GameFAQs

GameFAQs' main page in September 2004.

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.

GameFAQs history

GameFAQs was started on November 5 1995 by Jeff "CJayC" 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 [1], the site was still young, both in 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 seven popular systems of the time - arcade games, the Sony PlayStation, the Sega Saturn, the Nintendo 64, the 3DO, the Sega Genesis, and the SNES - 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 tables [2], and the other was made specifically for browsers with no support of tables (or text-only) [3]. 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 [4], 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 early 1999 [5], 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 from blue and white to pink and red. GameFAQs was still under the flag of IGN.

In November 1999 [6], 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 [7] 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 strife and unrest between the popular Final Fantasy VII and Star Ocean: the Second Story gaming boards. At the time, the overall list of the most popular boards was determined by the amount of posts. Star Ocean: the Second Story (more commonly referred to as SO2) had multiple users posting hundreds of useless topics. Veasey interfered eventually and created what was the first Social Board on SO2 (which has since been removed). Final Fantasy VII soon had a board and other popular games had one installed as well. This also marked the start of board rankings being determined by individual server hits not posts.

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 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 April 1, 2002, CJayC changed GameFAQs to GameFAX (www.gamefax.com)[8] as an April Fool's joke. The site's layout was changed to green and black to imitate those of the XBox. The intention was to make users believe that GameFAQs was now dedicated to only the XBox, since it is "the only system that matters." However, after clicking on any links on the main page, you were immediately directed to the real GameFAQs's page. Despite that, CJayC later reported [9] getting "flames, threats, and the like" over the joke.

On June 3 2003 [10], 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). Veasey collected a reported $2.5 million and agreed to a 2 year no compete clause.

He assured worried users 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), rolling all the server names into one (previously, it was s1/s2/s3; it simply became cgi.gamefaqs), and server upgrades.

In July 2003, Veasey completely overhauled GameFAQs' security in light of an alarming rise in account hackings and stealings. 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. However, some hacked users have recently become Level 2, which indicates that it is still possible to have your account set to Level 2 if you are hacked, likely by contacting CJayC or another admin. Security Settings were also implemented; Users could lock out other login attempts from other IPs 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, he or she would see the page).

In April/May 2004, GameFAQs underwent its biggest visual and administrative 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 seen 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, because the HTML markup is invalid and the CSS classes are inflexible, web designers (and CSS authors) have been forced to create elaborate hacks to modify the site to their liking. Even though more than a year has passed, the problems still persist.

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, TV.com, and GameSpot (all of which are owned by CNET).

On August 3, 2005 GameFAQs reintroduced the VIP system and on the following day Moderator Applications were opened for the first time in over 2 years, and were closed the following Monday, August 8, 2005. On Monday August 29, 2005 22 new moderators were chosen. [11] is a link to a page with all the previous selected mods and the new mods as well.

Today, GameFAQs is fully owned by CNET Networks. Jeff "CJayC" Veasey still maintains responsibility for working on the site - e-mails, codes, FAQs, reviews, saves, game data, coding, updating the homepage, and administrating the message boards. CNET has supplied newer (and a little faster) servers for the entire site. Although the changeover from being a one-person-administrator to being owned by a big company, as well as the 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, criticisms and doubts.

Message boards

GameFAQs 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.

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.

External links

Official sites

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.
GameFAQSASCII A site created by Agasonex. It is a spinoff to GameFAQS with some features from LUE2 and LUELinks (such as GFALinks).
GameFAQs Chat GameFAQs IRC Network
GameFAQs Exploits A site dedicated to the glitches and exploits in the GameFAQs code.
GameFAQs Petition Project Created by XtremeGamer99, this site is to help petition creators at Site Suggestions to better maintain 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 Toolbar Firefox Extension
GameFAQs Users Site Made by moderator Crono LV99, this is similar to the photo albums. The site is dead at this stage.
GameFAQs Users Site II A remade version of Crono LV99's GameFAQs Users Site
SC2k5 - A site devoted to covering the GameFAQs contests
LUE Online, a spinoff browser based MMORPG
LUE Archive, an old but highly interesting collection of infamous and memorable moments on GameFAQs, some not found anywhere else.
MBH Social Social boards for MBH regulars.
The Evil Republicans, website for the aforementioned Evil Republicans
LUE2, a spin-off previously owned by Snake, under the address lue2.com. In those days, the site had launched invasions on GameFAQs and LUElinks. Snake, being considered a bad admin, took the site offline. However, one user - nathano235 - had saved the source and became a lead admin of lue2.org alongside Thrawn147. Since then, nathano has been demoted due to being immature, and long-time user azurelite, along with newer user kaok, have been promoted to admin positions.
LUE2, a spin-off with the original LUE2 user database, owned by iGenesis. This, as with the previous, calls itself LUE 2. Though both are spin-offs of LUE, the previous has a much higher userbase.
LUEpedia Despite the name, LUEpedia is actually a spinoff from LUElinks, created by Sir Bobert Fishbone using the MediaWiki source to serve as a respository for facts and information about LUE and LUElinks.
LUI The name LUI stands for "Life, The Universe, and Images." The site was created by testforechozero. It is another spinoff where you can upload images to the website. It has 1MB of storage space and it works exactly like the LUELinks such as ratings and categories. You need a LUElinks profile to register.
Secret Board Hunting FAQ, created by Xim. This page has a lot of information about the pastime commonly known as secret board hunting. Mirror
The Outboards, spinoff run by obo. It is one of the oldest GameFAQs spinoff still around.
Three Kingdoms Social, a message board created to honor the Three Kingdoms Social in its prime. (***OFFENSIVE***)
GF Spinoff Boards Archive, a site with some information on GameFAQs spinoff sites, as well providing downloadable source code for their message boards.
Oracle Challenge website, a site with information on the Oracle Challenge, a contest about the GameFAQs contests, popular at the contest message board.
WikiFAQs a wiki about GameFAQs (registration is limited)

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
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.