WoW Database Site Sells For $1 Million

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."

Comments

Send in the clones.

[Funkcikle]

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 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 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.

Re:all my mod points...

[ringbarer]

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.