Gamer Escape

When you get hacked then copy a website verbatim, again. If there were a lazier ripoff it'd legitimately distort reality to another dimension.

Ah yes, Gamer Escape, a forked version of FFXIClopedia. The result of dissatisfaction by the staff and community with the Wikia takeover of the site.

Some of the same staff in fact, which also asked for donations to keep the site open. Specifically, in order to avoid needing to resort to a sell out to Wikia. Only to take said donations then sell out everyone's work anyway [1].

So why not double down on the douchebaggery; as if failing and betraying the community once already wasn't enough.

Historical Background

During mid-April 2017 Gamer Escape was hit by a randsomware attack which also resulted in the loss of their "backups". As a result the site was down for a what feels like an eternity by modern standards, but ultimately not long enough as it eventually came back online. Though this was only for their main squeeze, the FFXIV section of the site. Since following the money was one of the bedrock principles on which the site was founded.

Their FFXI wiki was long dead as the only thing still active on it for years now was the occasional viewer still searching for Ganiman's lost integrity. Sadly, the only thing with a chance of being found was his left nut, which had long since been left behind and forgotten, poor old Charitwo.

Fast forward a few months and at the very end of July it was decided after what is assumed to be remorseful weekend of heavy drinking, regret, and one specific nerd's momentary nostalgia boner. That bringing back their taxidermic old faithful (their lost FFXI section) was a really neat idea. However, that sounded like work which is only worth it if you can take money under the table for it.

Since that wasn't going to happen the next best thing was uploading a current dump of the entire FFXIClopedia site and branding it as "Gamer Escape". Which is very thoughtful because lonely bots crawling the web need a place to upload spam and you might get a few pennies for stealing traffic from Clopedia with 0 effort.

When confronted by the one remaining staff member at XIClopedia (and perhaps a very lively tumbleweed) about once again taking a literal and metaphorical dump on them. The response was to simply stick to the script, and repeat the phrase "Fair use...get over it." Which was of course the high note of any discussions.

After all why follow the high road of owning up to your failures and taking responsibility, or not be a lame tool when you can just be yourselves? Which happens to coincidentally mean being a complete bunch of assholes as some things seemingly never change.

If any silver lining was to be found from this reminder in how people on the internet can be blatant ass stains. It would be the direct result of all "GE" links being removed from FFXIAH. One score for the good guys.