to make a buck.
Just one of the many reasons I hate the internet more and more everyday.
There used to be tons of free content regarding every subject I could imagine. What happened?
Why is it when I do a search for anything, I have to include "free" only to be given lists of websites that say they are, only to outright lie.
I don't care about having to do a few extra searches, it just seems to me that the more and more content that is online, the harder it is for me to find legitimate information without someone wanting to take money from me.
Grr. GameFAQS will be the same way. They will charge just like IGN, and they will fade as well.
What happened to, For the love of the game?
http://use.perl.org
The announcement said:
You still own what you've submitted to GameFAQs.
If you've submitted FAQs, codes, reviews, or other content to GameFAQs over the years, it's no more CNET's than it ever was mine to own. You still have the right to remove anything you've submitted to the site, although naturally I'd be more than happy to try and talk you out of it. Your work was not sold to CNET; in fact, it was specifically excluded.
Concerning the cost:
GameFAQs will still be free. We're not cutting off any part of the site and making you pay for any of it. From the FAQs to the Message Boards, everything you see today for no charge on the site will be free tomorrow. While we may someday introduce new features that require payment, nothing you see today is going to be turned into a premium service.
I have to admit that I am a bit skeptical myself, but I have enjoyed Download.com and Computers.com free of charge for a couple of years now. I have benefited a lot from GamFAQs. I'm glad he'll get a paycheck AND a pager-free vacation from time to time.
- http://www.braveterry.com/
And here's why... all the content on gamefaqs was written by people sitting in front of their computer/PS2/XBox/Nintendo and writing down the information. It wasn't written by "journalists", but by fans. Fans like these despise ad-cluttered, overly-designed sites like GameSpot or IGN.
The result? The faq-writing "scene" will just migrate to a new site. All you people bitching, get off your duffs and get some hosting offering MySQL and CGI access. It's all plaintext, it's not hard to store. Recreate gamefaqs somewhere else. It's not going to be hard.
GameFAQs presents an interesting business dilemma. The proprietars don't own the resource people come for. GameFAQs consists of FAQs which are written by amatures and whose work the authors retain the copyright upon. As an author of several pieces on that site, GameFAQs has no more right to sell my work than any other publication.
So what is being sold? A well-respected name, first of all. The rights to control which directions the site takes. The ability to more tightly integrate with Gamespot.
Is GameFaqs going to change? I tend to doubt that. As a community-driven site, I would expect that major changes would cause a backlash, and a backlash on community sites means that you not only have less visitors, but you have less authors, which in turn reduces the visitors even further, and so on.
Why would C-Net, the company that bought news.com, gamespot.com, zdnet.com, and just about every other techie site out there, buy GameFAQs? Because GameFAQs is both a good property and is profitable. The owner actually makes a living with ad sales, enough of a living to go on vacation. It's profitable, it's shining, it's relied upon by many, many gamers... It could be used to drive traffic to Gamespot, it could serve as a gateway to Gamespot's paid professional FAQs, or it could just have been bought because it was shiny and well loved, and C|net loves to buy shiny things.
I'm not too worried here. Good decision, GameFAQs guy.
The ______ Agenda
as I can throw them. A couple of years ago, their builder.com had a free message board, The Builder Buzz, that was an excellent source of knowledge for all things related to web design/programming. All of the content was user created. Then, when CNet realized they were bleeding money, they decided to cut everybody off and charge for access to the Buzz. We could no longer access the posts that we had written, some of which we spent a great deal of time on.
Hopefully, this won't happen to gamefaqs, as it is another one of my favorite sites. I do think there is a glimmer of hope due to the fact that the licensing of the FAQs on gamefaqs is spelled out pretty plainly, but frankly, I would not put it past cnet to pull some legal trickery to get around it.