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GameFAQs is a popular website that has provided FAQs, walkthroughs, images, codes, game saves, reviews, and data for video games free of charge to visitors since November 1995. It was started and is maintained by Jeff "CJayC" Veasey, and has one of the largest databases of video games available on the Internet. The site covers a wide range of systems, with many obscure consoles and titles. Registration with the site allows access to message boards (which has posted over 250 million messages in over 22 million topics by over 3.1 million users) and the ability to contribute game content. Since 2003, the site is a wholly owned subsidiary of CNET Networks.
Any registered user may submit information to GameFAQs; almost all of GameFAQs' content was created by its users. Typically, the information is reviewed before being put up. Submitted guides may be rejected if they are of low quality, or if several other similar guides on the same game already exist.
Message boards
Main article: GameFAQs message boardsGameFAQs is noteworthy for its active message boards community, partially because it maintains a board for every game in its database, as well as numerous "social" boards. 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. Topic boards such as wrestling, where opinion is often treated as fact, are nothing but chaos. It is an increasing trend for people to buck reality and replace it with their own fantasy of what they would prefer.
Spinoff websites
Due to the high popularity of GameFAQs' forums, many users have created their own forums based on the layout and general functioning of those of GameFAQs. They are commonly referred to as spinoffs. Most contained additional features not present in GameFAQs' forums, some original and others culled from popular forum software. While many had a contribution system mimicking GameFAQs', they were generally seldom used.
The first generation of spinoffs started in 2001, when Chuck "Neo" Sakoda (a.k.a. NeoGenesis) created the first spinoff, GameFAQs Hell. His first attempts at cloning GameFAQs were with ASP and Microsoft Access, the same model used by GameFAQs at the time. He eventually rewrote his spinoff in PHP (paired with MySQL), releasing it under the GNU GPL. Jeff Veasey eventually helped promote Sakoda's efforts by placing a link to GameFAQs Hell in GameFAQs' help files. From the source code of GameFAQs Hell spawned several second-generation spinoffs such as The Outboards and Twisted Legacy that still exist to this day.
After Sakoda closed down GameFAQs Hell, the spinoff world began to evolve in what is called the second-generation of spinoffs. Dark Cobra was the first to expand upon the source code of GameFAQs Hell and create a website using it, GameFAQs Refuge. After that too failed, The Outboards was formed on August 1 2002. Bugs carried over from the original code it was based on required the site to be taken down twice within its first month. However, after being reopened in late August, it has remained the longest lasting spinoff. Other spinoffs that opened at the time included whiteFyre (administrated by ultimategamer00 and initially named "GameFAQs βeta Clone") and Twisted Legacy.
The next milestone in the history of GameFAQs spinoffs came when developers Jay and "Waffles" worked together to create a new spinoff free of the numerous bugs that plagued GameFAQs Hell. Although the outcome of their efforts initially appeared to be substantial, the rushed source, later leaked by "Counteray", was found to be filled with bloat, bugs, and other symptoms of rushed development. Jay continued working on his source code and joined with Zach "Outbreakorn" Getz to develop for his site. The resulting code eventually got an official release under the GPL, but fell victim to the common side effects of rushed development, with many quick hacks implemented to fix previous problems.
Due to the ease of setting up and running MediArchive and other sources, the spinoff world evolved into the third-generation: Numerous clone sites. Many people with little or no PHP knowledge were establishing their own MediArchive-based spinoffs on free webhosts such as lycos.co.uk. Spinoff coders such as Jay, Ant P, and others took to exploiting security holes in MediArchive code to bring down the sites. Those that survived did so by fixing security holes or writing their own original code instead of using already well-established code. This era is marked by spinoffs such as CABLE (Magician Type 0), Farside Blues (Endless Nightmares), gg's (girlgamer44), Junkieznat (Junkieznat), and LUE2 (Tsi) and its spinoffs.
The fourth generation is generally considered to be from January 2004 to the present day. Some spinoffs started up, but the popularity of spinoffs has substantially declined. They have a niche audience, but few new people have entered (while many veterans have left) the scene. Notable spinoffs started in this era include Archetype 0 (Onion), FrozenOven (Shuzo), and Lost Facts (Roaddhogg).
Contests
- Summer 2002 Character Contest - Link defeats Mario in the final round
- Summer 2003 Character Contest - Cloud Strife defeats Sephiroth in the final round
- Spring 2004 Game Contest - Final Fantasy VII defeats Chrono Trigger in the final round.
- Summer 2004 Character Contest - Link defeats Cloud Strife in the final round.
- Spring 2005 Villains Contest - Sephiroth defeats Ganondorf in the final round.
There is also an active community on the Summer 2005 Contest board (which changes its name with each new contest) that discusses and debates the stats and strengths of characters. It is commonly known as Board 8, named after the board number in it's URL. Of course, when there's no contest, it really becomes a social board. For that matter, it has the elements of a social board even during the contest.
See also
External links
Official sites
GameFAQs board histories
- Another Place is an un-official fansite.
- ANZLinks Various media files from the ANZ board. Includes a link to ANZChat, a IRC chat service featuring the veteran ANZers
- 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.
Nobody ever suspects the LUEshi inquisition!