GameFAQs
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| URL | http://www.gamefaqs.com/<tr><th>Commercial?</th><td>Yes</td></tr> |
|---|---|
| Type of site | Gaming<tr><th>Registration</th><td>Optional (required for contributing content and posting on the message boards)</td></tr> |
| Owner | CNET Networks, Inc. |
| Created by | Jeff "CJayC" Veasey<tr><th>Launched</th><td>November 5, 1995</td></tr> |
GameFAQs is a gaming website that has hosted FAQs and walkthroughs for gamers since November 1995. It was created by Jeff "CJayC" Veasey and is currently maintained by CJayC (the Senior Editor) and Allen "Sailor Bacon" Tyner (the Associate Editor).<ref name="about">About the Site. GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2006-09-30.</ref> It has a large database of video games, and has been referred to as a site where readers "can get almost any information"<ref>Katchor, Ben (2006-03-06). Think your job sucks? Try writing strategy guides. Retrieved on 2006-09-19.</ref> regarding game strategies. The systems covered range from the 8-bit Atari platform to the systems of today. The substantial amount of FAQs, cheat codes, and reviews are all submitted by dedicated gamers trying to help others with their knowledge.
Along with the large database of FAQs, codes, reviews, and game saves, it also contains one of the largest message board communities on the Web. Every game on the site has its own board to discuss the game or ask/answer questions about the game.<ref>Carless, Simon (October 2004). Gaming Hacks. O'Reilly. ISBN 0-596-00714-0.</ref>
Contents |
[edit] History
GameFAQs was started on November 5, 1995, by CJayC. At that time, it was called the Video Game FAQ Archive and was hosted on AOL.<ref name="about" /> It originally served as a clone/spin-off of a popular FTP FAQ archive.<ref name="qa">Veasey, Jeff (2005-04-29). The Great GameFAQs Q&A. GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2006-09-20.</ref> The original site had approximately 10 pages and approximately 100 FAQs.<ref name="radio">"Interview with Jeff Veasey" (2002-03-02). The Gaming Files. WXBH AM-1190 (Cobleskill, New York).</ref>
By the end of 1996, the site had moved to its current gamefaqs.com location<ref>VGFA on flex.net. GameFAQs. Archived from the original on 2001-07-23. Retrieved on 2006-09-21.</ref> and received the GameFAQs name.<ref name="about" /> At this time, GameFAQs listed fewer than 1000 FAQs and guides.<ref>Video Game FAQ Archive. GameFAQs. Archived from the original on 1996-12-23. Retrieved on 2006-09-19.</ref> The site was also updated on an irregular basis.
Over the next few months, the site grew in content and in design, with two different designs introduced in early 1997 to accommodate the support of tables<ref>GameFAQs (tables). GameFAQs. Archived from the original on 1997-02-18. Retrieved on 2006-09-19.</ref> in web browsers (or the lack thereof<ref>GameFAQs (no tables). GameFAQs. Archived from the original on 1997-02-18. Retrieved on 2006-09-19.</ref>). Two new features were also planned that would stay with the site to the current day: the game search engine and the contributor recognition pages.
[edit] IGN affiliation
In 1997, GameFAQs became an independent affiliate of the Imagine Games Network (IGN) -- this partnership led to the placement of numerous affiliate links on the home page.<ref name="pink">GameFAQs home page. GameFAQs. Archived from the original on 1998-12-12. Retrieved on 2006-10-27.</ref> User contests were introduced during this period of time, with the first monthly contest in 1998 receiving 253 entries.<ref>October 1998: Select Fighter. GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2006-09-29.</ref> GameFAQs went through several layout changes, most notably having a pink layout for a period of time.<ref name="pink" />
In November 1999, a number of changes occurred in quick succession.<ref>GameFAQs home page. GameFAQs. Archived from the original on 1999-11-28. Retrieved on 2006-09-19.</ref> On the fifth, a 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 in a beta testing mode.<ref>Veasey, Jeff (2001-11-07). Second Anniversary Karma Bonus. GameFAQs. Archived from the original on 2004-10-12. Retrieved on 2006-09-19.</ref> The Poll of the Day was created at the end of the month.<ref>Poll of the Day #1. GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2006-09-19.</ref> During this period of time, CJayC increased his concentration on the site, and it is assumed that this is when GameFAQs became his full-time job.<ref name="cnet">Veasey, Jeff (2003-06-03). The Future of GameFAQs. GameFAQs. Archived from the original on 2004-10-12. Retrieved on 2006-09-19.</ref> Until this time, he had been working in IT.<ref>Veasey, Jeff (2006-08-15). Ask GameFAQs: Quickies. GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2006-09-20.</ref>
By 2001, the short-lived "GameFAQs Chat" (an IRC chat server) had been launched.<ref>GameFAQs Community. GameFAQs. Archived from the original on 2001-04-01. Retrieved on 2006-09-19.</ref> During May 2001, GameFAQs Chat was removed<ref>GameFAQs home page. GameFAQs. Archived from the original on 2001-05-12. Retrieved on 2006-09-19.</ref> due to inherent administrative issues.
[edit] 2001 to 2003
On January 9, 2001, GameFAQs ended its association with IGN.<ref>GameFAQs home page. GameFAQs. Archived from the original on 2001-01-18. Retrieved on 2006-09-19.</ref> To continue generating revenue, an advertising banner was placed on the top of each page that was sold to non-profit organizations. This lasted a few months until CNET Networks became an official affiliate of GameFAQs -- CNET ads ran on the top of the page and links to news articles from GameSpot were shown on the home page.<ref>GameFAQs home page. GameFAQs. Archived from the original on 2001-04-18. Retrieved on 2006-09-19.</ref>
In September 2002, the ad was moved from the header (horizontally) to the sidebar (vertically). This led to changes to the links on the side, and also led to the creation of navigational links at the top of the screen.<ref>GameFAQs home page. GameFAQs. Archived from the original on 2002-09-22. Retrieved on 2006-09-20.</ref> In terms of contributions, GameFAQs continued to grow larger and larger, and CJayC, as sole operator and administrator of the site, dedicated hours of his time to ensure that GameFAQs remained up-to-date and successful.
On April 1, 2002, CJayC changed GameFAQs to "GameFAX" as an April Fool's joke.<ref>GameFAX. GameFAQs. Archived from the original on 2002-04-01. Retrieved on 2006-09-19.</ref> The site's colors were changed to green and black to imitate those of the Xbox, with the intention of making users believe that GameFAQs was now dedicated solely to the Xbox, "the only system that matters." After clicking on any link on the main page, users were directed to the real GameFAQs page. Despite that, CJayC later reported getting hate mail from users.<ref>Veasey, Jeff (2006-04-01). An important notice about the future of GameFAQs. GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2006-09-20.</ref>
[edit] CNET acquisition
On May 6, 2003, CNET Networks (the site's long-standing affiliate and sponsor) acquired GameFAQs and all of its assets. The acquisition price was $2.2 million for GameFAQs and two other websites.<ref>CNET Networks SEC Quarterly Report (PDF). CNET Networks (2003-08-05). Retrieved on 2006-09-20.</ref>
On June 3, 2003, CJayC announced the news to the users of the site.<ref name="cnet" /> He clarified that the user-submitted content (FAQs, reviews, etc) remained under the ownership of the authors and was not (nor could be) sold to CNET. CNET did however acquire GameFAQs' rights to host them on the site. He assured worried users that GameFAQs would undergo no major change in terms of administration, and said that the "GameFAQs you see today is the one you'll see tomorrow".<ref name="cnet" /> This was true to a certain extent, as the only visible change over the next few months was a CNET footer on the bottom of every page. Other minor changes included moving the site to new servers in California (thus changing the board's timezone to GMT-8) and rolling all the board subdomains into one (previously, it was s1/s2/s3; it simply became cgi).
In April and May 2004, GameFAQs underwent large visual and administrative changes.<ref>New Layout/Boards Merger. GameFAQs Archive. Archived from the original on 2004-10-09. Retrieved on 2006-09-20.</ref> The first change was a huge visual redesign. The second major change was a "merge" of the GameFAQs and GameSpot boards to allow both communities to share the same game-specific boards (to the disdain of many GameFAQs users<ref>Gamefaqs vs Gamespot Petition. Retrieved on 2006-09-20.</ref>). To facilitate this, GameFAQs converted the board code to PHP, and GameSpot dropped its Lithium code and switched to the GameFAQs board code.
On April 11, 2006, GameFAQs changed its appearance again. A new design was implemented and the GameSpot logo was added to the GameFAQs logo on the header at the top of every page. This change was initially greeted with general disapproval by users on the message boards.<ref>Veasey, Jeff (2006-04-28). Survey says.... GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2006-09-22.</ref> In order to satisfy those who prefer the prior layout, the old board pages have been preserved<ref>GameFAQs Message Boards (gfaqs9). GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2006-09-20.</ref> for certain users.<ref>Veasey, Jeff (2006-08-03). The v9 End of Life project. GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2006-09-20.</ref> Shortly after the redesign, CJayC began using the Smarty template engine to generate many of the site's pages.<ref>Veasey, Jeff (2006-07-12). The first major code change is live... Whew!. GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2006-09-22.</ref>
[edit] Message boards
The custom-made GameFAQs Message Boards originally came online on November 7, 1999, after months of coding by CJayC. Although the original purpose of the board system was to facilitate game discussion, a number of other board categories have been added since the boards opened. Every day, approximately 20,000 topics and 220,000 messages are posted on GameFAQs' 50,000+ individual boards.<ref>Veasey, Jeff (2006-09-13). Ask GameFAQs: How much?. GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2006-09-20.</ref> The basic structure of the GameFAQs boards serves as a basis for the forums of GameSpot, MP3.com, and TV.com. There are over 100,000 accounts actively being used (as of November 7, 2006).<ref>Veasey, Jeff (2006-11-07). Happy Birthday to Us... and to you!. GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2006-11-17.</ref>
Every game in the GameFAQs database has its own message board. With the exception of a few older systems, discussion on these boards must be kept on-topic -- these boards with enforced topicality are shared with the GameSpot community. Extremely popular games may have additional boards for social discussion. Game-specific boards for some older consoles do not have topicality rules and are known as "secret" or "dead" boards. These are often claimed for social discussion. Every system also has a general board for discussing hardware and upcoming games [1].
GameFAQs has a number of boards made purely for the purpose of socializing ("Current Events" and "Random Insanity" being the largest) [2], some that cater to special interests (such as The Lord of the Rings or pro wrestling) [3], and some purely for users from a particular region (e.g. United Kingdom or Australia/New Zealand) [4]. GameFAQs also has boards for official announcements, contributor discussion, contest discussion, suggestions, and site help [5].
[edit] Features
Posts made on the message boards are mostly plain text. Bold and italics tags are among the few HTML tags allowed on the boards<ref name="boardhelp">Board Basics. GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2006-09-20.</ref>. Unlike many other message boards, tags for images, hyperlinks, and underlining are not allowed, avatars are not used, signatures are limited to two lines of text, and posts cannot be edited. In order to prevent the use of certain vulgar words, a wordfilter is used.<ref>Message Board Terms of Use. GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2006-10-01.</ref>
GameFAQs users gain "karma" for every day they visit the boards. As karma increases, new features become available, such as the ability to post more messages per day, visit high-level social boards, and view a post history page.<ref name="boardhelp" /> Registered users can choose between various stylesheets and message display options [6]. Users can also add favorite boards to a personalized list on the main boards page.<ref>Additional Features. GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2006-09-30.</ref>
[edit] Moderators
The message boards are managed by the site's administrators and moderators. Nearly all of the administrator accounts belong to CNET employees. Initially, CJayC was the only administrator and therefore had full control over the boards. Over time, more administrators have been appointed. Currently, there are two active administrators: CJayC and Sailor Bacon.
GameFAQs' moderators are unpaid volunteers selected by CJayC and are responsible for keeping order within the message board community. Due to the size of the boards, the moderators do not patrol every individual board and topic. Instead, messages that break the site's Terms of Service can be "marked" by regular users which brings the message to the attention of the moderators.<ref>Rules and Standards. GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2006-09-20.</ref>
[edit] Life, the Universe, and Everything
"Life, the Universe, and Everything" (often shortened to "LUE") is one of the most well-known boards on GameFAQs. Its name is a reference to Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, and its original board number (42) continued the reference. Users on LUE refer to themselves as "LUEsers" and often attach "LUE" to other popular fads and events on the board, including the ASCII art known as "LUEshi". Since its creation, LUE has caused many problems for the administration (forum invasions, etc) and has since been made into a private board. On many occasions, CJayC has said he will never allow any new users into LUE.<ref name="qa" /> As of August 16, 2006, there are 17,205 accounts that can access LUE.<ref>Veasey, Jeff (2005-08-16). Ask GameFAQs: Errata?. GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2006-09-21.</ref>
[edit] Spinoff websites
Due to the high popularity of the GameFAQs boards, many users have created spinoff forums based on the layout and general functionality of the GameFAQs boards. The original spinoff forum was the open source "GameFAQs Hell".<ref name="radio" /> One spinoff currently in existence is "LUElinks", a site originally created for members of LUE.<ref>LUElinks registration page. Archived from the original on 2005-03-11. Retrieved on 2006-09-23.</ref> The site had over 6,500 registered users as of October 2004<ref>LUElinks - Stats. Archived from the original on 2004-10-18. Retrieved on 2006-09-27.</ref> (which was the last time the site was accessible to non-users).
[edit] FAQs
Most of the FAQ contributions on GameFAQs are not actually lists of frequently asked questions. Instead, they usually cover various aspects of gameplay, including walkthroughs, item lists, maps, character and plot analyses, and other guides to facilitate the playing of video games. All of the contributions are screened by an administrator prior to being posted on the site.<ref name="submitted">After You've Submitted. GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2006-10-26.</ref> Nearly all of the FAQs hosted on GameFAQs are in plain text.<ref>Composing Your Guide. GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2006-10-26.</ref>
When someone contributes a guide to GameFAQs, the author retains the copyright of the material.<ref>Copyrights, Trademarks, and Plagiarism. GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2006-10-26.</ref> GameFAQs agrees to only host the guide on their servers, but allows a few other affiliates to link directly to the guides<ref name="submitted" /> (including GameSpot, Yahoo! Games, AOL, and GameFly). Direct linking to the FAQs by non-affiliates is blocked.<ref>Referer Link Error. GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2006-09-29.</ref>
[edit] Published strategy guides
In 2005, GameFAQs published two commercial strategy guides via Future Publishing. They included The Ultimate XBox Strategy Guide (Volume 1) and The Ultimate PS2 Strategy Guide (Volume 1).<ref>The Ultimate XBox Strategy Guide. Retrieved on 2006-11-11.</ref><ref>The Ultimate PS2 Strategy Guide. Retrieved on 2006-11-11.</ref> These strategy guides were composed of FAQs written by contributors on GameFAQs.
[edit] Contests
[edit] User poll contests
Since 2002, GameFAQs has hosted annual (or biannual) tournament contests. These contests consist of daily polls in which visitors to the site choose between two competing characters, games, or series. Registered users can submit prediction brackets, and prizes are awarded to those who score the highest. The number of votes in a contest poll typically far exceed the number of votes cast in a normal Poll of the Day (compare this poll [7] with this contest poll [8] held two weeks later).
- Summer 2002 - Character Battle - Link defeats Mario in the final round
- Summer 2003 - Character Battle II - Cloud Strife defeats Sephiroth in the final round
- Spring 2004 - Best. Game. Ever. - Final Fantasy VII defeats Chrono Trigger in the final round
- Summer 2004 - Character Battle III - Link defeats Cloud Strife in the final round
- Spring 2005 - Got Villains? - Sephiroth defeats Ganondorf in the final round
- Summer 2005 - Character Battle IV - Mario defeats Crono in the final round
- Summer 2005 - Tournament of Champions - Link defeats Sephiroth in the final round
- Summer 2006 - Best. Series. Ever. - The Legend of Zelda defeats Final Fantasy in the final round
- Fall 2006 - Character Battle V - Samus Aran defeats Solid Snake in the final round
- Fall 2006 - Battle Royal - Link defeats Cloud Strife in the final round
The annual Character Battle has been popular outside of GameFAQs -- Penny Arcade featured the Character Battle in their comic on August 23, 2002 [9], and Creative Uncut's "Inside the Gamers Studio" strip mentioned the Character Battle in their 9th comic. [10]
[edit] 10 Best Games Ever
During the 10-Year Anniversary Contest, GameFAQs users voted on the 10 best games of all time (and tried to predict what the top 10 would be). Final Fantasy VII was selected as the best game ever, followed by The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Chrono Trigger, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Smash Bros. Melee, GoldenEye 007, Metal Gear Solid, Halo: Combat Evolved, and Final Fantasy III/VI.
[edit] Notes and references
- Note: This article uses posts to message boards as references. These posts are from the site's creator and thus can be contextualized as official announcements and regarded in the same light as an announcement on a corporate website.
<references />
[edit] External links
- Official
- Unofficial
- Secondary Boards FAQ -- info about the message boards
- WikiFAQs -- a wiki with GameFAQs-related info
- GameFAQsContests.com -- info about the user poll contests
- Zeikfried -- a list of spinoff boards with downloadable source code
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![[9]](http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2002/20020823h.gif){kind=link}