Fandom, Inc.

Fandom, Inc.

File:Fandom logo.svg Logo since 2021
Company type	Private
Industry	Internet, Entertainment
Founded	October 18, 2004 (2004-10-18) in San Francisco, California, U.S.
Founder	Jimmy Wales, Angela Beesley Starling
Headquarters	San Francisco , United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Perkins Miller (CEO), Jimmy Wales (President)
Products	Wiki hosting platform, community discussion boards, data analytics, API, digital magazine
Owner	TPG Inc., Jon Miller (via Integrated Media Co.)
Number of employees	Not specified
Parent	Integrated Media Co.
Website	fandom.com

Fandom (known as FANDOM between 2017 and 2021, and previously called Wikicities and Wikia) is a privately owned wiki hosting platform specializing in entertainment-related content, including video games, television shows, films, and celebrities. Established in October 2004 by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales alongside Angela Beesley Starling, the company is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

In 2018, TPG Inc. and Jon Miller acquired Fandom through Integrated Media Co. The company’s revenue model centers on advertising and monetized content sales, while most of the user-generated material is published under copyleft licenses. Although it utilizes the open-source MediaWiki software that powers Wikipedia, Fandom operates as a commercial enterprise.

Fandom’s range of digital offerings includes wiki hosting services, community discussion boards, data analytics solutions, private focus groups for preliminary marketing research, an application programming interface (API), and a digital magazine dedicated to pop culture news. As of 2022, the platform attracts over 350 million users and ranks within the top 50 most frequented websites worldwide, holding a strong presence particularly in the U.S. and Russian markets.

Additionally, Fandom owns several subsidiaries in entertainment news and information sectors, such as TV Guide, GameFAQs, GameSpot, and Metacritic, which bolster its influence across pop culture media. The company’s executive leadership features CEO Perkins Miller and President Jimmy Wales, who steer strategic initiatives that enhance growth and competitive positioning in the digital media landscape.

2004–2009: Founding and expansion

On October 18, 2004, Wikicities was introduced by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley Starling, both active members of the Wikimedia Foundation. The original concept aimed to create a platform enabling individuals from specific cities or regions to connect. The service was renamed Wikia on March 27, 2006.

Before this rebranding, Wikia raised $4 million in venture capital from Bessemer Venture Partners and First Round Capital, followed later that year by a $10 million Series B round led by Amazon.com. By September 2006, Wikia supported roughly 1,500 wikis across 48 different languages.

The company broadened its reach by acquiring independent fan wikis such as LyricWiki, Nukapedia, Uncyclopedia, and WoWWiki. Early portrayals described Wikia as complementary to Wikipedia—providing more casual entertainment content enriched with multimedia features like maps and embedded YouTube videos—thus distinguishing its offerings within the wiki ecosystem.

2010–2015: Leadership shifts

By 2010, Wikia’s wikis were available in 188 languages. In October 2011, Craig Palmer—formerly CEO of Gracenote—succeeded Penchina as chief executive officer. Co-founder Angela Beesley Starling departed in February 2012 to launch ChalkDrop.com. Later that year in November, Wikia secured $10.8 million through Series C funding from Institutional Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Amazon.com. This was followed by a $15 million Series D round in August 2014 involving Digital Garage, Amazon, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Institutional Venture Partners—bringing total capital raised to $39.8 million.

On March 4, 2015, Walker Jacobs—previously executive vice president at Turner Broadcasting System—was appointed chief operating officer of Wikia. By December of the same year, the company introduced the Fan Contributor Program to deepen engagement with its community of users.

2016–2018: Transition to the Fandom Brand

On January 25, 2016, Wikia introduced a new entertainment news platform called Fandom. Later that year, on October 4, Wikia adopted the branding "Fandom powered by Wikia" to reflect the launch of this site, although the corporate entity continued to operate under the name Wikia, Inc. until 2019. Concurrently, the main website address shifted from wikia.com/fandom to fandom.com. In December, Dorth Raphaely, previously general manager at Bleacher Report, was appointed as chief content officer.

Fandom underwent a visual update on May 18, 2017, adopting a logo in all capital letters and replacing the former green-blue gradient style with a flat design aesthetic.

2018–Present: Expansion and Strategic Developments

In February 2018, Jon Miller, ex-CEO of AOL and supported by private equity firm TPG Capital, acquired Fandom. Miller assumed the role of co-chairman alongside founder Jimmy Wales, while Andrew Doyle from TPG took on interim CEO responsibilities. By July of that year, Fandom expanded its holdings by acquiring Screen Junkies from Defy Media. In December, it further broadened its gaming portfolio through the acquisition of Curse Media, which included Gamepedia and sites such as D&D Beyond and Futhead.

February 2019 marked the appointment of Perkins Miller, former CEO of StubHub, as Fandom’s new chief executive. The company completed its domain migration to fandom.com, transferring numerous wikis and designating serious-topic wikis to wikia.org. Starting in June, Fandom began modernizing its platform by implementing an updated version of MediaWiki and launched the Unified Community Platform (UCP) in March 2020 for newly created wikis.

In 2020, Fandom divested Curse Network properties to Magic Find. Beginning in November, Gamepedia wikis were systematically moved to fandom.com as part of a search engine optimization initiative.

Fandom acquired Focus Multimedia’s Fanatical e-commerce platform for digital games and related merchandise in February 2021. The following month saw revisions to the terms of use prohibiting deadnaming transgender users across its sites—a move prompted by community discussions on inclusivity—followed by the introduction of new LGBTQIA+ guidelines in June that emphasized support resources.

June 2021 featured the launch of FandomDesktop, a revamped desktop interface replacing older skins. By August, a refreshed logo and the tagline "For the love of fans" were unveiled. The migration of remaining wikis from wikia.org to fandom.com was completed by late 2021.

In April 2022, Hasbro purchased D&D Beyond from Fandom for $146.3 million. StrawPoll.me was discontinued in August. On October 3, Fandom significantly expanded its portfolio by acquiring major entertainment and gaming properties including GameSpot, Metacritic, TV Guide, GameFAQs, Giant Bomb, Cord Cutters News, and Comic Vine from Red Ventures.

The beginning of 2023 brought workforce reductions affecting teams at GameSpot, Metacritic, and Giant Bomb; additional layoffs occurred in January 2024 impacting editorial staff at GameSpot. By October 2024, approximately 11% of Fandom’s employees had been let go—including personnel from GameSpot UK and sales divisions—due to unmet revenue goals amid organizational restructuring.

In February 2025, Fandom introduced “FanDNA Helix,” an AI-powered advertising solution that utilizes site content and user data to improve targeted marketing efforts. In May 2025, Giant Bomb was sold back to its original staff to resume independent operation.

July 2025 marked the launch of an initiative employing generative AI technology to translate entire wikis for non-English-speaking audiences—enhancing global accessibility and supporting international communities within Fandom’s business framework.

Wikis

Articles within a Fandom community are primarily designed to deliver in-depth information and foster discussions on topics that extend beyond Wikipedia's scope. This encompasses comprehensive details about video games, gameplay elements, storylines, and associated subjects. Unlike Wikipedia’s strict neutral point of view policy, Fandom wikis often embrace particular viewpoints that resonate with their respective communities.

Fandom adopts more flexible image usage rules compared to Wikimedia projects, enabling richer visual content. All text contributed by users is shared under open licenses, mainly the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, though some wikis utilize noncommercial restrictions or the GNU Free Documentation License. While the platform forbids hate speech, defamation, explicit content, and copyright violations, it permits a wide range of material provided it does not duplicate existing wiki content.

Control over wikis resides with the platform itself rather than individual creators; no single participant’s perspective dominates during conflicts. Community governance is driven by consensus and collaboration, although Fandom reserves the right to intervene when agreement cannot be reached. This structure facilitates effective management across its extensive network of fan communities.

Technology

As of May 2023, Fandom runs on a highly customized iteration of MediaWiki 1.39, enhanced with proprietary extensions that improve social functionalities such as blogs, chat systems, badges, forums, and multimedia features. At the same time, certain advanced user options and customizable skins were removed to simplify the interface and ensure adherence to regulations like GDPR.

In August 2016, Fandom adopted a service-oriented architecture, replacing many bespoke extensions and wiki-specific capabilities with standardized components. This transformation supports scalability and more streamlined global operations management, aligning with the company’s strategy to optimize platform performance and community moderation.

Entertainment news

In 2016, Wikia introduced Fandom, an entertainment media platform combining contributions from volunteer "Fandom Contributors" with a professional editorial team. Fandom focuses on pop culture and fan communities by providing articles, interviews, reviews, and guides related to video games, films, and television series. The platform also includes sponsored content from intellectual property owners to promote their brands.

That year also saw Wikia rebrand its entire platform under the Fandom identity. In early 2019, all wikis transitioned from the wikia.com domain to fandom.com, improving compatibility with its iOS and Android applications to broaden its market presence.

Wiki partnerships

Fandom has forged official collaborations to create licensed wikis recognized as authoritative sources for various franchises. In 2012, it partnered with Sony Online Entertainment to launch the inaugural "Wikia Official Community" for PlanetSide 2, offering exclusive content and support. In 2014, Fandom teamed up with Roddenberry Enterprises on the Trek Initiative—a dedicated Star Trek wiki featuring interviews and promotional materials commemorating the franchise’s 50th anniversary.

Other collaborations include partnerships with 2K Games for Civilization: Beyond Earth and Warner Bros. Interactive for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. Additionally, Fandom works with Lionsgate Media to promote Starz and associated film franchises through targeted wiki content and advertising efforts, strengthening its role within entertainment media while expanding its business model via strategic alliances.

Esports

In 2021, the United States Navy partnered with Fandom to oversee and promote esports competitions and live streams on Twitch, thereby broadening Fandom's footprint within the digital entertainment marketing sector.

Fandom Games (YouTube channel)

After acquiring Curse Media, Fandom rebranded the Curse Entertainment YouTube channel as Fandom Games. This channel includes the series Honest Game Trailers, which was formerly part of the Smosh Games channel until Fandom's acquisition of Screen Junkies, further expanding its gaming content offerings.

OpenServing

OpenServing was a brief web publishing venture initiated by Fandom on December 12, 2006, designed to provide complimentary wiki hosting paired with a distinctive revenue-sharing approach that allowed wiki creators to keep advertising profits. Although it attracted thousands of early applications, the initiative was quietly discontinued by January 2008 without launching any operational sites. OpenServing employed a customized version of MediaWiki software and planned to extend support to other open-source platforms. This project exemplifies Fandom’s initial exploration into collaborative content monetization strategies.

Armchair GM

ArmchairGM was a sports-focused forum and wiki platform developed by Aaron Wright, Dan Lewis, Robert Lefkowitz, and programmer David Pean. Launched in early 2006 in the United States, the site aimed to broaden its British sports coverage within its first year. Built on MediaWiki, it incorporated a Digg-style voting system for articles, blog-style comments with user interaction, and various post formats including news, opinions, and "locker room" discussions.

In late 2006, Fandom acquired ArmchairGM for $2 million and subsequently adapted its underlying architecture for use across other properties. However, by January 2010, support for ArmchairGM’s custom software was discontinued. Between September 2010 and February 2011, Fandom merged ArmchairGM’s encyclopedia content into its platform while removing blog posts, effectively retiring the original site.

Starting in February 2008, portions of ArmchairGM’s software were gradually released as open source, beginning with the SocialProfile MediaWiki extension. By August 2011, the entire ArmchairGM codebase (known as wikia-ny) was made publicly available. These developments—referred to as MediaWiki "social tools"—have since been maintained by volunteer contributors under the GNU General Public License (version 2 or later). The source code is hosted on Wikimedia Foundation servers and mirrored on GitHub.

Search engines

Wikia, Inc. initially proposed developing a copyleft search engine called "Wikiasari" in 2004, a name derived from Hawaiian and Japanese words meaning "quick search." The project became inactive by 2005. On January 7, 2008, Wikia Search launched in public alpha from the USSHC data center but was met with largely negative feedback from technology media outlets. The search engine effort concluded in March 2009. Later that year, a new search engine was created to index and present results exclusively from all sites hosted on Fandom.

Question and answer platform

In January 2009, the company introduced a question and answer website named "Wikianswers," which was separate from the already existing WikiAnswers. By March 2010, Fandom relaunched the service as "Answers from Wikia," allowing users to establish specialized knowledge market wikis focused on particular subjects, hosted under Fandom’s Wikianswers subdomain.

Connection with Wikipedia

During the 2000s, Fandom (then known as Wikia) encountered criticism for monetizing what was seen as an affiliation with Wikipedia. Media outlets frequently referred to it as "the commercial counterpart to the non-profit Wikipedia," a description contested by both Wikimedia Foundation and Fandom representatives.

In 2006, Wikia and the Wikimedia Foundation shared expenses related to hosting and bandwidth, and Wikia provided donated office space to the foundation. By the end of fiscal year 2007, Wikia had an outstanding balance of $6,000 owed to Wikimedia. Furthermore, two members of Wikimedia’s board simultaneously held positions at Wikia. In January 2009, Wikia leased conference rooms to the Wikimedia Foundation for the Wikipedia Usability Initiative at a market-based rate determined by averaging multiple bids to ensure fairness, according to Wikimedia deputy director Erik Möller.

Advertising disputes

Members of Fandom communities have expressed concerns over intrusive and resource-heavy advertisements, including those embedded within main content areas. Such ads often impair site performance, particularly on mobile devices where autoplay videos can trigger page reloads, leading many users to rely on ad-blocking tools.

Critics in journalism have condemned Fandom’s revenue model for content created by users, emphasizing that contributors receive no direct compensation or rights. The British newspaper The Guardian along with the Journal of Student Research characterized the platform’s strategy as exploitative, pointing out monopolistic tendencies that restrict competition.

In August 2024, Adalytics revealed that prominent brand advertisements were displayed alongside offensive material containing racial slurs on several smaller wikis hosted by Fandom. The company’s AI-driven ad placement system, supported by DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science, came under scrutiny for its failure to prevent ads from appearing adjacent to harmful content.

Editorial interventions

Fandom has modified user-submitted content by inserting disruptive elements such as advertisement popups, unrelated article links, and quizzes without consulting community editors, sometimes removing content arbitrarily.

In 2017, autoplay videos were introduced on wikis dedicated to franchises like Runescape and Fallout without prior approval from editors, attracting criticism for diminishing overall site quality.

By 2021, Fandom began removing adult-themed material by deleting entire wikis focused on such topics without warning users or editors, resulting in significant backlash.

In 2022, wikis covering sexuality and gender topics were consolidated by Fandom; this process involved deleting pages and steering editorial policies toward a more "corporate-friendly" stance. Those opposing these changes faced blocking on both social media platforms and within Fandom itself.

In 2023, Fandom rolled out AI-generated "Quick Answers" across various wikis; however, due to inaccuracies in these responses and subsequent negative reactions from the community, they were ultimately removed.

In May 2025, Fandom enforced “brand safety” protocols on GiantBomb, causing disputes with site personnel and culminating in GiantBomb’s separation from Fandom ownership.

Privacy issues

Fandom has been subject to legal action in California concerning its data collection methods, which allegedly breached the Video Privacy Protection Act. The platform reportedly disclosed user data, such as IP addresses and viewing patterns, to third parties including Meta without obtaining prior permission. These lawsuits underscore the potential vulnerabilities in Fandom’s data privacy practices and regulatory adherence within its operational framework.

McDonald's Grimace Shake campaign

In June 2023, McDonald's compensated Fandom with an undisclosed amount to temporarily substitute the main page of the McDonald's Wiki on Grimace with a promotional banner for the Grimace Shake and the character’s 52nd anniversary celebration. Nathan Steinmetz, the page's lead editor, criticized this decision, arguing it compromised user-generated content integrity and established a concerning precedent where intellectual property owners could supplant community contributions with commercial advertisements.

Wiki migrations

A number of wikis have relocated away from Fandom due to concerns over intrusive ads, a less intuitive interface, restricted customization options, and irrelevant corporate cross-promotions. One of the earliest departures was the Transformers Wiki in 2008, prompted by disputes over advertising. Other significant communities like the Zelda and Minecraft wikis cited factors such as "corporate consolidation," alleged censorship, diminished platform functionality, and various controversies as reasons for their exit. These departures accelerated following Fandom’s 2018 acquisition of Gamepedia amid worries about SEO conflicts and audience retention challenges.

In 2023, Fandom’s CEO Perkins Miller acknowledged the critical nature of these migrations and stressed ongoing initiatives aimed at preserving a stable, community-driven environment supported by robust tools.

Notable wiki departures include the RuneScape wiki (2018); the Zelda and Terraria wikis (2022); the Minecraft, Fallout, and Hollow Knight wikis (2023); the South Park, Dead by Daylight, and League of Legends wikis (2024); along with the Warframe, Vampire Survivors, Undertale/Deltarune, Nichijou, and Balatro wikis (2025). Some of these transitions were directly supported by the original franchise creators.

Forking

Migrating from Fandom to traditional paid hosting platforms presents challenges because Fandom generally retains control over the original domain names. When communities depart, Fandom frequently continues running the abandoned ("forked") wiki under its original branding and content to capitalize on advertising revenue while user activity remains. This approach can negatively impact the new wiki’s search rankings and may result in outdated content appearing more prominently in search results. Although Fandom allows a temporary notice directing users to discussions about forking, it removes this message once discussions conclude and revokes administrative privileges on the original wiki for those managing the new site.

Fandom, Inc.

Fandom, Inc., headquartered in the Hallidie Building at 130 Sutter Street, San Francisco, California, was initially incorporated in Florida in December 2004 before re-incorporating as Wikia, Inc. in Delaware in January 2006. The company operates engineering teams based in Poznań, Poland, with additional offices located throughout Germany, Tokyo (for Asian sales), Chicago, Latin America, Los Angeles (marketing and content), New York City, and London.

Fandom’s revenue model is predominantly advertising-driven. It began with reliance on Google AdSense, transitioned through Federated Media, and eventually developed its own proprietary ad management platform. Despite this evolution, it continues to utilize AdSense, Amazon Ads, and other third-party advertising services alongside its internal system. The company also generates supplementary revenue via partnerships focused on sweepstakes sponsorships across affiliated wikis.

This organizational structure enables Fandom to sustain its global presence and market influence by leveraging strategic leadership combined with diverse income streams to foster growth and maintain a competitive edge within its sector.

See also

• Comparison of wiki hosting platforms