After period of rumors and leaks, it’s official. Wowhead’s been sold for over 1 million. It doesn’t say so in the announcement, but other reports that were leaked (see Tech Soapbox) before do state that. Since the announcement confirms the sale, no reason to doubt the figure. More interestingly, it’s bought by Affinity Media, the parent company of many fan sites, as well as IGE.
A lot of people say, “OH NOES”, another site to sell stuff for IGE. Honestly speaking, I see no more than these sites not accepting other virtual goods sites’ ads. Who read ads anyway these days? Visitors are trained to ignore banners. Regardless, it’s an audience. The different properties owned by Affinity Media are also great ones. I am sure they will make good use out of it.
News like this make me want to get back into the fan site business. Thinking back on my previous sale of MTGnews.com, it was a good buy for the buyer. Some might have thought it was too cheap, but it was a good way out of a bad situation, in what was a rather depressing stage of my career (read: trying to break into the video game industry). Without the 7 years of experience I learned from that site, I would have never be where I am today. So I am very grateful for the experience. I also appreciate sincerely everyone I have worked with, as well as those who have visited the site. If any of you are reading this by any chance. Thank you 
On a related note, for fan sites, data IS king. Data gives you almost infinite number of page views. Data with good comments are even better. That was one of the biggest reasons why MTGnews.com was so successful. The card list generator featured a great UI and comprehensive data that you couldn’t find anywhere else. Combined with user comments, it was destined to be popular. Sure it was poorly written (:D) since I was green, but it was still good feature wise.
LOTRO is heading into a great directly with its Lorebook. When editing is more opened to all, the content potential is immense. Hopefully, a good group of editors will form to help with the contents. If I have learned much from the wiki at game-blueprints.com, you really need a group of dedicated volunteers to help keep a wiki in shape.
