Curse

What Curse does

Curse / Fandom, Inc. operates the world's largest fan wiki platform alongside a portfolio of acquired entertainment media brands. The core Fandom wiki platform hosts over 250,000 community-maintained wikis spanning games, movies, TV, and anime, serving 350 million monthly users who both consume and contribute content. The technology layer is a wiki-based publishing and collaboration infrastructure that enables community creation, editing, moderation, and progress tracking, distributed via web and native iOS/Android apps.

The product portfolio extends well beyond wikis. CurseForge is a popular modding platform (notably for Minecraft and other games) that distributes user-generated content such as mods and modpacks. Following the 2022 acquisition of GameSpot, Metacritic, and TV Guide from Red Ventures for approximately $55 million, the company also operates major editorial media properties covering gaming news and reviews, critic/user score aggregation, and television listings. Fanatical adds a digital game storefront, while Honest Entertainment extends the footprint onto YouTube. Subsumed properties are operated as wholly owned, brand-retained subsidiaries under the Fandom umbrella.

The business model is primarily advertising-supported across the high-traffic media properties and wikis, supplemented by marketplace/commission economics on CurseForge and commerce activity on Fanatical. Content and licensing generate additional revenue through the owned media brands. Go-to-market is community-led: organic wiki contributions and cross-promotion across the multi-brand portfolio drive user acquisition and engagement. Since 2018, the company has operated as a privately held, majority-owned portfolio company of TPG Capital, which holds majority voting control through preferred shares, with institutional investors representing over 90% of ownership. Reports in early 2025 indicate TPG is exploring a strategic sale or recapitalization that could value the company in the multi-billion dollar range, partly reflecting investor appetite for the company's first-party data assets amid AI-driven demand.

Name

Curse

Legal name

Fandom, Inc.

Website

https://curseinc.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2004

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

101–250 employees

Short description

Curse / Fandom operates the world's largest fan wiki platform with 250,000+ wikis and 350 million monthly users, alongside acquired gaming and entertainment media brands including GameSpot, Metacritic, TV Guide, CurseForge, and Fanatical.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Fan Community and Entertainment Media Platform

NAICS

Media Streaming Distribution Services, Social Networks, and Other Media Networks and Content Providers (51621), Media Streaming Distribution Services, Social Networks, and Other Media Networks and Content Providers (516210)

SIC

Services-Amusement & Recreation Services (7900)

akta.pro primary industry

Creator & Fan Communities (BPAMABAD)

akta.pro secondary industries

Creator Monetization & Fan Funding (Subscriptions, Tips, Memberships, Patronage) (MPAFAEAB), Gaming & Virtual World Communities (BPAMABAE)

Keywords

• Fan wiki platform
• Gaming media network
• Game modding platform
• Entertainment review aggregation
• Digital game storefront

Headquarters

HQ city

Huntsville

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Advertising: The platform generates revenue through advertising across its high-traffic media properties including GameSpot, TV Guide, Metacritic, and Fandom wikis. With 350 million monthly users, the platform offers significant advertising inventory.
2. Media and Content Licensing: Operates owned media brands (GameSpot, Metacritic, TV Guide, Fanatical) that generate revenue through content, reviews, and gaming/entertainment media coverage.
3. CurseForge Platform: CurseForge hosts game mods and modpacks. While the specific monetization model is not detailed, modding platforms typically generate revenue through premium content sales or partnerships with game publishers.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

Curse (operating as Fandom, Inc.) operates the world's largest fan wiki platform hosting 250,000+ wikis serving 350 million monthly users across games, movies, TV, and anime. It also runs CurseForge, a leading modding platform for game user-generated content, alongside acquired entertainment media properties (GameSpot, Metacritic, TV Guide) and a digital game storefront (Fanatical), monetizing via advertising, content/media licensing, and marketplace commissions on third-party content.

Product overview

Fandom operates a multi-platform entertainment ecosystem consisting of the core Fandom wiki platform, the CurseForge modding platform, and several acquired gaming media properties. The core Fandom platform hosts over 250,000 fan wikis and serves as a content discovery portal, while CurseForge provides mod management for games like Minecraft. Fandom's portfolio includes GameSpot (gaming news/reviews), Metacritic (review aggregation), and TV Guide (television content), all acquired from Red Ventures in 2022 for approximately $55 million. Fanatical operates as a digital game storefront, and the Fandom mobile app enables mobile access to fandom content.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Community Central: Hub for wiki community discussions, support, and collaboration
• My Fandom
• CurseForge

Products and services

• Fandom The world's largest fan wiki platform hosting over 250,000 wikis across entertainment properties including games, movies, TV, and anime. Provides wiki creation tools, community features, content discovery, interactive maps, and progress tracking to individual fans and community contributors.
• CurseForge A popular modding platform for Minecraft and other games, enabling users to discover, download, and manage game modifications and modpacks such as Halo Rogue.
• GameSpot Gaming news outlet covering video game reviews, previews, and industry news for gaming audiences.
• Metacritic Entertainment review aggregation platform providing critic and user scores for games, movies, and TV.
• TV Guide Television entertainment guide covering show listings, reviews, and streaming content information.
• Fanatical Digital game storefront offering discounted PC and console games as part of Fandom's gaming ecosystem.
• Fandom Mobile App Mobile application for iOS and Android enabling users to access Fandom wikis, news, videos, and community discussions on mobile devices.

Named customers8 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature4 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Red VenturesminorOthers · 1 January 2022Fandom acquired GameSpot, Metacritic, and TV Guide from Red Ventures in 2022 for approximately $55 million. This acquisition expanded Fandom's media property portfolio significantly.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• Discord: Discord hosts the live, real-time fan communities for the same gaming and entertainment IPs Fandom documents; both compete for the same fandom-engagement minutes and are increasingly overlapping on creator monetisation and community infrastructure.
• Overwolf: Overwolf operates a competing in-game modding/app ecosystem and acquired CurseForge's direct competitor assets historically; it is the most direct commercial rival to CurseForge for premium mod distribution and creator monetisation in PC gaming.
• Reddit: Reddit is the largest community-driven UGC platform organized around topics including gaming, entertainment, and TV; its subreddit model is the closest functional analog to Fandom's wiki-per-IP model, and both compete for the same fan-content attention budget and ad dollars.

Broad incumbents

• IMDb: IMDb (Amazon-owned) is the canonical entertainment database for movies, TV and games on the consumer side, and competes directly with Fandom's TV Guide and Metacritic properties for entertainment research queries and entertainment-ad inventory.
• IGN Entertainment: IGN is the largest dedicated gaming and entertainment media network (reviews, news, video), acquired by Ziff Davis; it overlaps with GameSpot and Metacritic on reviews/news and competes with Fandom for the same advertiser budgets on the same audience.
• Polygon: Polygon is Vox Media's flagship gaming and entertainment property, covering reviews, news and culture that overlaps GameSpot and Fandom's editorial output; it competes for both readership and entertainment advertising spend in the same ad-tech stack.
• Wikimedia Foundation: Wikipedia is the original and largest community-edited knowledge platform, and the conceptual template Fandom's wikis are built on; while Wikipedia covers general knowledge and Fandom covers entertainment, both compete for general-purpose research queries and train overlapping AI/language-model training datasets.

Emerging players

• Fextralife: Fextralife is a niche gaming wiki and guide network focused on Souls-like and hardcore PC games; it competes with Fandom for the highest-monetising gaming-wiki audience segment and demonstrates that focused wikis can win specific franchises.
• Modrinth: Modrinth is an open-source Minecraft/Java mod distribution platform that has rapidly gained share through a cleaner UX and creator-friendly terms; it competes head-on with CurseForge on Minecraft mod downloads and threatens CurseForge's long-standing dominance.

Regional players

• Giant Bomb: Giant Bomb is a smaller gaming-media outlet focused on video reviews, wiki-style game entries and enthusiast editorial; while US-based like Fandom, it serves a higher-ARPU niche enthusiast segment with overlapping content types and competes for the same enthusiast gaming ad dollar.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/user/screenjunkies
• Xx.com/cursenetwork
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/curse-inc

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Subsidiaries6 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds5 records

Investors6 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A1 record

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Curse