Remember what I keep saying: Envato was never just about business—it was about the authors, their passion, and their hard work.
It used to feel like a true creative ecosystem, well, I was right, I knew it in my gut that I was right, and this proves it better than my words…
I just watched a story from the gaming industry where three passionate developers crushed a major studio simply because they loved what they were doing.
That’s the very spirit Envato was built on.
And yet, the current leadership acts like detached corporate puppets.
They don’t create. They don’t feel the craft. They shouldn’t even be in charge of a creative platform.
Take Hichame Assi for example.
He treats this creative community like a commodity.
Now he’s doubling down on AI generation—as if replacing real creators with machine-made shortcuts is the future.
You have one of the most dedicated creative marketplaces in the world, and you bet on AI churn?
It’s beyond frustrating—it’s a betrayal of what made Envato great.
Envato could still be saved in a matter of months, but at this rate the CEO will likely run it into the ground and sell it off for a quick profit, blaming “market conditions” or AI when the real issue is leadership.
A CEO of a creative marketplace must understand the craft.
How can you lead something you’ve never done?
He’s never built an app, never struggled to bring a product to market, never handled user support, and—most telling—never had a real conversation with authors.
To him, we are invisible.
If the day comes when Envato collapses—and I fear it may be soon—it will be because passion was replaced by spreadsheets.
And while it will be tragic for the creative community, I’ll at least know that those who ignored and mistreated the authors will finally face the consequences.
Envato’s trajectory seems to be the following: they want to switch to providing only media files, like images, videos and audio assets to customers. They see the advantage in these assets, that they can be also easily AI generated. As an alternative to the AI stuff, they provide also assets sold by the old style “created by authors” (the real people who are still selling on Elements).
How they want to sell this service? They want to provide a single monthly subscription to customers, based on which, everyone can download tons of media, basically, everything that they might need for their new project.
Us, WordPress plugin and theme devs don’t fit into this big picture, because of this, we are here on WPBay, where we try to find our new home, after leaving Envato…
Well, AVADA made more than Elemebts will ever do…
https://themeforest.net/item/avada-responsive-multipurpose-theme/2833226?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20946799167&gbraid=0AAAAADf3e4H7gfpcNHash87Pq7JAQFm7C&gclid=CjwKCAjwz5nGBhBBEiwA-W6XRMfWfmw4Ouo2F-B5j1byVjL36sf23HxQA_QxNzG2uwg_HsPKYSCDqBoC10oQAvD_BwE
I get what you’re saying—you’re pointing out that Envato’s roots were in code, not in stock footage or audio.
Back in the mid-2000s, their breakout success was Flash (think ActiveDen), and when Flash faded, they rode the next big wave with WordPress themes, plugins, and front-end JavaScript templates. That’s what really built their brand and reputation.
Now the landscape is different:
- Free and freemium content (Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay, even YouTube Audio Library) makes audio and video far less valuable as paid assets.
- Code and templates are still high-demand—but competition is fierce (GitHub, ThemeForest clones, AI code generators, marketplaces like CodeCanyon alternatives).
- Subscription fatigue is real. Their Envato Elements model works for some, but it also commoditizes their core product.
So your sense that their current “all-in-one creative subscription” focus is drifting away from their strongest niche is pretty fair.
If they don’t double down on the developer/design ecosystem—WordPress, JS frameworks, Webflow/Framer-style tooling—they risk losing the thing that made them indispensable.
I said it from day one that WPbay will be the new Envato and I know I am right!
What I was trying to say is that passion and hard work will always beat greed and the pursuit of an easy buck.
What I don’t understand is why throw away such a good business like Envato—it could absolutely be saved.
The solution seems simple: decouple Envato Elements from the main marketplace and make it clear that Elements is one thing and the marketplace is another.
Right now the advertising is misleading, with banners everywhere promising “unlimited everything”, which just confuses customers and undervalues the original marketplace.
I’m just glad to see creators out there building their own games and products on their own terms—without a CEO dictating every move—and achieving something big.
A small team can create something so good and addictive that it simply wouldn’t be possible inside a big video-game studio.
Take Diablo as an example: I played Diablo II and, even after 20 years, I still think it’s the best RPG ever made.
Then came Diablo IV, built with the goal of squeezing out as much money as possible.
I played it once and forgot about it.
They keep adding expansions and other features, but it just doesn’t work.
OMG, indeed, Diablo is clearly the BEST RPG ever made. Also, there are a lot of huge classic games, like StarCraft, which basically ruled the LAN party era. Everyone had that one friend who would just Zerg rush in the first five minutes and ruin your base before you even managed to build a second barracks. And then there was Warcraft, with its orcs and humans, which slowly grew into World of Warcraft and took over entire lives.
Those were the days when games weren’t just games, they were cultural events… everyone talked about them at school, shared floppy disks or scratched CDs, and bragged about how far they’d gotten. I remember when I got my hands on a couple of CDs with games, I was really excited, especially when I was super hyped by my friends about how the game was. 
Yes, StarCraft and Warcraft are really good.
What I’m trying to say is that we live in an era where huge studios are being outdone by just a handful of passionate developers and designers who truly love what they do.
Why is this happening?
Because of these profit-obsessed CEOs, whose only purpose seems to be making money, they don’t ‘feel’ their trade!
Everything has turned into a subscription service—you don’t actually own anything anymore. and the only important ting is profit, even if you make a good game that does not make enough money is considered a total fail.
I own a Diablo 2 CD that I bought back in the day, everytime I see it makes me smile.
Exactly. Owning that Diablo 2 CD feels special because it is truly yours, no one could take it away because you don’t want to pay for it any more. Today, even the gaming industry has fallen into subscriptions and live services, where you never really own anything. Games are made for profit alone, and passion often gets lost in the way. That’s why small indie teams, driven by love for their craft, can outshine massive studios chasing only money, like you said above.
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Sad times we live indeed, but these success stories give me hope, quality and hard work are still nr.1 !
About Diablo I made it to level 99 with a barbarian back iun the days, tool a lot of time
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