Curse has announced that it is launching Gamepedia.com, an alternative to Wikia and its Wikipedia that will focus solely on video game wikis. The company will have exclusive content deals with certain companies, starting with Gazillion and Marvel, which will provide exclusive content to gamers through the official Marvel Heroes Wiki.
“Curse has a vast array of news and community sites surrounding specific games that feed Gamepedia wikis with passionate hardcore gamers who provide the most up to date accurate information,” said Hubert Thieblot, CEO & Founder of Curse. “The synergy between our properties provides a competitive advantage that can’t be matched by other wiki providers and results in the best game wiki content attracting exclusive partnerships.”
Pawel Dembowski, a veteran of Wikia, is heading up the Curse Gamepedia initiative. He wants gamers to know that the focus is solely on game content.
“Wikia used to focus more on games, but today it’s more focused on finding new audiences and developing the social aspects of the wikis,” said Dembowski. “Gamepedia is about video games and video games only.”
“Rather than adding stuff like achievements and badges and all the stuff that Wikia is currently doing, Gamepedia is focusing on gaming content,” said Dembowski. “The actual content at Wikia is limited to less than half of the page because the rest is taken up by gamification. People come to Wikis to look up info or to learn more about the world of the game, not to get badges and stuff like that.”
The various GamePedia wikis will be able to customize their looks more than Wikia, which has strict guidelines of appearance. Certain wikis like the official Minecraft Wiki will retain their separate domains, but they’ll be connected to Gamepedia.
“Part of this initiative is leveraging our good relationship with developers and publishers, which allows us to get exclusive content from them pre-release,” said Dembowski. “Wikia is not really a gaming community company. They don’t really do much directly with the publishers or developers. We’re going to encourage our existing communities to help create content.”
“The fact that we are also gamers and fans means our Gamepedia team is very much dedicated to helping the gamers and the communities to build the databases of the games,” he added. “Wikis are primarily built by fans, but we are also dedicated to building them with them and helping them whenever necessary. We have a clean and simple layout that’s customizable. We have less ads than Wikia, which uses pop-ups or Flash-based ads. We do have ads, but they are definitely less disruptive ads.”
Source: GamesIndustry.biz
