Revsiting the Allakhazam/IGE issue.

[ItazuraNhomango]

About a year ago, some Allakhazam regulars left ffxi.allakhazam.com due to its secretive sale to the parent company of IGE. Jeffrey Moyer ("Allakhazam") declared emphatically at the time that Allakhazam would not become an accessory to RMT, nor advertising vehicle for RMT activities.

Many people (such as myself), disbelieved him. After all, he sold the company--he no longer has the final say on what Allakhazam.com does or does not do. The potential synergy between the most well-known RMT operation and the most well-known MMO community site was too stagging to ignore by profit driven business folks, so we thought.

A year later, I'm eating my words.

Affinity Media has apparently sold off IGE (and I thought it was just a shell company which IGE created itself), apparently severing the corporate tie between Allakhazam and IGE.

More importantly, to date, Allakhazam has no gilseller advertisement--apparently, you'd see less RMT ads there than you do here (if you don't sign in--but I always do). And, as far as I can tell, there is no detectable collusion with RMT activity of any sort.

Right now, I'm leaning toward his explanation that Allakhazam was brought by "Affinity Media, Inc." for its profitable business model, to bring other MMO community portal assets under the company to profitability and create a united advertisement front and a cross-MMO registry of gamer customers.

Yet, I still have doubts: This "Affinity Media, Inc." seems so secretive, it's difficult to say whether it had never planned on creating business operations utilitizing both IGE and its MMO community sites in cooperation to leverage the legitimacy of its community front to enable its RMT operations to generate greater revenue and anchor those RMT activities more firmly in the "lifestyle" of players.

The notion just seemed so ... natural ... Why else would you want both an RMT retail outlet and MMO community sites under the same corporate roof?!

Anyway, what do you folks think?

* * *

If anyone can help dig up history, operation, and assets of "Affinity Media, Inc.", to shed more light on the subject, that'd be great. Here's what I know:

• Moyer says it owns Allakhazam, and used to own IGE until about a week ago.
• Moyer states IGE was sold to "Jon Yantis", to his knowledge.
• Moyer reports to John Maffei, who was identified once as Senior VP of Business Development at Affinity Media, on a third party site. From Moyer's wording, Maffei seems to have joined after the purchase of Allakhazam.
• Allakhazam is a part of ZAM Network, whose minimalist web site lists a terse "Copyright © 2007 Affinity Media, Inc." on the bottom of the page.
• Moyer says the information that Allakhazam was purchased by "RPG Holdings" was incorrect. (He did not directly answer what company and under which name was Allakhazam originally purchased by, however.)
• "Affinity Media, Inc." apparently is NOT the same as the blank check company "Affinity Media International, Corp."

[Raydeus]

Re: Revsiting the Allakhazam/IGE issue.

My thoughts about this topic.

Link.

[Eohmer]

Re: Revsiting the Allakhazam/IGE issue.

I really don't care for it. There are much better sites out there for info on the game.
As far as the threads in the forums go.... well, I'm sure most of all know how they are there.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Re: Revsiting the Allakhazam/IGE issue.

As an information site, Alla has a very low signal-to-noise ratio. But some interesting tidbits can be found there from time to time.

As a community, Alla can be a rather scary place. Too much emphasis on Karma. 25% of the posts probably contain someone complaining about being rated down.

As far as advertisements, I would probably prefer seeing RMT ads over what I tend to see there. The dating service ads can be rather embarassing when I'm browsing the boards and my wife is behind me on the coach.

[Eohmer]

Re: Revsiting the Allakhazam/IGE issue.

Alla is now a dating service... what??

:-X

[Taskmage]

Re: Revsiting the Allakhazam/IGE issue.

No, true.com ads. I used to kindof appreciate the eye candy when browsing somepage, but I think the quality of their models has gone down. >.>

I agree with what others have said. Alla was the first reference site I learned about, but as I learned about others I used it less and less. Now it's an absolute last resort for information, which I almost never have to actually resort to. I didn't like using it before the ige link, avoided using it after the ige link, and now that the ige link is gone again I just don't see a reason to go back.

[Eohmer]

Re: Revsiting the Allakhazam/IGE issue.

With wiki and somepage... who would?

[Vyuru]

Re: Revsiting the Allakhazam/IGE issue.

Well, in general I like FFXIWiki for it's information, while as a community site, where you can an informative conversation with other people, I favor this forum.

Allakhazam as a site, I find rather lacking. Forums are rife with trolls, people can say $%! %$!$#^ and #!%!$! without mods doing anything that I can see. It's just a very negative atmosphere there which I dislike.

I didn't like the apperent turnaround done by Allakhazam, the owner, and selling out to IGE, but that is more of a personal issue for me, and really after reading some of Allakhazam's reponses I don't know if I'd really believe him on who owns what with his website.

So pretty much I'll only go to Alla when a new update comes out to see what the data miners have come up with, but that's about it.

The people on this website make me think of my olde LS, TheBakkaTeaParty, it just feels all nice and homey, and now if you'll excuse me.....

/swishes her tail and adjusts her glasses
/makes her Harp Clock play Urnaigh a'Bhan-Thigreach
/curls up in her comfy chair in front of the fire with a new book

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Revsiting the Allakhazam/IGE issue.

Hmm. I wasn't really looking for a critique of Allakhazam's content or "atmosphere". Suffice to say that it is a popular--and thus important--gathering spot for FFXI players, and its standings with RMT, S-E, and the players warrant close examinations.

It is those relationship--the possible one with RMT--which call for attention, I think, in light of the recent pronouncement from Moyer ("Allakhazam").

Is the claim of this divorce from RMT believable? What could be the motives behind the sale of IGE? Has IGE became not-so-profitable as some claimed, or is this "Affinity Media", a company which likely started its life as a shell/holding company* for IGE, has actually decided to ditch IGE and its associated liabilities and business risks for a tidy pile of cash?

* August 25, 2006 Gamasutra article characterizes Allakhazam as a part of IGE's "content and community division" after interviewing James Clarke, COO for IGE's Asian operations. This indicates IGE's internal perception (at that time) that IGE bought Allakhazam. While Moyer's statement that the "parent company" of IGE bought Allakhazam may be technically correct, I give high credence to the notion that it (now "Affinity Media") was a shell/holding company created and operated by IGE to camouflage its activities.

[Taskmage]

Re: Revsiting the Allakhazam/IGE issue.

Well, I can somewhat see where you're coming from, but because of the lacking content and atmosphere the whole issue is rather moot to me. Regardless of their true business connections and community standing, or what we judge them to be, I'd wager most of the people reading this will continue to use the site minimally, and most of alla's userbase will remain right where they are. I guess I'm just failing to see the impact, and thus the importance.

If you're just trying to determine whether the people who were outraged at the time of the acquisition were wrong, well ... that seems pretty moot to me too. What's done is done, and the fact is the whole matter was handled horribly from a PR standpoint. If they (you?) were wrong, they should have been placated and given the truth of it, whereas the response I remember was more along the lines of "I say we're not owned by IGE and that's not good enough for you f*** off, it's none of your business anyway."

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Revsiting the Allakhazam/IGE issue.

Well, I can somewhat see where you're coming from, but because of the lacking content and atmosphere the whole issue is rather moot to me.

Hmm. A dangerous but perhaps helpful analogy:

I'm not a Muslim, and has little interest in become a follower of Islam. I suspect most of the people on this planet is about the same. That does not mean Islam is unimportant, nor the non-Islamic world's perception of Islam and Muslim has no impact.

Allakhazam is a part of the greater FFXI community, and should be recognized as such.

What's done is done, and the fact is the whole matter was handled horribly from a PR standpoint. If they (you?) were wrong, they should have been placated and given the truth of it, whereas the response I remember was more along the lines of "I say we're not owned by IGE and that's not good enough for you f*** off, it's none of your business anyway."

Haha. I'd definitely agree it was a PR disaster. I wouldn't say the response was a bad as "f*** off", but many other dissenters of that era may have perceived it as such in the heat of discussions.

In retrospect, Moyer's hands were tied--was there ever a good day in any year to say "We're IGE's little corporate brother"? Not even Steve Jobs can manage to spin IGE into a welcomed addition to the family, IMO. The supposed confidentiality agreement further limited his options, I guess. Months later, IGE Asia still thought IGE had purchased Allakhazam, making Moyer's claim of separation like a desperation ploy--though it seemed to have turned out to be the truth, or at least close to it.

Anyway, knowing the truth isn't a bad thing, even if it won't change the situation that FFXIonline is now the FFXI site I belong to. ^_^

[Feba]

Re: Revsiting the Allakhazam/IGE issue.

Last I checked, the holding company is still owned by the same man who owns/founded IGE, and the fact that alla would marry into that at all is horrible.

For all we know, this is only a legal move, and the companies are still working together, or have plans to work together through another parent company, or was just sold off for tax purposes etc.etc. This doesn't make up in the least for Moyer's decision to join with them in the first place.

The problem with the Alla merger is that it was a betrayal of the community, not just because it would be directly helping/paying IGE, but because grouping with them at all is shady.

Even if allakhazam broke all ties with IGE, I still wouldn't go back, for three reasons. One, when I did play FFXI, I was fine with this and wiki. Two, I don't play FFXI, I just hang out here to chat and occasionally help. Three, and most important, when I did decide to leave, Jeff Moyer (Allakhazam CEO/Allakhazam the forum account) acted VERY immaturely about it; talking about my personal info on the forums (from my credit card); trying to make me seem like an attention whore by blatantly ignoring PMs and later claiming (publicly) that he had told me to email him instead of PM him, saying I had only not done that because I wanted attention (When in fact he hadn't said anything of the sort to me at any point); and when he finally did refund my money (3-7 days later as far as I can remember, it's been over a year hasn't it?), instantly banning my account.

Allakhazam's community is bad enough, with a CEO like that it should be obvious why it won't get better.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Revsiting the Allakhazam/IGE issue.

Why do you call Moyer "CEO"? >_> He reports to Maffei, a senior VP, which makes him a "junior VP", at best.

Anyway, Allakhazam has not allowed RMT advertisement in the year since the buy/sell out. It says something for Moyer's credibility, when something simple which obviously would have driven better corporate revenue was not implemented--his assertion that the RMT and "media" arms of the company were independent must be given weight.

I don't know the details about the bad blood between you and Moyer, Feba, and I'm happy to stay ignorant for the moment. =b (If he indeed has release your personal information without your permission, kick him in the shin, of course--but it's not my topic.)

Follow the money is my theme for finding truth; find out more about this "Affinity Media"--the mysterious entity which has given Allakhazam MONEY to upgrade hardware and network to operate better without changing its apparent character--knowledge about that company and its assets should enable us to obtain better answers, I say.

p.s. Is it really necessary to keep bad mouthing Allakhazam's "community"? Repeating it over and over won't make it any more or less true. (Plus, many of "them" are our fellow FFXI players, after all.)

[Aksannyi]

Re: Revsiting the Allakhazam/IGE issue.

I left Alla right when the IGE thing happened at first, but I trickled back there slowly. I go there now, and I sometimes post in the Hades forum, if only because there's about three people on this entire forum who actively post from Hades.

FFXIclopedia is much better though, now that I've realized its usefulness.

[Mhurron]

Re: Revsiting the Allakhazam/IGE issue.

No, true.com ads. I used to kindof appreciate the eye candy when browsing somepage, but I think the quality of their models has gone down. >.>

OK, that's just funny.

Personally, I haven't been back to alla, and I won't. There are sites with better information and others with more helpful people. If I wanted to deal with people who are like the majority of posters there, I would have become a kindergarten teacher.