View Full Forums : Thottbot owned by IGE?


Yrys
02-09-2005, 03:16 PM
Not sure of the validity of this, but pretty strange.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-interface-customization&t=51267

Stormhaven
02-09-2005, 04:05 PM
The original thread poster is a moron (the quoted text, not the guy on the forums)
Geeze, this took me all of thirty seconds to do the WhoIs lookups.

Thottbot.com was not registered by some anonymous entity, it was registered through GoDaddy, which is one of the most popular name registration companies out there. They offer private registrations so that you dont have to have all your personal info available to anyone who does a whois.

Thottbot.com uses Thottbot.net's name servers - so IGE would also have to own Thottbot.net, which happens to be registered to the same guy who owns Afterlifeguild.org.

Short of it is, the easiest thing to do would be to ask Sobe. :P

Yrys
02-09-2005, 04:32 PM
Yeah, the strange thing was that OGaming page linked actually did list Thottbot as one of their sites, but the page seems to be changed now -- it just says "Under construction" -- so I'm not sure what's up with it.

Sobe Silvertree
02-09-2005, 05:07 PM
Dunno - can't get a hold of Thott; but I don't see IGE banners on the page (Yet) .. if he did sell it out there must of been a reason for it, even if it was for the money. I know he was pretty stressed each patch where it kept breaking Thottbot.. that would sorta takes the enjoyment out of the game and when it turns into a job/life, well u get the point. He never stated any where he was doing this for charity purposes in any event.

Aidon
02-09-2005, 05:13 PM
I haven't heard confirmation yet, but I know Thott's running short on time to mess with it, as with WoW's current set up, if you take a spot in a raid at the begginning...and miss a day later on in the week, noone else can take your spot on the raid. Which means all of us are fairly busy raiding and preparing for raids.

So I wouldn't be surprised if Thott did sell Thottbot, and I wouldn't blame him for it in the slightest.

Tiane
02-09-2005, 05:53 PM
And what would it matter if it is owned by IGE? So long as the site doesnt get bogged down by ads, it has exactly zero effect on anyone's use of the site or enjoyment of the game.

I wouldnt be surprised if he wanted to get out from under it... I'm sure it's a huge pita to maintain it, and wouldnt blame him at all.

Rahjeir
02-16-2005, 10:30 PM
Ads are now on thottbot. The anwser seems clear.

Ravija
02-16-2005, 10:40 PM
=(

ukator
02-16-2005, 11:06 PM
Everyone always comes out against the sites that sell out to IGE or Yantis or whomever. While I'm not a big fan of it, I'm not in Thott's shoes, and if I had made something that someone would gladly buy for what I would guess is good money I would do it also. The old walk a mile in another man's shoes line comes to mind.

Yrys
02-16-2005, 11:28 PM
Having made an MMOG-related site, and receiving and turning down offers from shady companies to buy my data, I have been in those shoes. I have to admit though that what I'd done was nowhere near as popular as Thottbot... Thottbot runs on 40 servers; if my site ever had that much traffic I'd probably have just shut it down. I guess it's better to have Thottbot and ads, than no Thottbot and no ads.

Just a pity it's a company like IGE.

guice
02-17-2005, 12:14 PM
Ads? Me see no ads on Thottbot. I disabled AdBlock and still notta.

Stormhaven
02-17-2005, 12:36 PM
I don't see any ads either...

ukator
02-17-2005, 01:02 PM
Click on an item or something, and you will now get an add at the top of the page

Stormhaven
02-17-2005, 01:10 PM
I only got one when I clicked on a subsection, and it was coming from ads.thottbot.com

ukator
02-17-2005, 01:22 PM
http://www.thottbot.com/?i=23777

Matrix online add above the item.

Stormhaven
02-17-2005, 01:47 PM
Yeah, from http://ads.thottbot.com/adimage.php?filename=468x60.gif&contenttype=gif

Tiane
02-17-2005, 06:47 PM
Transparent ad-blocking proxy for the win!

Yrys
02-23-2005, 12:32 PM
What's even stranger is that IGE appears to want to hide all this. Since it's become public knowledge, the whois for all those domains has changed to proxies, thus hiding the addresses. The advertising page on OGaming that used to mention the sites it owns now doesn't list any sites.

Rather strange...

Ravija
02-23-2005, 01:20 PM
If Thott has to sell out to IGE at least it'd be somewhat pleasant if searching sped up...just a tad. So far the banners aren't that annoying, the slowness still is.

guice
02-23-2005, 01:33 PM
Maybe Thott works for IGE? Maybe Thott is the COE of IGE! :lol

Oh, wouldn't that be bad; all this time hiding his true identity. :crazeye:

Last I knew Thottbot was hosted on "spare" servers at the back of Thott's work place (and ISP). And the fact he's still working on it (more resent news post Feb 10th) makes me think he still owns the site.

Things that make you go hum...

Yrys
02-23-2005, 01:57 PM
Well, there's not any really definitive evidence either way, but while I hadn't heard where the servers were located, Thott mentions in his latest news post that Thottbot is running on 40 servers... that seems a bit much for "spare" ISP servers. Plus, IGE has been known to buy out sites and let the original maintainer continue to update them (e.g., http://www.ageofvanguard.com/IGE.html).

/shrug

guice
02-23-2005, 02:41 PM
ah, interesting ..

and the fact there are ads, and the sudden change of all the DNS records is really evidence enough that this is fact. I mean, if it was false, why change all the backend records to hide the address? And the removal of *all* the sites OGaming.com owns at the bottom of it's advertising page.

guice
02-23-2005, 02:49 PM
Wow, there's an artical about this; http://www.okratas.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=58&mode=nested&order=0&thold=0

Crimson13
02-23-2005, 04:12 PM
ew ew ew ew ew
who knows what information thottbot will gather now, ah well, it had to happen eventually. I don't so much mind thottbot being purchased, however, if they have been purchased by IGE, a company i dislike for their practices already, I may have to stick to allakhazam's slow pages and format... bleh

Yrys
03-07-2005, 07:11 PM
Another thread somewhat related to this with more info...

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?FN=wow-general&T=1793917

Seems to be coming together somewhat; IGE is buying sites with their Ogaming network for HUGE amounts of cash ($100,000?), making the sites sign an NDA so no one knows IGE owns them, and then using the sites to create a favorable impression of IGE amongst the players, to try to increase IGE's item sales and make it seem more acceptable.

Very slick and very despicable IMO, won't be visiting any of those sites...

Not that I blame the sites for selling, $100,000 is a lot of cash. :P

Stormhaven
03-08-2005, 09:30 AM
Pfft... honestly, how many people here could turn down that much money?
I mean I guess it'd be one thing if you made money from your website and it was your only source of income, but how about the sites that were fan run in their spare time? Imagine if your hobby was building ships in a bottle... that'd be like someone coming up to you and wanting to give you $100k for a ship =\

Amerylla
03-08-2005, 10:40 AM
Heh, money makes the world go around right?

In my perfect, honorable world, no one would sell to or buy from a site like IGE but shoot, this is the real world and I would be sorely tempted with that kind of money. I'd probably even sell too. Besides yeah, unless you are really into working on a site like that, it would take way too much of my game time. I think I'd take the money and run... err, play.