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GameFAQs

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GameFAQs' main page on 31st September 2004

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 and the ability to contribute.

GameFAQs history

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, successfull.

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 ([2]), 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 culture

GameFAQs is noteworthy for its active message board community, which has posted nearly 130 million messages in almost 17 million topics. 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.)

Most well-known

  • Another Place (AP) is a GameFAQs Social Board created when LUE's user level requirement went up to 31. AP is definitely not a part of LUE anymore, and has somewhat of a tightly-knit community. There are many social topics around and is known by its inhabitants as "Your GameFAQs home for polygamy and wit." Some of AP's residents have made their first names known to the board and ask to be addressed by them. AP also has its own, semi-official website containing a set of guidelines, quotes, and a member list, or APe list.
  • Current Events (CE) is the oldest social board on GameFAQs. It is usually the second most popular social board on GameFAQs.
  • Life, the Universe, and Everything (LUE) is the most popular GameFAQs Social Board with usually well over 50,000 posts. The name was derived from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams. It was originally created to provide a place to discuss such things as religion and existence. LUE has been very controversial in GameFAQs history, and is often viewed as one of the worst boards on the site. Discussion today is usually sex-related and has been for years. LUE is also home to many fads, including the infamous LUEshi (an ASCII image of Mario riding Yoshi created by the user Patamon), and the phrase "y helo thar", which was said on a recent live broadcast of Conan O'Brien.
    • Though the board used to be open to all members with 30 Karma, it was raised to 75 Karma following the "Scum Wars" around November 2002 ([3]). A 150 Karma requirement was implemented after the "RevoLUEtion" on May 7th, 2003 ([4]), and soon after the board was removed from all board listings. To get to it, one has to manually type in the URL.
    • On November 15 2003, any future growth potential LUE had was shut down. Following a massive LiveJournal invasion by LUE, CJayC "sterilized" LUE by forbidding any user with a user ID greater than 888113 from ever reaching LUE. On that date, Tsietisin created the massive LUE spinoff, LUE2, which saw 2570 registrants and 37100 posts within two and a half days of opening. The last person to ever get into LUE, Lunarhawk99, was hailed as "The One" and regarded as a celebrity. Soon after, from January 4th to January 15th, CJayC ran a sign-up for LUE; people that haven't signed up aren't allowed to visit the board. This was done to prevent any new members from visiting and to permanently remove banned users. In exchange, LUE was granted slightly more leeway when it comes to controversial topics ([5]).
    • The LUE Trinity (sometimes referred to as the "unholy trinity") is the term for the three most commonly posted shock sites on GameFAQs - Goatse, Tubgirl, and the Harlequin Fetus. "Goatse" and "Tubgirl" are autoflagged words, and it is now a major offense to provide links to the sites.
  • Random Insanity (RI) was originally created to shunt the less-serious users off of CE. It quickly became host to text-based roleplaying and "social topics" where people could come in and talk about nothing in particular. One of the most popular of these is Pikadeth's Playhouse, which spawned many imitators. Originally RI was slightly hostile towards CE (the origin of "board invasion" being a ToS violation), with the RICE wars being remembered by the "old RIers". RI also has a history of being competitive with LUE; in the early days, users would perform "raids" on LUE in the PM hours. Before the RI Refugee Crisis [6] it usually had twice the number of posts on CE and LUE combined. However, after the incident most of them migrated to LUE.
    • RI had many dramas and traditions of its own, including roleplaying, which started on the board and later moved to RP/FF. Gaw's Laws, a set of rules for roleplaying popularly used at the site, originated at RI. Today, roleplaying is somewhat of a niche, with social topics and one-liners dominating instead. RI has often had problems accepting new users, with resistance coming from "veterans" -- users who, while not necessarily there for very long, tried to establish standards on the "randomly insane" board. One event that still resonates with even the newest users is Gamequeen incident ([7]).

Less well-known

  • The Couch, The Hallway, The Porch, and The Forum are "forum" message boards for general chitchat, with The Couch being the largest among them.
  • Game Design and Programming is a board where people can discuss programming concepts and code. The veterans at this board usually look down on "Game Makers" focusing instead on making the games using OpenGL. There are even a couple of professional video game programmers who hang out at this board.
  • Message Board Help is the unofficial complaint forum of the boards. If a user feels something is wrong with the moderation system or staff, or possibly a board error, it is usually reported here. It is also used to ask questions about board features. This board was named Questions and Suggestions until the Karma system was introduced. After that, all suggestions and petitions have gone to Site Suggestions.
  • Poll of the Day (PotD) is another social board, similar to LUE, although the topics there are not usually as bad. PotD has nothing particular in common with the Poll of the Day on the main page, and is usually used to discuss women, love, etc.
  • Review Contributors is the board for all the review writers to talk about common interests. This board has been split to better categorize the discussions on it. It is now composed out of three boards: General, Help and Critiques, and Social.
  • Special Secret Boards are hard to find because you have to type their board number (found in parentheses) manually in the address bar. The boards are: Spatula (622), Board 250 (250), Brilliant (-1), Spork (542), Eggbeater (486), Semprini (709), Jenny (8675309), Pie (314159265), Rnd() (123456789), Nine (9), Lame (20040401), Toaster Oven (909090909), and Angela (8535937). In all of these boards you can usually find topics that are used for karma raising by many users, even though such topics are no longer necessary. Toaster Oven in particular had been rumored to exist for years, and was finally created by CJayC along with Rnd(), Nine, and Lame as the April Fool's Joke for 2004. Angela was leaked by a mod who found the Angela constitution and decided it was better to leak it slowly than to have it be massly invaded. Another user who the mod asked posted the first link on Current Events then it was linked but a member of the main secret board posted the link to at least try to get all the board hunters in before it was invaded. Eggie was angry and he posted on the secret board that was created for a few people (when the board was still searching for toaster oven called Tosa) Eggie said "to hell with Tosa and to hell with GameFAQs" and said he was going to leave GameFAQs forever. He posted all of the links for the secret boards and got purgatoried, as soon as he got out of purgatory he closed all of his topics and deleted his posts then closed his account quoting "Why would I go back to the place where I was stabbed in the back?" There's been no sign of him since he closed his AIM screenname and his Yahoo! email.
  • Site Suggestions is the official petitioning board, though very few ever pass. Usually passed petitions are a new special interest or social board, though very occasionally a new feature might be added.
  • Spring Contest 2004 was created for the start of a new contest that is comparing what game is the so called "Best. Game. Ever.". The contest itself is quite similar to the Summer Contest in that both are popularity contests. The two boards usually share similar characteristics and similar topics.
  • Summer Contest is the board where people talk about the Summer Character Contest, a huge event at GameFAQs. This board has evolved since 2002 for the most part independently from the other boards mentioned. One well-known event on these boards has happened 2 years in a row, directly after Crono's loss to Mario in both tournaments, each by around 100 votes. Mass account suicides, flaming/trolling, and even accusations of CJayC cheating ensued for days after both times. This board is also known for the constant flame wars between certain groups of users, and the word "fanboy" is horribly overused.
  • 810-819 Boards were created a few days after April Fool's Day. Originally, CJayC posted on the Icon board (1000 karma requirement) on April Fools Day about making private boards for the first few icons that signed up. Many thought it an April Fool's joke until these boards were actually created. The few people that received these boards also are allowed to name them. So far, the ones that have been named are: 810 (Mostly Harmless), 813 (Unnatural Selection), 814 (The Upper Room), 816 (#showarr), 818 (KGB), and 819 (CE Reloaded). In order to access these boards, the founders must send an invite.
  • Secret Boards are game boards where off-topic posting is allowed. This is generally because the systems the games belong to have become so antiquated and obsolete that very little genuine discussion would otherwise take place on them. Many GameFAQsers have adopted some of these boards for their own use. The systems whose game boards are secret boards are found in the KSOT FAQ ([8]).

GameFAQs spinoffs

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:

  • GameFAQs Hell-based
    • GameFAQs Hell - GameFAQs Hell was the first spinoff, the one that started it all. The only copies of the original source known to still exist are versions 0.5.2, 0.5.3, 0.6.0, 0.6.4, 0.7.0 and 0.8.0 (the last official release). The boards were originally writen in ASP but were never finished and then were abandoned and rewritten in PHP, and were run on a server owned by the boards' creator, Chuck Sakoda. The server (rhn.skwerl.net) is still running but there is no longer a site there.
    • Mediarchive - Mediarchive was one of the most featureful and popular spinoffs of all time. It contained a contribution system similar to GameFAQs'. The source code was leaked toward the end of its days. The creator, Jay, claims that he would have released it two days later if it weren't leaked by Counteray, the guy who paid for and hosted Mediarchive. The leak of Mediarchive led to many more spinoffs popping up and others adding more features and fixes to MA code.
    • Outboards[9] - The oldest spinoff remaining in existence, founded in August 2002. It currently uses a heavily modified version of Mediarchive by Jay and Outbreakorn. Over time, it has been the subject of controversy due to staff-encouraged 'invasions' of other spinoffs as well as controversial discussion content.
    • whiteFyre[10] - whiteFyre is the second oldest spinoff in existence, started in September 2002 by ultimategamer00. It is the first spinoff to truly have the appearance of the actual GameFAQs boards, as much of the GameFAQs HTML was directly copied. The source code was leaked in August 2003, and ultimategamer's official release followed six months later in February 2004.
    • Special Ops[11] - The owner of Special Ops, Anthony "Ant P" Parsons, started hacking at GameFAQs Hell in April 2003 to make it more GameFAQs-like and remove severe exploits and bugs in the original GameFAQs Hell. It contains an advanced CSS theming scheme among other additions, and is now XHTML 1.1-compliant, though the site design is noticeably biased against Internet Explorer users.
    • Twisted Legacy[12] - Twisted Legacy is the third oldest spin-off still in existence, created in late September 2002 as a refuge for GameFAQs "The Couch" members. It has flourished since then, with many source improvements, made formerly by Aquatakat and now by Insder. While the source still has some bugs in it, it has been drastically changed since its Outboards 2 (GFH-Based) beginnings.
  • Original Source - This is a list of spinoffs not based off of GameFAQs Hell (most are closed-source, thus derivatives of them are few, if any)
    • Archetype Zero[13] - A very feature-rich spinoff that contains several features from Special Ops, whiteFyre, and some unique to Archetype Zero. It was started in January 2004 and became open source in July 2004. The boards closed down at the end of September 2004, although this may not be a permanent move.
    • Turkeybot[14] - The owner of Turkeybot, Tonglebeak, wanted to make the best spinoff there ever was, with more features and better speed. It contains the most customizable CSS sheet, account security, many other great features, and claims to never have been hacked.
    • LUElinks[15] - A private board created by Llamaguy, only for members of LUE. The interface is similar to that of GameFAQs, but several features are added, most notably the abilities to vote on links and receive tokens for adding good links. There is a running joke among LUElinkers that whenever someone asks for the URL for the board, they all claim that the site does not exist.
    • LUE2[16] - First (and currently only) GameFAQs spinoff to use the new GameFAQs layout. Originally created by Tsietisin in November 2003 on the day of SteriLUEzation (see site history), for three days it was the largest GameFAQs spinoff to ever exist. After Tsietisin resigned, programmer Mark Lin revived and took over the community in January 2004. After two hackings and numerous shutdowns due to bandwidth overconsumption on the outdated and inefficient Mediarchive software, a new and efficient source code was developed by August 2004 while the original user and post databases were retained.
    • GameFAQs Clone X[17] - The first and only working spinoff written in ASP. It was the closest to a true GameFAQs spinoff there is, until GameFAQs itself changed from ASP to PHP. The original set of boards were hacked because the owner left the database path in the released source code, and the passwords were unencrypted. The source is available for download at various sites.
    • Flying Turkey[18] - A spinoff that is very user-friendly. It has a lot of options that normal users can do and even more through the shop and higher levels. Flying Turkey is a spinoff with an origin of The Couch made by Magus.
    • Metaboards - A source code made by U.X.O (also known as Fish and radfox). The purpose was to create a new and "properly coded" version of GameFAQs Hell. It was very active in development for the first three months, however it hasn't recieved much attention since February 2004, and at version 0.4 has been considered abandoned. All versions of the source have been preserved.
    • Radiance[19] - This is an original spinoff with layout similar to Aquatakat's[20] boards.
    • Thunderboards[21] - An almost completely original spinoff still relatively new and the first spinoff to take advantage of SQLite. The owner, lancelott, is more concerned with code perfection than adding more features, so the source is very secure and stable though a bit bare.
    • Slate Boards[22] - An original spinoff source that the first of its one file kind. It excels in some areas of features, but the administrative interface is severely lacking.

Anthony Parsons keeps a small archive of free sources for download[23]. Another one is also available at Onion's page[24]. A much more complete source collection (though without descriptions) is available at lancelott's directory[25]. There is a user-supported list of sources and reviews to accompany them at Slate Boards[26].

A page, slightly out of date since its last update was on April 2004, contains a list of spinoff boards. [27]

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.

See also

Official sites

Unofficial sites

  • GameFAQs Users Site
  • Kirby Still On Top's Secondary Boards FAQ - KSOT's Secondary Boards FAQ is recognised by many users as a comprehensive guide to the features and works of the GameFAQs message boards, answering questions and giving factual information that cannot be already found in the Help Files.
  • GameFAQs Photo Album
  • GameFAQs Archive - The GFA is a collection of saved humourous, interesting, and noteworthy topics and messages posted originally on the GameFAQs message boards themselves throughout their illustrious history between the years 1999 and 2004. The Archive was coded and designed by Roaddhogg, originally to serve as a follow-up to ColdFusion's "Nostalgia Project", which became defunct in late 2002. The GameFAQs Archive currently stores in excess of 900 pages and has over 100,000 hits. User submissions are encouraged.

GameFAQs board histories

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