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Zam.com Q&AFollow

#252 May 03 2006 at 9:37 PM Rating: Good
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Sarlos, Defender of Justice wrote:
Here is my problem. It would not be in IGE's best interest to have no presence on this new network. Allakhazam alone is already one of the top most visited domains on the internet. Let that sink in. Consider that MMORPG players are a subset of the population at large. I find it difficult to believe that IGE would be willing to forgo advertising among such a large combined population of MMORPG fans.


Of course. And if you're proceeding from the assumption that despite Alla's statements to the contrary, that it's really really IGE buying Alla's site, then you'd be right. But that's your assumption, which brings with it it's own set of conspiratorial assumptions as well.

If you were looking to get "into the internet gaming business", you might look out across the landscape that is the various internet sites, and you might decide that it's in your interest to assemble a group of investors to create a corporation that does nothing but hold and support any of a number of different internet sites pertaining to gaming. That would include sites that provide information about games *and* sites that do things like sell online stuff. That corporation would not necessarily make a distinction between them, and would attempt to get all of them on board. They get return shares based on the profitability of each site they "own", and the sites get increased economic support and stability.


Regardless of who is behind this company, it's ludicrous to assume that there's any motive beyond profit for it. Alla's is profitable, purely because it's a site to obtain information about the games. By consolidating it with other similar sites, they can increase the profitability, both for Alla's and themselves. There is no need to leverage that into the seller sites at all. Those do great business all on their own. They don't need Alla's site to do this. They don't need to advertise on Alla's site to do this, but a parent company *might* want to make sure that they've got Alla's under contract to *not* compete with them on selling of ingame stuff.

I'd say it has far more to do with them protecting their money flow then anything else. Right now, Alla's *is* the largest site for online gaming information. There's nothing legally preventing Alla from deciding tomorrow to branch out and become a gilselling site. If you'd just invested in a holding company that sold gil, you *might* want to protect your investment by *also* investing in Alla's, just to ensure you don't end up with a competitor in a market you just invested in.


I really do think most of you are looking at this wrong. IGE and the parent company have far more to gain by keeping Alla's site sales free then otherwise. I'd suspect that if anything, this move is designed to ensure that rather then to change it.
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#253 May 03 2006 at 9:39 PM Rating: Good
Allakhazam Defender of Justice wrote:
Other than a peripheral connection with a company you don't like, there is absolutely nothing negative about this move. From a site wide perspective, we have gone from a site that was a small LLC partnership that had been forced to run very lean while watching the expenses grow and the income drop -- our most profitable site is still the Everquest one, even though it is not nearly the biggest any more -- to one with significant financial backing to allow it to continue to grow and develop. I am not saying that without this Allakhazam would have disappeared. Probably not. But I guarantee you that we would have continued to languish and would have struggled to keep up with our growing popularity. We are doing over 6 million page views a day now and hitting 100 mb/sec bandwidth usage. We are one of the top 1000 traffic sites on the entire internet. That aint cheap.

On an individual site basis, none of the things you liked about the site are going to change. We will not be running gil selling ads or promoting RMT. Instead, we will take what we have and build upon it to make things even better than before. And we get the added advantage of absorbing a good site like Ogaming and all of its people, so that instead of creating that from scratch, we get something already in existance.

Just ask yourself this. Would you rather have seen Allakhazam fade out and become a shell of its old self over time, or would you rather help build it into the best gaming community on the web? I know what answer I gave to that question.


Okay fine, none of the money made off Alla may directly go to IGE, but you will happily live off the money IGE makes, knowing how it's ruined the very games you want to build a community around.

Hypocrite much?
#254 May 03 2006 at 9:40 PM Rating: Default
Same people who now own Allakhazam: http://www.gayindy.com/ (© 2005 RPG Holdings LLC)
#255 May 03 2006 at 9:41 PM Rating: Excellent
gbaji wrote:
Of course. And if you're proceeding from the assumption that despite Alla's statements to the contrary, that it's really really IGE buying Alla's site, then you'd be right. But that's your assumption, which brings with it it's own set of conspiratorial assumptions as well.
Actually, that comment is based on him saying that IGE has agreed to divulge itself of sites like thottbot in the process of creating zam.com.
#256 May 03 2006 at 9:43 PM Rating: Good
gbaji wrote:
Sarlos, Defender of Justice wrote:
Here is my problem. It would not be in IGE's best interest to have no presence on this new network. Allakhazam alone is already one of the top most visited domains on the internet. Let that sink in. Consider that MMORPG players are a subset of the population at large. I find it difficult to believe that IGE would be willing to forgo advertising among such a large combined population of MMORPG fans.


Of course. And if you're proceeding from the assumption that despite Alla's statements to the contrary, that it's really really IGE buying Alla's site, then you'd be right. But that's your assumption, which brings with it it's own set of conspiratorial assumptions as well.


http://wow.azzor.com/445/truth_about_IGE.php - Fairly proven here, I think.

~Blix
#257 May 03 2006 at 9:44 PM Rating: Decent
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I can't go into my contract details. They are confidential. I will tell you that I was represented by one of the largest lawfirms in Philadlelphia when I did these negotiations and that they took quite a long time to finalize. What Gbaji says is basically true though. As long as we are profitable, they will leave us alone and let us do our thing. If the site bleeds money, then someone higher up would likely step in and try to make changes. I have every intention to keep us profitable and keeping the investors happy with us. I have had long talks with the investors behind this and they completely understand that the RMT sites and the content sites should stay separate. They have actually gone out of their way so far to keep it that way. Nothing in life is a guarantee. All we can do is do the best with what we have.

Oh and as for that azzor article someone linked, I don't know anything about all the stuff before the stuff about us, but that is completely wrong. The only people who owned us back in 2005 was Allakhazam.com, LLC which was a partnership fully owned by Illia and myself. This deal just took place fairly recently. So given that they were wrong on that, I would not put a lot of faith in the rest.
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#258 May 03 2006 at 9:44 PM Rating: Good
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MorvenDee wrote:
Same people who now own Allakhazam: http://www.gayindy.com/ (© 2005 RPG Holdings LLC)


Proof please
#259 May 03 2006 at 9:48 PM Rating: Good
Allakhazam Defender of Justice wrote:
I can't go into my contract details. They are confidential. I will tell you that I was represented by one of the largest lawfirms in Philadlelphia when I did these negotiations and that they took quite a long time to finalize. What Gbaji says is basically true though. As long as we are profitable, they will leave us alone and let us do our thing. If the site bleeds money, then someone higher up would likely step in and try to make changes. I have every intention to keep us profitable and keeping the investors happy with us. I have had long talks with the investors behind this and they completely understand that the RMT sites and the content sites should stay separate. They have actually gone out of their way so far to keep it that way. Nothing in life is a guarantee. All we can do is do the best with what we have.

Oh and as for that azzor article someone linked, I don't know anything about all the stuff before the stuff about us, but that is completely wrong. The only people who owned us back in 2005 was Allakhazam.com, LLC which was a partnership fully owned by Illia and myself. This deal just took place fairly recently. So given that they were wrong on that, I would not put a lot of faith in the rest.


You need money to keep the site yours.

You're losing money by joining them.

They take over.

I think they've made that either way they win, don't you?

~Blix
#260 May 03 2006 at 9:49 PM Rating: Good
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I understand why you did what you did, Alla. And I understand corporate entities. I do not, however, choose to support this grand corporate entity. The only distinction between IGE/Parent/Alla is now semantics.

Renewal off.
#261 May 03 2006 at 9:49 PM Rating: Good
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Allakhazam Defender of Justice wrote:
I don't like Marlboros, but I still buy oreos. I would never buy a Ford, but would definitely buy a Jaguar. Not big on Taco Bell, but like KFC. Many products you use are owned by people who own other products you may not like. It's the way of the world. As long as the companies are run separately, most people are fine with that. If your oreo cookie wrapper had a marlboro ad on it, maybe that would be a problem.


The analogy here is lacking. This isn't about supporting a company that shares parent ownership with another company whose product you don't care for.

This is about supporting a company that shares parent ownership with another company that engages in practices you find utterly morally reprehensible.

A closer analogy would be buying KFC with the full knowledge that Taco Bell (or Pizza Hut, they're all owned by TriCon) engages child/slave labor somewhere out of your line of sight. There are some things you just don't do anything that hints of supporting, no matter how disconnected whatever you are engaging in might be from the actual activity. There IS guilt by association, and by continuing to pay premium membership to Allakhazam, we are now putting money in the pockets of Yantis or whoever the hell it is running that whole filthy operation. And that, some of us just won't do, because out of sight is NOT out of mind.

#262 May 03 2006 at 9:49 PM Rating: Good
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Allakhazam Defender of Justice wrote:
I can't go into my contract details. They are confidential. I will tell you that I was represented by one of the largest lawfirms in Philadlelphia when I did these negotiations and that they took quite a long time to finalize. What Gbaji says is basically true though. As long as we are profitable, they will leave us alone and let us do our thing. If the site bleeds money, then someone higher up would likely step in and try to make changes. I have every intention to keep us profitable and keeping the investors happy with us. I have had long talks with the investors behind this and they completely understand that the RMT sites and the content sites should stay separate. They have actually gone out of their way so far to keep it that way. Nothing in life is a guarantee. All we can do is do the best with what we have.


Well, here is hoping they will hold true to that and keep the content and rmt seperate... however even so, many people are going to be unhappy with knowing the content sites and the rmt sites are still owned by the same company.

I know that its still all confidential still, but i'd STILL like to know why IGE "sold" to another company. Did you at least look into that when making this deal?
#263 May 03 2006 at 9:50 PM Rating: Good
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I think that that's pretty reasonable Mr. Allakhazam. I think the other folks on the site are having a kneejerk reaction but will eventually calm down. And, while I'm fully confident that you know what you're doing, might I sudgest possibly giving us a timeframe or a date for when you can tell us everything please?
#264 May 03 2006 at 9:53 PM Rating: Good
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The simple truth is that you have buddied up with the enemy. In doing so you have apparently alienated a large portion of your contributing population.


I put up with hamster powered servers and all those issues because I knew the site was legit and home owned. 8 New servers and new content isnt gonna make up for the sell out, the RTM connection or the **** poor analogies you throw our way.

Remove my guides as soon as humanly possible.
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#265 May 03 2006 at 9:53 PM Rating: Good
Allakhazam Defender of Justice wrote:
I can't go into my contract details. They are confidential. I will tell you that I was represented by one of the largest lawfirms in Philadlelphia when I did these negotiations and that they took quite a long time to finalize. What Gbaji says is basically true though. As long as we are profitable, they will leave us alone and let us do our thing. If the site bleeds money, then someone higher up would likely step in and try to make changes. I have every intention to keep us profitable and keeping the investors happy with us. I have had long talks with the investors behind this and they completely understand that the RMT sites and the content sites should stay separate. They have actually gone out of their way so far to keep it that way. Nothing in life is a guarantee. All we can do is do the best with what we have.

Oh and as for that azzor article someone linked, I don't know anything about all the stuff before the stuff about us, but that is completely wrong. The only people who owned us back in 2005 was Allakhazam.com, LLC which was a partnership fully owned by Illia and myself. This deal just took place fairly recently. So given that they were wrong on that, I would not put a lot of faith in the rest.
It is encouraging to hear that you did deeply investigate this before agreeing to it. I expected no less, but at the same time, in all honesty, I know how people can react when money is involved. I think for anything else, I will just have to wait for the official announcement.

Speaking of which, is there a timeframe when this information will become public? Also, and forgive me if this is basic, I do not know much (yet) about these matters, but will the zam.com be a publicly traded entity independent of the parent company?
#266 May 03 2006 at 9:55 PM Rating: Excellent
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Allakhazam Defender of Justice wrote:
So given that they were wrong on that, I would not put a lot of faith in the rest.
But you do know whether or not you were purchased by RPG Holdings.

I understand that you probably won't be able give a straight up "yes" or "no" to that.

Edited, Wed May 3 22:56:22 2006 by Jophiel
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#267 May 03 2006 at 9:56 PM Rating: Default
"Tomec the Wise" wrote:
Proof please


Proof has already been posted several times in this thread that RPG Holdings LLC is IGE. Search ogaming.com and you'll find plenty of mentions that it is RPG Holdings LLC. This thread, previously linked, traces the original connection when ogaming.com was bought:
http://www.corpnews.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1790&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

http://www.gayindy.com/ says it's owned by RPG Holdings LLC at the foot of the page. But it's no great surprise that IGE owns gay websites. Brock Pierce (IGE CEO) produced gay "online TV" shows for his failed dotcom Digital Entertainment Network (DEN), where his two co-directors were also gay.
#268 May 03 2006 at 9:57 PM Rating: Decent
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Allakhazam Defender of Justice wrote:
Other than a peripheral connection with a company you don't like, there is absolutely nothing negative about this move. From a site wide perspective, we have gone from a site that was a small LLC partnership that had been forced to run very lean while watching the expenses grow and the income drop -- our most profitable site is still the Everquest one, even though it is not nearly the biggest any more -- to one with significant financial backing to allow it to continue to grow and develop. I am not saying that without this Allakhazam would have disappeared. Probably not. But I guarantee you that we would have continued to languish and would have struggled to keep up with our growing popularity. We are doing over 6 million page views a day now and hitting 100 mb/sec bandwidth usage. We are one of the top 1000 traffic sites on the entire internet. That aint cheap.

On an individual site basis, none of the things you liked about the site are going to change. We will not be running gil selling ads or promoting RMT. Instead, we will take what we have and build upon it to make things even better than before. And we get the added advantage of absorbing a good site like Ogaming and all of its people, so that instead of creating that from scratch, we get something already in existance.

Just ask yourself this. Would you rather have seen Allakhazam fade out and become a shell of its old self over time, or would you rather help build it into the best gaming community on the web? I know what answer I gave to that question.


Whatever helps you sleep @ night.

The end justifies the means blah blah blah'

Allakhazam Defender of Justice wrote:
Other than a peripheral connection with a company you don't like, there is absolutely nothing negative about this move.


That is it right there in a nutshell - you can bring out your whole "I don't like Taco Bell but I eat @ KFC " argument if it helps you sleep but I find something morally reprehensible about Taco Bell I won't eat @ KFC. Ditto w/ Ford no matter how nice Jags are, ditto with just about everything. It's obvious that IGE just didn't throw enough money @ you the first time.
#269 May 03 2006 at 9:57 PM Rating: Decent
Allakhazam, you don't mind your site name being bundaled with IGE in any way?

When your Mystery Company is doing anything concerning the companies they own your name and IGE will be in the same place. Be the same thing.

Do you really want that?

If you do, you've sold out. If you don't care, you've sold out.

You've given up on not being synonymous with IGE in any way.

~Blix
#270 May 03 2006 at 9:58 PM Rating: Good
I have to agree with the Article being full of holes. As it mentioned SOE paying us 10k a month to keep us from being bought by Yantis.

The plan truth is we turned Yantis down several times, and it had nothing to do with anything SOE offered us.

IMHO the article has a few things correct (for example Brock Peirce was in First Kid), but in some of the more incriminating details I believe they have made their own conclusions.

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#271 May 03 2006 at 10:00 PM Rating: Decent
Tomec the Wise wrote:
*sigh* Soon as I read the newspost and saw the words THOTTBOT I KNEW this was going to turn out bad... I have a link somewhere i'll pull up here that was on the WoW boards awhile back showing that ige owned thott/og or something... so now that has changed or something I assume? Hell, that thread is even where alla said that thot tried to buyout him several times and when they WOULDN'T sell they vowed to run alla OUT OF BUSINESS. (well, not in so many words)

All that being said, I really hope you do maintain your firm stance against gold/gil/plat/whatever selling and keep things "safe" however I like other have some real concerns... my premium is a long way from renewing, but for now it is off (like many others) and I have no clue if it'll even go back on.

Also, as someone else pointed out, one thing that made alla so great was the comunity and how much info they submitted... lots of people aren't going to now, and some people like bodhisattva are asking for guides to be removed they wrote. That is really going to hurt the comunity, not only for WoW but other games too.

Well, time to dig up that link rq...

Edit:

Linky

also, what alla posted in there (in case you don't want to follow it >_>)

Allakhazam Defender of Justice wrote:
Interesting. I've know IGE owned Thottbot for quite a while now, but didn't want to post about it. I knew they were advertising on ogaming at one point, but didn't realize they had bought them outright. IGE tried to buy us a while ago and when we refused to have anything to do with them vowed to create a network to rival ours. Looks like they are on their way to doing so. I suggest you spread the word so others know about this too. I know people playing EQ2 would be interested in this info too.


I will say one thing though, at least Allakhazam is still staying on to develope and manage this new network it sounds like... the big question is just how much power will you have over what goes into it...

Edited, Wed May 3 19:40:11 2006 by Tomec


Allakhazam, what about this. What changed your mind? Smiley: confused

~Blix
#272 May 03 2006 at 10:01 PM Rating: Decent
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Will Premium Users get discounts on WoW gold now?
#273 May 03 2006 at 10:03 PM Rating: Decent
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Nearly five years as a premium member wasted. Sucks, since Alla's the only decent EQ site in existence, and the most user-friendly (though not the best, info-wise) FFXI site.

But, at least Alla won't have to find someone to run a Vanguard site, since Sigil refuses to have anything to do with RMT.
#274 May 03 2006 at 10:03 PM Rating: Good
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Sarlos, Defender of Justice wrote:
Also, and forgive me if this is basic, I do not know much (yet) about these matters, but will the zam.com be a publicly traded entity independent of the parent company?


If it is, then that probably just saved a lot of face since that further distances from whatever the parent company is (which is probably IGE since I REALLY find it hard to believe that IGE sold out to some other company...) however unless it is a mega corp I doubt it will be.

Edit: Forgot to add

MorvenDee wrote:
"Tomec the Wise" wrote:
Proof please


Proof has already been posted several times in this thread that RPG Holdings LLC is IGE. Search ogaming.com and you'll find plenty of mentions that it is RPG Holdings LLC. This thread, previously linked, traces the original connection when ogaming.com was bought:
http://www.corpnews.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1790&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

http://www.gayindy.com/ says it's owned by RPG Holdings LLC at the foot of the page. But it's no great surprise that IGE owns gay websites. Brock Pierce (IGE CEO) produced gay "online TV" shows for his failed dotcom Digital Entertainment Network (DEN), where his two co-directors were also gay.


Guess I must have skimmed over the proof since I didn't connect RPG Holdings to IGE right away. I will admit I didn't really read (in depth) any of the off-site links.

Edited, Wed May 3 23:10:22 2006 by Tomec
#275 May 03 2006 at 10:09 PM Rating: Good
Tomec the Wise wrote:
Sarlos, Defender of Justice wrote:
Also, and forgive me if this is basic, I do not know much (yet) about these matters, but will the zam.com be a publicly traded entity independent of the parent company?


If it is, then that probably just saved a lot of face since that further distances from whatever the parent company is (which is probably IGE since I REALLY find it hard to believe that IGE sold out to some other company...) however unless it is a mega corp I doubt it will be.
That is sort of why I was asking it. It would make me feel dirty if I felt that, in any way, my premium membership money was going to supporting RMT activities. For now, I feel safe about keeping my premium membership, and hopefully that continues.

I am still slightly concerned over previous comments regarding IGE giving up any link to sites like thottbott, and I am still very curious what the catch might be. However, I choose to take Allakhazam at his word, and I will be hoping for the best in all this.
#276 May 03 2006 at 10:12 PM Rating: Good
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Allah, I dont get this. Earlier you basically implied you were losing money to keep up, which was a big factor in you taking the deal:

Quote:
From a site wide perspective, we have gone from a site that was a small LLC partnership that had been forced to run very lean while watching the expenses grow and the income drop -- our most profitable site is still the Everquest one, even though it is not nearly the biggest any more -- to one with significant financial backing to allow it to continue to grow and develop. I am not saying that without this Allakhazam would have disappeared. Probably not. But I guarantee you that we would have continued to languish and would have struggled to keep up with our growing popularity. We are doing over 6 million page views a day now and hitting 100 mb/sec bandwidth usage. We are one of the top 1000 traffic sites on the entire internet. That aint cheap.


but here you said you would stay profitable to keep them off your back and not change anything.

Quote:

As long as we are profitable, they will leave us alone and let us do our thing. If the site bleeds money, then someone higher up would likely step in and try to make changes. I have every intention to keep us profitable and keeping the investors happy with us.


What Im wondering is where will your profit come from, if you havent been able to keep up enough not to sell? You've stated already there will be major positive changes, new servers to keep this place running smooth, and all of that takes a lot of money. But if people stop paying for premium, which looks like a very strong probability, how else will you make a profit without allowing the "parent company" to add their hands into the mix? I'm honestly curious
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