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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.

Between December 1999 and late 2000, GameFAQs slowed down in terms of the addition of new features. The GameFAQs chat went Beta on June 21, 1999, but did not last long due to administrative issues - it was simply too hard to control. The IRC server, however, definitely brought a rise in the site's activity, with more people visiting the domain at different times of the day. The GameFAQs chat was initially revolved around a minor number of administrator-owned channels, but eventually allowed users to create their own (such as #trivia) through a petitioning system.

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: while full details weren't revealed and no official precise reason was given, it is believed that this was due mainly to the chat's main administrator (who went by the nickname Wroth) continuous conflicts with other popular users such was Wise Old Gamer, Vegeth and Dettronen Spy.

During the middle of 2001 came about "board wars" between the popular Final Fantasy VII and Star Ocean: the Second Story gaming boards. Because many users were getting in trouble due to off-topic conversation, Veasey interferred eventually and created what was the first Social Board on Star Ocean: the Second Story (which has since been removed). Final Fantasy VII soon had a board and other popular games had one installed as well.

In September 2002, CNET's advertising policy changed, prompting more changes to GameFAQs. 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 was true to a certain extent, as the only visible change was a discreet CNET footer. Other minor changes included moving the servers to California (thus changing the board's time to GMT -8), as well as rolling all the server names into one (previously, it was s1/s2/s3; now it became simple cgi.gamefaqs). This made users happy because the servers weres starting to lag.

In July 2003, Veasey completely overhauled GameFAQs' security in light of an alarming rise in account hackings and stealings. It was alledged that troahbarton (a KOS user) attempted to hack one of the servers, quickening the security changes. For log-in, he encrypted the cookies and un-checked the auto-login box. He also instituted "account lockdowns." If the private email or password was changed, an email would be sent to the last known private address (in case a hacker had taken over the account). The user could then suspend it (Level 2: User Suspended) and send an email to CJayC to to get it unsuspended. This process, however, was long and cumbersome, eventually leading to its discontinuation. Security Settings were also implemented; users could lock out other login attempts from other ISPs for a set period of time. To top it off, he required everyone to read and acknowledge the changes (the next time anyone would log in, they would see the page).

In April/May 2004, GameFAQs underwent its biggest visual and administration change yet. At the demand of CNET (and to the disdain of many GameFAQs users), it partially merged its game boards with those of GameSpot and radically changed the graphics to those of which we see today. The site's web pages are now styled by CSS instead of tables. GameFAQs also converted from Microsoft ASP to a PHP-powered system. However, its lack of XHTML compliance and less-than-easy CSS modification has angered both aspiring web designers (and those who want to create their own stylesheets) and average users. On December 1, a site-wide login button was introduced and a "Universal Account" system was introduced, meaning that not only GameFAQs users would have to login using an email address (rather than a username), but could also use their usernames on MP3.com or GameSpot (both of which owned by CNET).

Today, GameFAQs is fully owned by CNET Networks. Jeff "CJayC" Veasey still mantains responsibility 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 has supplied newer (and faster) servers for the entire site. Although the changeover from a one-person-administrator to being owned by a big company, as well as transition from old to new servers and boards, was rough, GameFAQs appears to have settled into its new status. With the addition of long-time message board moderator Sailor Bacon to the administration team, GameFAQs has regained a level of stability after initial fears, critics and doubts.

Message boards

GameFAQs is noteworthy for its active message board community. Because of the high volume of posts it receives each day, old messages on the boards are purged daily, keeping the total number of posts to a reasonable level. Unfortunately, many of the boards, especially ones meant for discussion of important social issues, are often overrun with trolls and people who like to "bait" the trolls.

• 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. It is frequented by many of the moderators, and even CJayC from time to time.
• Life, the Universe, and Everything (LUE) is the most popular GameFAQs social board with usually well over 50,000 posts at any time, quite a remarkable number given the frequent purging of old 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. Discussion today is often 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. Posting it was grounds for suspension, but it is now legal in designated ASCII topics.), and the phrase "y helo thar", which was said on a live broadcast of Conan O'Brien. The phrase 'Y helo thar' originated in a flash video called "The Attention Whore", which mocks the appearance of women on message boards.
  • 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. A 150 Karma requirement was implemented after the "RevoLUEtion" on May 7th, 2003, and soon after the board was removed from all board listings. To get to it, one has to manually type in the URL and/or add it to one's favorite board list.
  • On November 15 2003, 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. The last person to ever get into LUE, Lunarhawk99, was hailed as "The One" and regarded as a celebrity, although this perceived status was lost soon after he gained access. 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.
  • 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 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 the board Role-Playing/Fan-Fiction. 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 the Gamequeen incident.
• The beta boards were created when the message boards of GameFAQs and GameSpot were merged and GameFAQs was switched to PHP from ASP. They include three boards: GameFaqs Forums Beta Discussion, GameFaqs Forums Beta Bug Reports, and GS-GFQs Sharing Test Board. Although they are no longer needed, they have not been removed and some people still post on them.

• The Couch, The Hallway, The Porch, and The Forum are "forum" message boards for general chitchat, with The Couch being the largest among them.

• Long-Timers, Veterans, Legends, The Elite, Iconia, Idolatry, and ??? are user-level specific boards. Long-Timers is for user-level 30, Veterans is for level 31, Legends is for level 32, The Elite is for level 33, Iconia is for level 34, Idolatry is for level 35, and ??? is for level 36 users.

• 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", especially the illegal English version of RPG Maker, focusing instead on making the games using OpenGL and SDL. 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. Lately, it has become more social, with many topics becoming more like discussions.

• 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.

• Regional boards are boards where gamers can chat to people in their own region as well as the world. Most are generic social boards while boards like the Australia & New Zealand board have special events like the noteworthy Battle Royale by Jerec.

• Special Boards are hard to find because one has to type their board numbers (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 one 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 created along with Jenny several years ago, but very few knew about it until late in 2004.

• 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.

• Special Interest Boards are boards that, while not related to specific games (and in most cases, not related to gaming at all), are proof that petitions on Site Suggestions do pass. Special Interest boards include Anime, Music, Graphics, Television, Web Design, Pro Wrestling, RPGs (including paper and Square Enix), Sports, Movies, Web Cartoons and Design, Card Games, Martial Arts, Books, Classic Gaming, Paranormal & Conspiracy, Next Generation Gaming discussion, Adult Swim, and Poetry. Even popular things like The Simpsons, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Pokémon, Star Wars, Dragon Ball, and James Bond have their own boards.

• Summer Contest is the board where people talk about the Summer Character Contest, a huge event at GameFAQs, where the Poll of the Day is replaced by a video game character tournament. Previous winners were Link from The Legend of Zelda, Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII, and Link again in 2004. 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. During the Spring of 2004, the board name changed to represent the Spring Best Game Ever contest (which was eventually won by Final Fantasy VII, but it is normally under its Summer Contest moniker.

• War on Terrorism was created soon after September 11th to discuss the War on Terrorism and related conflicts like the Middle East. However, it has quickly evolved into a massive political debate forum ranging from subjects spaning the wide perimeter of the American social and economic scene.

• 810-820 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), 819 (CE Reloaded), and 820 (Hacked). 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.

Jargon

This is a short list of Internet slang used largely on GameFAQs.

• Autoflagged word - Words that have been abused but still have legitimate means. In that case, the word when posted is sent to the mod queue for revision. Autoflagged words are not allowed in topic titles.
• Karma - A number representing a user's status on the message boards. Each day that a user logs in and has at least one active post earns him/her one point of Karma, and TOS violations can result in loss of Karma. Higher Karma unlocks additional board features and higher posting limits. Once a user reaches 75 Karma, he/she becomes a "Regular User" with no posting restrictions, but some boards are restricted to higher-level users.
• KOS (Kill on Sight) - This is a rare but extremely bad punishment one can receive on GameFAQS. When one has been KOSed, they are not allowed to reveal their identity otherwise they'll be banned with no questions asked. KOS orders peaked in the 2002-2003 period and currently, one user has a KOS order on him/her.
• LUEsers - Describes people who go to and frequent LUE. It is pronounced the same way "loser" is, leaving some users to chuckle at the unintended pun.
• LUEicide - Term used for account suicide (intentionally violating as many rules as possible in order to be banned) by a LUEser. It was popularized on March 4, 2003, when the infamous "Black LUEsday" occurred. LUEicide is an autoflagged word.
• LUEshi - An ASCII image of Mario riding Yoshi. LUEshi quickly became one of the largest fads on GameFAQs, and posting it outside of designated ASCII topics was considered a serious TOS violation. It epitomized disobidence and defiance and punishments went from lenient to harsh. As of now, it is considered as regular ASCII and thus moderated only when disruptive (aka not in ASCII topics).
• MIASU (Mark it and shut up) - Polite Message Board Help (MBH) users asked users to wait 24 hours after marking a message to complain. Less polite members bluntly told them to MIASU (Mark it and Shut Up). It grew in popularity, but is now moderated for trolling (inciting flames).
• Purgatory - A term used for the temporary suspension of users whose TOS violations are not quite severe enough to warrant banning.

Spinoff/clone boards

Many people have created their own sites based upon the GameFAQs look and feel. Most of these simply copy the GameFAQs boards; these are commonly referred to as GameFAQs spinoffs. Some go further, not only emulating GameFAQs' contribution systems as well, but adding new features and options (such as topic views and board currencies).

In 2002, Chuck "NeoGenesis" Sakoda created GameFAQs Hell, the first spinoff. His first attempt at cloning the boards was performed in ASP and MS Access database services. Yet despite being the first, it did not truly emulate or appear to look like GameFAQs. It was also exploit-ridden and had holes in it, eventually becoming unusable in its present state. After giving up on that source, 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.

Later that year, counteray developed Mediarchive, the first real spinoff that actually looked like GameFAQs. But counteray soon ran into problems and had to shut down MA. But before going out, counteray leaked the source out. This initialized a major shift in the spinoff world. Before, anybody who wanted to run a spinoff had to have a solid knowledge of PHP, MySQL, and coding. With counteray's MA source, anybody with minimal knowledge could start up a spinoff. This in turn led to real spinoff coders hacking and exploiting leaks in MA's code to shut down spinoffs. Eventually, most spinoffs fell due to these attacks and assaults.

2002 was also marked by the startup of the two most popular spinoffs that still survive to this day, Outboards (August) and whiteFyre (September). But 2003 was when the real spinoff age took off, with Darkside Legion, girlgamer, Junkieznat, CABLE, and many more spinoffs beginning to rise. The climax of 2003 was marked by the start-up of LUE2, a spinoff that galvanized the entire spinoff scene. It registered more users, posts, and topics in three days than most GameFAQs imitations did in a month. Its abrupt crash was just as monumental which, due to the diaspora of users searching for a new home, led to a very active and populous spinoff community. Many people call 2003 the "golden age" of spinoffs.

A large former spinoff, Darkside Legion, was a banned word ("darksidelegion") at GameFAQs after receiving a notorious reputation. Its members were said to contact unsuspecting people on AIM and persuade them to give their passwords away. It was also suspected as the place where KOS'd people would go to plan their flooding attacks on GameFAQs. Their actions led to the security measured rolled out in July 2003. Nine months later, EvilPrimate, one of the owners, finally convinced CJayC to unban the word (since DSL was gone).

Now however, the pastime is starting to slowly crumble. The majority of boards have either been shut down or hacked or both, and almost all of the remaining spinoffs have sunk in popularity. There are still some popular spinoffs, as well as a few new ones, but for the most part, the golden age has come to a close.

Anthony P's The Spinoff Archive page, as well as a few message board sources, provide lists of spinoffs. There is also another user-submitted list at Aquatakat's site. Archetype Zero contains an archived spinoff board listing for historic purposes.

See also

• FAQ
• Internet troll
• GameSpot
• CNET

External links

Official sites

• GameFAQs
• GameSpot (Sister Site to GameFAQs)
• CNET (Parent Company to GameFAQs)
• GameFAQ boards

Unofficial sites

• GameFAQs Archive WARNING! This site contains offensive material. It is maintained by Insder and Roaddhogg. 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 from 1999 to 2005. On Febuary 10, they opened up "Lost Facts", the latest spinoff.
• GameFAQs Exploits A site dedicated to the glitches and exploits in the GameFAQs code.
• GameFAQs Info Info on the site, boards, fads. Contains pictures, ASCII, topics and more.
• LUElinks WARNING: Possibly offensive The spinoff that doesn't exist - or does it?
• GameFAQs Chat GameFAQs IRC Network
• GameFAQs Petition Signature List Management Project Created by XtremeGamer99, this site is to help petition creators at Site Suggestions to better mantain their petitions. With over 100 petitions in just under three months, this site is a definite big hit in Site Suggestions.
• GameFAQs Photo Album
• GameFAQs Users Site Made by moderator Crono Lvl 99, this is similar to the photo albums. The site is dead at this stage.
• Kirby Still On Top's Secondary Boards FAQ - KSOT's Secondary Boards FAQ is recognized 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. In January 2005, KSOT turned over the site to TrueDFX, who now mantains it.
• SC2k4 - A site devoted to covering the GameFAQs contests
• Something Awful article on GameFAQs
• LUE Online LUE Online is a browser based MMORPG made for LUE. The current source is based on the open source ExoFusion source, but the new version is to have all original source, aiming to outdo other browser based games.

GameFAQs board histories

• Another Place is an un-offical fansite.
• ANZLinks Various media files from the ANZ board. Includes a link to ANZChat, a IRC chat service featuring the veteran ANZers
• History of LUE - A site that has an accurate recollection of what has happened on LUE from the beginning to the ExcLUEsion.
• First Person Accounts of RI History. A bit like the History of LUE, but this focuses on what happened in the early days of Random Insanity, including the Gamequeen incident.
• Toaster Oven's History
• USL's History.

• Video game websites
• Internet forums