Wowhead Is Dying. We Know Who's Killing It

[00:01] We don't often talk specifically about

[00:03] Wowhead or other community sites here.

[00:04] We usually stick to the game. But this

[00:07] time, I think we actually do need to

[00:09] because Wowhead is changing. And you

[00:11] need to know that Wowhead does not own

[00:13] Wowhead. Zam does. Wowhead's site

[00:17] director was just laid off. And much

[00:19] like how fandom being [ __ ] led to

[00:22] Wowedia moving over to wiki.gg,

[00:25] this is in some ways a story of

[00:27] corporate inshitification. It's a wild

[00:29] one. It even has well one of the worst

[00:33] Jeffres there's ever been. Hint, I'm not

[00:35] talking about Jeffrey Dmer. And to set

[00:37] the tone, here is a quote from one of

[00:39] Wowhead's most pivotal team members who

[00:42] was there for a decade and whose work

[00:45] you have absolutely almost certainly

[00:48] used or experienced. The quote is, "Zam

[00:51] has truly broken me." So yeah, this is a

[00:56] serious one. Now, as I'm sure you know,

[00:57] Wowhead's been fairly important to most

[00:59] of us, and for longer than many people

[01:01] have even been playing. If you need

[01:03] something, anything, you can generally

[01:04] trust that Wowhead will have it.

[01:06] Sometimes it's their own content, a

[01:08] guide maybe, that their writing team has

[01:10] put together over the PTR, maybe some

[01:12] data mining gathered and then posted

[01:14] instantly. All the other times, well,

[01:16] could be a user comment in their

[01:18] insanely comprehensive database of

[01:20] quests, abilities, items, everything. I

[01:23] mean, hell, even Blizzard support just

[01:26] links you to Wowhead whenever you're

[01:28] stuck. It's the absolute number one in

[01:31] the scene, the undisputed leader in what

[01:34] it does. And in terms of the utility it

[01:36] provides, it does belong there. Or at

[01:38] least it did. For the last while, people

[01:42] have been questioning if it still

[01:44] deserves its place.

[01:47] One of the most common complaints, and

[01:49] it's been one for years upon years, is

[01:51] the actual site experience. If you don't

[01:53] use an ad blocker, it is an

[01:55] unfortunately miserable time. On mobile,

[01:58] only about half your screen is usable,

[02:00] and that's if you're lucky. Desktop

[02:02] isn't as bad to look at, but it's still

[02:04] bloated with layers upon layers of ads.

[02:06] It can take multiple seconds to load

[02:09] even on our insanely fast in-off

[02:12] connection on a high-end PC where it's a

[02:15] dedicated business connection and it is

[02:17] mostly because of ads. Turn them off and

[02:19] load times go from over 5 seconds down

[02:22] to 0.7. Now, obviously I'm not against

[02:25] Wowhead being monetized. It should be

[02:27] monetized. It provides real value. It's

[02:30] worked on by real people who deserve to

[02:32] have their jobs supported by income.

[02:34] Obviously, as we've all experienced in

[02:36] the internet, it can lead to a pretty

[02:38] bad time for users, and that is a medium

[02:40] to long-term problem. The other

[02:42] complaint, though, especially recently,

[02:44] has been content quality. They've been

[02:47] filling downtime with opinion pieces

[02:49] that some would say feel half-lifted

[02:51] straight from the top few Reddit posts.

[02:54] And there's nothing necessarily wrong

[02:56] with them, but they're often seen as a

[02:58] way to fluff out views. Class guides,

[03:02] often one of their strongest draws, have

[03:04] definitely been lacking as of late.

[03:06] Certain specs of talent builds with next

[03:08] to no explanation of why choices are

[03:11] made. Some are absolutely still

[03:13] top-notch, but it's still kind of random

[03:15] depending on who the rider is. And then

[03:17] of course things that we can't know like

[03:19] the timelines, the conditions, etc. that

[03:23] go into the guide existing. Certain DPS

[03:25] like say Windalker get a ton of guidance

[03:28] on their defensives. They're one of the

[03:30] lucky few, though. The point here is

[03:32] most people would agree that it's

[03:34] getting worse in quality. There are a

[03:37] whole lot of reasons why, and I'll talk

[03:38] about those today. But first, there's

[03:41] that bit of bad news. Because just a few

[03:44] weeks ago, the person largely

[03:46] responsible for its past success was

[03:48] laid off.

[03:50] Perculia, the site director, announced

[03:52] that she was one of the wave of layoffs

[03:55] by Zam. Zambian, wowheads, lord and

[03:58] master, or should I say corporate owner.

[04:01] And looking at the replies, people are a

[04:03] mixture of surprised and heartbroken.

[04:05] And that even includes current and

[04:06] former Blizzard employees thanking her

[04:08] for her work over the years, which is

[04:10] not a surprise. Peculiia's peculiar

[04:13] signate was added into the game way back

[04:15] in Mists of Bandaria as a honor for her

[04:18] contributions. And it's largely accepted

[04:20] that the site is what it is today

[04:22] because of well things that were

[04:24] happening while she was steering the

[04:26] ship. And if we've learned anything as a

[04:27] community lately, it's that you can't

[04:30] run a ship without a captain. WoW had no

[04:32] creative director for a while. And well,

[04:35] it's no coincidence that that was some

[04:37] of the game's darkest hours. WoW is

[04:39] obviously still struggling to find its

[04:41] bearings years later. It shows the sort

[04:43] of damage that a lack of leadership can

[04:46] do. Obviously, she was the captain, but

[04:48] she also had her crew. She had tech

[04:50] people like Steven who were working on

[04:52] data mining and database things, solving

[04:54] problems that nobody else could solve.

[04:56] And plenty of work was done in the

[04:58] community by absolute legends like

[05:00] Marlein of Wow.tools fame. And Wowhead

[05:03] was already a big deal before really any

[05:06] of that. There was really Perk and Hers,

[05:09] that group that turned it into a

[05:11] unbeatable content machine. Their

[05:13] writers and data miners have internal

[05:15] tools that let them post their findings

[05:17] lightning fast. And on the user side,

[05:20] talent calculators and entire databases

[05:22] are updated immediately with every

[05:24] current WoW build available on the

[05:26] Blizzard servers. The Wowhead add-on

[05:28] collects data from thousands of users so

[05:30] that we can track loads of things like

[05:33] drop rates, rare spawn locations. If you

[05:36] ever need anything WoW, Wowhead

[05:38] generally was and is your answer. And as

[05:41] the premier site, they were able to

[05:42] recruit and pay the best guide and class

[05:45] riders, meaning that you needed

[05:47] absolutely nothing else really. They all

[05:49] had drive from Perk to the staff and the

[05:52] financial backing to make it all happen.

[05:54] And that's why I have to talk about who

[05:56] actually pulls the strings.

[06:00] The ZAM network, then it has a

[06:02] complicated history. You see, the first

[06:04] seed of it was an EverQuest site called

[06:07] Alakazam. By 2006, it was ZAM, the

[06:11] subsidiary content network that was

[06:13] owned by a firm called Internet Gaming

[06:15] Entertainment. And boy, it's a story. IG

[06:18] was founded in 2001 by a dot investor

[06:21] named Brock Pierce, who was actually a

[06:24] child actor from the Mighty Ducks. Now,

[06:26] you may not remember MMOs in the early

[06:29] 2000s, but to call it a wild west is

[06:32] almost an understatement. And where

[06:34] there is an unexplored frontier, there's

[06:37] obviously money. IG was at the very

[06:39] forefront of selling virtual items in

[06:41] currency. Pearson Co. spent millions and

[06:44] millions buying up competing sites and

[06:46] yes, even platforms and fan sites like

[06:49] ThoughtBot. There was an obvious logic.

[06:51] Control the sites people use to find

[06:53] items and prices and you kind of control

[06:55] the market. It's vital, Dassa. And it

[06:58] was all done using the money he got from

[07:00] his time at another place called Digital

[07:03] Entertainment Network. Incidentally,

[07:05] Deen was shut down following a heavily

[07:08] suppressed documentary that levied

[07:10] insane allegations against its founder.

[07:13] The 2000s were a wild ride. Anyway, by

[07:17] the time Wowhead was bought, it was

[07:19] 2007, and the purchase was all part of

[07:22] getting cleaned up. You see, in 2006,

[07:25] they brought Steve Bannon in as CEO.

[07:27] Yes, that's Steve Mannon. And this was

[07:29] to court some investments such as from

[07:32] Goldman Sachs. Shortly after though, a

[07:34] lot of chaos went down. Pierce was

[07:36] ousted and IG was no more. They were now

[07:40] Infinity Media and they were out of the

[07:42] gold selling business. Not that everyone

[07:44] believed them at the time, and Wowhead

[07:46] CEO certainly had to do a lot of damage

[07:48] control. Anyhow, Zam nabbed Wowhead for

[07:51] its content for a million dollars. So

[07:54] with that spent, it was time to make

[07:56] some content, get some ad revenue. So

[07:58] here's how it happened. ThoughtBot's

[08:00] database was rebranded and rolled into

[08:03] Wowhead. Perk and loads of other staff

[08:06] were then brought on to get the whole

[08:08] thing rolling and Brock Pierce had long

[08:10] moved on to bigger and better things

[08:13] like helping Epstein. Yes, that one

[08:16] specifically helping him invest in

[08:18] crypto. I suppose it's a a small island

[08:21] in a small world. But returning to the

[08:23] main thread, by 2012, Perk had become

[08:25] Wowhead's content manager and was

[08:27] leading it to major success for Zam.

[08:29] They had spun up a submodel to help pay

[08:30] the bills and started advertising

[08:32] heavily. But by all accounts, they were

[08:34] totally legit, massively popular, and

[08:37] incredibly profitable. Shockingly so, in

[08:39] fact. But then a different controversial

[08:42] figure got involved.

[08:45] In 2012, the overall owner, Infinity,

[08:48] sent Zam Network on a journey to the

[08:51] east. At least in financial terms,

[08:53] Tencent, the Chinese tech and mobile

[08:56] gaming giant, were investing crazy

[08:58] amounts of money into Western gaming,

[09:00] and ZAM was part of their plan. Sadly,

[09:02] the deal is entirely private, so we

[09:05] don't really know the details, but I

[09:07] mean, you can almost guarantee that a

[09:08] lot of money exchanged hands. Back then,

[09:11] though, 10 cent were actually known for

[09:13] being handsoff. If you were profitable,

[09:15] they were happy to let you do your

[09:17] thing. All that they wanted was fingers

[09:19] in the western gaming pie. Of course,

[09:22] they're a big corporation. So, what do

[09:23] they want? They want diversification in

[09:25] their various revenue streams. And a

[09:27] great source of diversification is being

[09:29] active in different regions of the

[09:31] world. So, as far as Wowhead was

[09:33] concerned, nothing truly major changed

[09:36] until that is the year of 2018 when a

[09:39] new name for ZAM appeared. That name was

[09:43] Fan Bite. So Zam was now one company

[09:46] with two brands doing two distinct

[09:48] things. Fanbite was the public-f facing

[09:50] media site covering game news and

[09:52] editorials while Zam was in the

[09:54] background working with game companies

[09:56] directly. Obviously Wowhead was a bit

[09:58] closer to the Fanbite side. Or so we

[10:02] thought because 2022 actually changed

[10:04] that. Now first you've got to understand

[10:06] the money side of things. During co

[10:09] people played a whole lot more video

[10:10] games than usual. Every line shot up and

[10:13] very fast. That drove gaming executives

[10:16] completely insane. Everyone suddenly had

[10:19] a ton of money and explosive market

[10:22] growth. So, it kicked off an

[10:24] unbelievable burst of investment. One

[10:27] that was obviously a bubble and it's a

[10:29] bubble that I think broadly we're kind

[10:32] of still feeling the fallout from today.

[10:34] Now, Tencent found themselves on a giant

[10:36] pile of mobile gaming cash and they

[10:38] wanted to make it useful. So, they went

[10:40] on a shopping spree. And we all know

[10:41] what happens after one of those. You

[10:43] look at your account, you panic, and

[10:45] then um you're you're you're eating

[10:47] delicious ice soup for a while. Tencent

[10:50] kind of did the same. Nothing

[10:51] existential, but you know, postco

[10:54] happened and they needed to tighten

[10:55] their belt. So, in September 2022,

[10:58] Fanbite was completely gutted with

[11:00] almost zero notice. All that remained

[11:03] was search engine friendly guides and

[11:05] loweffort aggregate news. Thankfully,

[11:08] Wowhead survived unscathed. Why? Well,

[11:11] because they're profitable. Fan Bite was

[11:13] basically a failed attempt to get a

[11:15] Wowhead for loads of other games. In

[11:18] fact, one attempt at doing that did

[11:19] survive the purge, and that is their

[11:21] FF14 site, which did keep up with an

[11:24] active database and feature development.

[11:26] But now, it's 4 years after that went

[11:28] down, and the Golden Goose Wowhead has

[11:30] lost Peculiia and other key staff.

[11:34] What changed? Why?

[11:36] Well, in classic YouTube title fashion,

[11:40] what changed was everything.

[11:44] The internet of today is unrecognizable

[11:46] compared to a decade ago. And you

[11:48] probably know what I mean, right? What

[11:51] used to be laughed at for being, I don't

[11:53] know, Buzzfeed, clickbait, trash is

[11:55] basically just now the entire written

[11:57] internet. Top 10 lists, vapid culture

[11:59] war pieces, you you name it, right?

[12:02] Cheap, easy stuff. Traditional gaming

[12:04] media has been beaten and battered more

[12:06] times than we can really keep track of.

[12:09] For years now, the corporate owners like

[12:12] Future, Ze Davis, and Valnet have been

[12:15] constantly in the news for buying media

[12:17] brands and then almost instantly laying

[12:20] off key figures for a very short-term

[12:23] gain. You ever wonder why it feels the

[12:27] quality of work has went down? Do you

[12:29] ever wonder why it feels everything is

[12:31] SEO optimized guides and that sort of

[12:33] thing? Well, this is basically the

[12:36] reason. Now, this year there have been

[12:38] more layoffs across just about every

[12:40] major firm in the space. And it's all

[12:43] with a fairly clear point. Investigative

[12:46] journalism, expert opinion pieces, and

[12:48] cool features are all expensive things,

[12:51] and the bean counters have decided that

[12:53] they're simply not worth it. And the

[12:55] worst part is on the immediate financial

[12:58] level, they're certainly right. Now, I

[13:01] think supporting expensive, highquality

[13:03] content is important to building good

[13:05] products and brands that will make

[13:07] customers happy and importantly, you

[13:10] know, actually last over time. A little

[13:15] bit of an important thing, but that is

[13:17] obviously not what the owners of these

[13:18] sites really care about. To them, these

[13:21] sites are just ad farms with value to

[13:23] extract. Quite simply, they get a lot of

[13:25] clicks right now or they go bust. And of

[13:28] course, ads aren't what they used to be.

[13:30] Wowhead isn't covered in ads because the

[13:32] guide riders want to take the company

[13:35] yacht to Blizzcon. No, it's to keep the

[13:38] books balanced enough, the 10 cent don't

[13:41] dump them. Now, as easy as it is to

[13:43] blame all this solely on faceless

[13:45] corporate greed, there is a real

[13:47] downturn behind it, too. And that's that

[13:50] over the last decade, the ad market has

[13:52] been a constant battleground. Sites get

[13:54] more aggressive ads. So, well, people

[13:57] make and use more aggressive ad

[13:59] blockers. Click farms get more

[14:01] sophisticated. Click farms, of course,

[14:03] are often used to basically scam

[14:05] advertisers, and that means that ads get

[14:08] more aggressive about detecting real

[14:10] clicks and real views. I mean, one of

[14:12] the existential threats to say Twitch

[14:15] and one of the reasons why so many

[14:16] brands have abandoned Twitch. Well,

[14:18] that's causing a lot of problems in the

[14:20] streamer space is view botting because

[14:22] the brands want to know that whenever

[14:24] they're getting views on their thing

[14:26] that those views are real. That

[14:29] obviously impacts websites, too. Of

[14:32] course, attention has moved away from

[14:33] digital text over towards video. Uh,

[14:36] it's moved from long- form video often

[14:38] to short form video and sometimes then

[14:40] back to long form so that people have

[14:42] something on in the background while

[14:44] they watch their shorts. Who knows? It's

[14:47] pure chaos though, that's the point. And

[14:49] adup supported sites are struggling to

[14:51] keep up. And now the latest enemy is the

[14:55] mass tide of AI slop. That's the case in

[14:58] a whole ton of ways, but it is the case

[15:00] in a very specific and important way

[15:02] here. The backbone of advertising for

[15:05] games media for the longest time has

[15:07] been high-volume SEO articles getting as

[15:10] many people as possible onto a site.

[15:12] Now, Google uses AI to remove that step.

[15:16] If you want to know how to get ascendant

[15:18] void cores, you don't even need to click

[15:21] through to Wowhead because Google will

[15:23] pull the information out of Wowhead and

[15:26] just present it there on the search

[15:28] page. meaning you never have to go to

[15:31] Wowhead, meaning there's never any ad

[15:34] revenue for Wowhead. Now, I get there's

[15:36] times where that's actually kind of

[15:38] convenient for people. They just get the

[15:39] answer that they want fairly quickly.

[15:42] But of course, it's bad news for the

[15:44] website, which is no longer being

[15:45] clicked on. And of course, that means

[15:48] the money goes down, and eventually

[15:50] that'll mean that those sites no longer

[15:53] really exist. They no longer fund

[15:55] content. one maybe thinks of uh the

[15:59] robberos eating its own tail. Right? So

[16:01] the internet as we know it is under

[16:03] existential threat. The problem is we

[16:06] just don't have an answer right now. It

[16:09] very much seems a large part of the

[16:11] advertisingbased model is falling to

[16:13] pieces. And I guess well we can only

[16:16] guess what the landscape's going to look

[16:18] like in a few years cuz the direction of

[16:21] travel is certainly one of games media

[16:24] and many game sites just dying off. So

[16:27] it's only natural then that if SEO heavy

[16:30] advertising is how you make your money

[16:32] that well you kind of pull back and work

[16:35] on another plan. Here's the thing.

[16:38] Tencent Zam do actually have a plan and

[16:42] to find out what the plan is, you just

[16:44] need to go to their site and look.

[16:48] Fan bite was the public-f facing

[16:50] adsupported model. That's what they

[16:52] gutted in 2022. Wowhead is also a

[16:55] public-f facing adup supported model and

[16:57] it's been hit hard in 2026. But as we've

[16:59] covered, Wowhead was so big and so

[17:01] successful that it was insulated from

[17:03] the worst of what went down in 2022.

[17:06] But of course, it's not just fan bite.

[17:09] Zam's other avenue skips the customer.

[17:13] They go straight to the business and

[17:14] they provide B2B, that means businessto

[17:17] business, community services. This is

[17:19] things like building Discord servers,

[17:21] Reddit communities, and X followings

[17:23] primarily for gacha games. Lovely. It's

[17:27] all done behind the curtain. They get

[17:29] paid directly by the games companies

[17:31] that they work for instead of relying on

[17:34] ad revenue. I genuinely don't know where

[17:36] Wowhead fits in this relationship. They

[17:40] have a good relationship with Blizzard,

[17:41] sure, but they're still an outlier in

[17:44] the business model of their overall

[17:45] company. And if that's obvious to us,

[17:49] then they'll be thinking about all this

[17:50] as well. Unless, of course, Tencent are

[17:53] holding on to Wowhead just to, I don't

[17:55] know, spite netties, their Chinese

[17:57] competitor who actually runs World of

[17:59] Warcraft in China. But somehow I don't

[18:01] really think that's true. But what we

[18:03] can deduce from this is that while

[18:04] Wowhead is still the profitable king of

[18:06] WoW, things will work just fine. Of

[18:09] course, I don't know if it's going to

[18:12] stay that way cuz this is a ship of

[18:15] Thesus problem.

[18:18] The question really is, do we need

[18:19] Wowhead in its current form? A few years

[18:21] ago, I would have said yes without a

[18:23] second thought. Today, I'm less sure.

[18:26] Their data mining posts are excellent,

[18:28] but a lot of it is now done over on the

[18:31] community Discord. Their database is

[18:33] incredible, but that doesn't take a

[18:35] massive team to keep running, and it

[18:38] sure doesn't need a slew of writers.

[18:39] Their class and spec guides are losing

[18:41] steam and relevance compared to more

[18:43] data-driven sources like archon.gg and

[18:46] murloc.io. And some of that, I say from

[18:48] personal experience. One of the biggest

[18:50] improvements in our guild recently is

[18:52] that a few of our players rely on Archon

[18:55] to find raid talents instead of just

[18:57] using Wowhead guides, and we've actually

[18:59] seen pretty huge boosts in damage from

[19:02] just that because Archon reflects the

[19:05] game's real meta immediately. Guides

[19:08] traditionally are set up with

[19:10] pre-release theory crafting and early

[19:12] results. Once patches land, things often

[19:14] do change fast, though. You can get

[19:16] context from community discords and data

[19:19] from Archon way faster than a guide

[19:21] updates. And because of that, suddenly,

[19:25] well, you'll have found yourself with a

[19:26] genuinely better alternative. I mean, I

[19:29] know going to a discord isn't faster

[19:31] than bookmarking a Wowhead guide. But

[19:33] that's only true for as long as a

[19:36] Wowhead guide is gospel, and in many

[19:38] cases, they no longer are. And if Zam

[19:41] isn't willing to invest in the expertise

[19:42] and the experience, then the community

[19:45] will provide it elsewhere. Let me put it

[19:48] this way. Everyone else is slowly

[19:50] starting to eat Wowhead's lunch. And

[19:52] they have no real answer to that. It

[19:54] seems they have no site director to

[19:56] drive innovation and ensure standards.

[19:58] Two of their major staff actually left

[20:01] ages ago. And one of their main assets

[20:03] said, "Zam has, as I said earlier,

[20:06] quote, truly broken me." The people who

[20:10] run the site are the site. And if

[20:13] Wowhead loses a few more key people, Zam

[20:15] are going to learn a lesson that we all

[20:17] learned in 2009. No king rules forever.

[20:21] And I'm not trying to be an anti-Wowhead

[20:24] doomer here, by the way. It is the

[20:27] default experience for a lot of people,

[20:29] and I think Wowhead will remain that way

[20:31] for a long time because of its legacy,

[20:33] its database, its history of comments.

[20:36] All I'm saying is times change, vibes

[20:40] change. I've noticed it over years and

[20:45] more rapidly over recent months. Seeing

[20:48] Park being laid off, seeing quality

[20:50] regressions in some of the content,

[20:52] seeing some of the most key staff in

[20:55] that team talk about how the owner of

[20:59] the site has truly broken them. That

[21:02] does worry me. At this rate, Wowhead

[21:05] won't stay on top for long. And once

[21:08] it's not making the money that Zam

[21:09] needs, it's probably going to follow

[21:12] every other game site, manage decline

[21:15] until it's just a shell of its former

[21:17] self. I don't want to see that come. But

[21:20] without the leadership that got Wowhead

[21:22] to where it is, and many of the other

[21:23] people who have defined what Wowhead is

[21:26] for the last 10 years, I think that

[21:28] decline is almost inevitable. The good

[21:30] news, of course, is that when something

[21:33] big falls, there is opportunity. Someone

[21:37] else will step up and take the crown. Or

[21:42] maybe in true World of Warcraft fashion,

[21:44] it'll be a council instead. A council of

[21:48] Archon and all of the different sites

[21:51] that have sprung up to fix specific

[21:53] problems. Maybe that will leave Wowhead

[21:55] just as a database that's left with some

[21:57] ads on. Who knows? But what I think we

[22:00] do know is that for the longest time,

[22:04] Wowhead was insulated from a lot of the

[22:06] rot that happened to a lot of the rest

[22:10] of games media. It now seems it's no

[22:13] longer insulated from that. In many

[22:15] ways, for us as players, that's going to

[22:17] suck. And for Blizzard, it's also going

[22:20] to suck because let's be real, Wowhead

[22:23] has been Blizzard's crutch for years as

[22:26] well. I would love to know what your

[22:28] experience with this has been. And I

[22:30] would also love to know, and I think

[22:32] many people watching this video would

[22:33] love to see in the comments, what sites,

[22:36] what tools, what things do you find

[22:39] yourself using today? I mean, using the

[22:41] likes of Archon has been so great for so

[22:43] many members of my guild. I am sure

[22:44] there are sites out there that I don't

[22:46] know about, loads of other people don't

[22:47] know about. So, if you've seen something

[22:49] cool, let us know in those comments. And

[22:51] if you want to take a different track

[22:52] and enjoy what I think is a banger of a

[22:54] story, it's very important to where WoW

[22:57] is going. Watch this next.