Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsFileFront suspending operations indefinitely
by Alex Ziebart 
Mar 26th 2009 at 1:00PM
Our old friend Moo Money wrote in a little earlier today (along with a few readers) to alert us of some news that has the potential to hit the WoW community pretty hard: FileFront is closing its doors, citing poor economic conditions as the reason why they're indefinitely suspending the site's operations. As of March 30th, 2009, FileFront will be gone.Countless WoW videos are currently hosted on FileFront, including some of our favorite machinima, many that we've highlighted on the site previously. It's not just machinima, either. I know many of my friends that arena heavily find and host their videos on FileFront, and my raid has linked to strategy videos that were hosted there, too.
While it's never fun to lose a good, mostly free host, I suspect the internet won't have a problem finding another. The big issue here from a WoW player's POV is the potential loss of amazing material the WoW community has put out with the downfall of FileFront. If there are videos you absolutely don't want to lose, you still have a few days to download them. Buckle down, find your favorites, and make sure they're not lost to the ages.
We can always find another host, but it's still a little depressing to see such a popular service go under due to the economy. Even if it were a site I never used (which isn't the case) it's never good to see this sort of thing happen.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Machinima, Economy
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
konoo Mar 26th 2009 1:56PM
What a bunch of crap, how poorly managed is this company? There should have been at least a months notice not 4 days. Anyone with half a fricken brain should have raised a flag months ago and started a "Save FileFront" campaign or trimmed some serious costs.
I think when you start up an advertiser driven operation like this you have a certain responsibility with the content that the public stores on your servers.
Good job idiots, the economy isn't the problem, poor management was your downfall.
Lycanthro Mar 26th 2009 2:02PM
It's very clear that you don't understand how business works and how the economic crisis caused a credit freeze that is effecting EVERYONE. They're not getting less use, maybe less advertising revenue but they probably could have barreled through that. They probably just have debt that's come due and where usually you'd just go to the bank and get a loan and work forward on that now good legitimate business with good credit cannot get a loan. The whole "donations" phenomenon on the internet is a total fluke and not how things normally work, falling onto that works for webcomics and conventions but not for much else. They've probably been scrambling to find a bank or anyone to pay their next server bill but couldn't and are regretfully ending their years of work. It's not File Front's fault, it's the lack of personal responsibility that has overwhelmed this country.
smiley Mar 26th 2009 2:11PM
I am calling it now, BLizzard announces theme park on april 1st, and filefront closes march 30
april 2nd they both announce april fools.
.. i just hope you people wo submited theme park idead get your beta keys to SC2
konoo Mar 26th 2009 2:06PM
Actually I understand how business works very well as the owner of 3 successful companies ( 2 internet based).
If they were operating is a cash negative situation then they knew this was coming months ago when credit started to tighen up. If anything you just backed up my argument..
Angry Joe Mar 26th 2009 2:26PM
Good riddance. Was such a pain to use it.
Thebum Mar 26th 2009 6:10PM
Indeed. With speeds of 50 kb/s I didn't even bother to try to download from there.
STHedgeHog Mar 26th 2009 3:13PM
I never really used FileFront much but it will be sad to see it go. One by one they seem to be falling. Wonder how Gamespy's FilePlanet's doing, seeing as they do pretty much the same thing...
Riley Mar 26th 2009 4:32PM
yeah, but Fileplanet sucks
Sikaros Mar 26th 2009 3:58PM
goodbye filefront :(
Bob Mar 26th 2009 4:03PM
This is really bothering me so I have to point this out. It not just the WoW community stuff that will be lost. But ALL of the other demos and mods for all of the games on filefront will be lost too. A lot of those mods will be gone forever because they are only hosted on filefront. But anyways, RIP Filefront.
lolwut Mar 28th 2009 11:37AM
aww...sad
lolcat Mar 28th 2009 7:40PM
R.I.P. filefront
P.S. they're tryig to save all the files at http://arloria.net/ircrts/wiki/Main_Page
P.P.S.S. don't make me use rapidshare... greedy scum they are
DDS Mar 29th 2009 10:06PM
Holy Crap !
That site has countless networks for all sorts of different games. And now all is going to be destroyed in one day... 10 years of work... Countless files... That's simply unbelievable and beyond my understanding.
Another poor victim of financial crisis. I hope I will finish downloading my last mod for Empire at War from there before all is lost.
RIP Filefront :(