The latest big-company-other-big-corporate news doesn’t concern Embracer or Tencent for once – instead, it’s all about Fandom, a nonprofit wiki hosting service that covers news and information from a wide variety of media. a purchase that seems to have taken many by surprise.
Fandom announced it in a post Monday, October 3rd. He said they purchased a “portfolio of entertainment and gaming brands” for $55 million, according to the report. Wall Street Journal (paywall). The deal includes GameSpot, Giant Bomb, GameFAQs and Metacritic from Red Ventures, previous owners who bought the portfolio from ViacomCBS.
Metacritic is an aggregation site for game review scores notable for providing an average rating for games – a fact often used by development studios as a benchmark for a game’s success.
GameFAQs have existed since the ’90s, perhaps as one of the most memorable places to find ASCII steps and answers to vague questions about puzzles and boss battles.
GameSpot is notable for launching careers of names like: Greg Kasavin – now mostly known as writer and creative director at Supergiant Games – and Jeff Gerstmann, fired from GameSpot in 2007 a negative review about Kane and Lynch: Dead MenThis led to publishers threatening to pull their ads from the site.
Gerstmann would go on to co-found gaming website Giant Bomb with former GameSpot editor Ryan Davis in 2008. Gerstmann was hired again in 2012 when Giant Bomb was acquired by GameSpot parent company ViacomCBS as part of a combined portfolio of games, but ViacomCBS later sold the site to Red Ventures.
Rumors have been swirling around Giant Bomb since the massive departure of cast members from the talented ‘Bomb’ cast in mid-2021. Vinny Caravella, Alex Navarro, and Brad Shoemaker split at the same time start your own project, nextlanderin Giant Bomb from the beginning. Gerstmann left the team in 2022.
Spoke in fandom announcement post About its plans for sites that revolve around providing “immersive content for our partners, advertisers and fans”, as well as expanding “global fan platforms to super serve entertainment and gaming fans”:
The new unified platform will increase engagement at every step of the consumer journey – testimonial, community, trends, ratings, reviews, news and commerce.
With the addition of these game, movie and TV platforms, Fandom will expand 360 programs for advertising partners, including game publishers, studios and streaming services, and enhance data and insights within FanDNA, Fandom’s proprietary data platform.
Additionally, the deal will support affiliate and commerce efforts, including accelerating revenue from Fandom’s gaming business, Fanatical.
This acquisition, which also includes Comic Vine, Cord Cutters News and TV Guide, is the latest in a series of acquisitions for Fandom, following Screen Junkies, Gamepedia, D&D Beyond and Focus Multimedia.
Let us know your thoughts on this latest round of buying in the comments.
