GameFAQs Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
GameFAQs is a popular website about video games that has helped gamers through "FAQs" and "walkthroughs" for games since November 1995. It was started and is maintained by Jeff "CJayC" Veasey. It has the largest database of video games on the Internet [1]. The systems and games range from the 8-bit Atari days to the Next-Gen consoles of today. The site supplies FAQs, guides, images, codes, game saves, reviews, and game data free of charge to anyone who visits the site. Registration allows access to the extremely active message board community (which has posted over 180 million messages in over 17 million topics by over 1.5 million users) and the ability to contribute.
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2 GameFAQs culture 3 GameFAQs spinoffs 4 See also 5 External links |
GameFAQs was started on 5 November 1995 by Jeff Veasey. At that time it was called the "Video Game FAQs Archive", and was hosted on AOL. It originally served as a clone/spin-off of a popular FTP FAQ Archive.
By December 1996, the site was still young, which both the appearance and lack of content demonstrated. The site contained less than 1000 FAQs and guides, combined over all systems. The site focused primarily on the 7 popular systems of the time - arcade games, the Sony PlayStation, the Sega Saturn, the Nintendo 64, the 3DO, the Sega Genesis, and the Super NES - although other systems were also listed. The site was very basic to every degree of the word, and was not updated on a regular basis.
By early 1997, GameFAQs had a new design. In fact, it had two different designs. One was customized for Web browsers that supported frames, and the other was made specifically for browsers with no support of frames. Despite these changes, the color scheme consisted of only white, black and blue, and looked somewhat amateurish. The content, however, was beginning to grow. By April, the site had 1301 files and codes for over 800 games. New features were introduced by Veasey that would shape GameFAQs' future - such as user requests for information; a search engine; recognition for contributors; and more.
By late 1997, GameFAQs had moved off of the AOL servers and was partnered with Imagine Games Network (IGN). During this period of time, Jeff Veasey was working on GameFAQs more than ever before. It is assumed that this is when GameFAQs became his full-time job. Until this time, he had been working in either the radio field (unconfirmed report) or with computer/web programming (evidence taken from a later radio interview). GameFAQs had made it through two years and a new aspect of the site began; user contests. There were only two winners of the GameFAQs Second Birthday Contest out of 1000 entries, but it was a start.
Throughout 1998, Veasey continued to work on the site and post new user-submitted FAQs and codes. In late 1998, the site received another design overhaul. Still operating as an affiliate of IGN, GameFAQs added links to other Snowball partners to its menu bar, and had a number of aesthetic changes applied to it. The actual content of the site hadn't changed much, but Veasey always kept the users informed about the latest events and news. There were frequent updates to the site, even if they weren't always contribution-related. This continued for some time.
In late 1999, GameFAQs had yet another new layout. The sidebar and tables on the homepage which showed the top games were added. The color scheme was also changed, still remaining predominantly blue and white, but these shades weren't exactly the same as before. GameFAQs was still under the flag of IGN.
In November 1999, several things happened very quickly. On the fifth, a Quick Search box was added to all pages, at which time the site was also celebrating its fourth birthday. On the seventh, the message boards opened as Beta and a Poll of the Day would be implemented by the end of that week. Now, the site was beginning to change from a FAQ archive to one of the best gaming help sites on the internet.
Between December 1999 and late 2000, GameFAQs slowed down in terms of the addition of new features. The GameFAQs chat went Beta, but did not last long due to administrative issues - it was simply too hard to control.
2001 was the next year of major change for GameFAQs. Firstly, Veasey decided to dissociate the site with IGN. To continue generating revenue, a banner was placed on the top of each page that was sold to non-profit organizations. This changed by May 2001, when CNET Networks became an official affiliate of GameFAQs. In this month, the Chat feature was completely shut down due to the issues mentioned previously.
In September 2002, another change was made to GameFAQs because of adjustment of advertising policy at CNET. The ad was moved from the top of the page (horizontally) to a vertical position in the sidebar. This also led the way to the navigation of systems at the top of the screen. Changes were consequently made to the links on the side, namely minimizing them and creating subsections in "index" pages. In terms of contributions, GameFAQs continued to grow larger and larger, and Veasey - who was still the sole operator and administrator of the site - dedicated hours upon hours of his time to ensure that GameFAQs remained up-to-date, popular, and above all, successful.
On June 3 2003, Veasey announced to general GameFAQs users (moderators of the boards had previously been alerted) that its long-standing affiliate and sponsor, CNET, had acquired the site and all of its assets (minus user-submitted guides/FAQs, due to obvious legal issues). He assured the worried public that GameFAQs would undergo no major change in terms of administration, and that the 'GameFAQs the users saw today would be the one they saw tomorrow'. This seemed true to a certain extent, as the only change viewable by general users was a discreet CNET footer.
However, in April/May 2004, GameFAQs underwent its biggest visual and administration change yet. At the demand of CNET, it partially merged its game boards with those of GameSpot ([1]), and radically changed the graphics to those of which we see today. The site's webpages have a table-less layout that is styled by a CSS. GameFAQs also converted from ASP to a PHP-powered system. However, its lack of XHTML compliance and easy editability angers both aspiring web designers and average users alike.
Today, GameFAQs is fully owned by CNET Networks. Jeff "CJayC" Veasey is responsible for working on the main site - e-mails, codes, FAQs, reviews, saves, game data, coding, and updating the homepage. CNET has hired Bethany Massimilla to administrate the GameFAQs message boards and lead the moderators. CNET also supplied new (and somewhat faster) servers for the entire site. Although the changeover between the site being run by one man to the site being owned by a company and split into two sections was rough (technical errors, downtime, lost e-mails, and other problems), GameFAQs appears to have settled into its new status; and with the addition of long-time message board user Sailor Bacon to the administration team has regained a level of stability after initial fears, critics and doubts.
GameFAQs is noteworthy for its active message board community. As a result, messages on the boards are purged every day, keeping the total number of posts to reasonable levels. Below are minor descriptions of some its more famous boards:
(Note: Karma is a representation of a user's status. One, and only one, karma can be gained per day if the user logs in.)
Many people have created their own sites based upon the GameFAQs look and feel. These are commonly referred to as GameFAQs spinoffs.
The first spinoff was called GameFAQs Hell, created by Chuck "NeoGenesis" Sakoda in 2002. His first attempt at cloning the boards were performed in ASP and MS Access database services. After giving up on that, he made a new version in PHP and MySQL. He released the source code under the GNU General Public License. It has been confirmed by CJayC that he had a link to GameFAQs Hell in the board help section for promotion of the source.
Since the GameFAQs Hell time, there have been dozens of other spinoffs opened up, and more sources appeared, including:
A page, slightly out of date since its last update was on April 2004, contains a list of spinoff boards. [1]
A large former spinoff, Darkside Legion, was a banned word ("darksidelegion") at GameFAQs after receiving a notorious reputation, because its members were said to contact unsuspecting people and persuade them to give his or her password away. Many Mediarchive-based spinoffs have been hacked by spinoff coders. There has been long-standing tension between Outboards and whiteFyre, the two longest-running spinoffs.
This is an Article on GameFAQs. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About GameFAQs GameFAQs history
GameFAQs culture
Most well-known
Less well-known
GameFAQs spinoffs
Anthony Parsons keeps a small archive of free sources for download[1]. Another one is also available at Onion's page[1]. A much more complete source collection (though without descriptions) is available at lancelott's directory[1]. There is a user-supported list of sources and reviews to accompany them at Slate Boards[1]. There is also another user-submitted list at [1].See also
External links
Official sites
Unofficial sites
GameFAQs board histories