'GameFAQs' is a
website that hosts
FAQs and
walkthroughs for
video games. It was created in November 1995 by Jeff "CJayC" Veasey and has been owned by
CNET Networks since May 2003. The site has a large database of video game information and has been called a place where readers "can get almost any information" regarding game strategies.
[1] The
systems covered range from the 8-bit
Atari platform to the
consoles of today, including
computer games. The FAQs,
cheat codes,
reviews,
game saves, and
credits are submitted by volunteer
gamers, and contributions are reviewed by the site's two editors, Jeff Veasey and Allen Tyner.
The site hosts a large and active
message board community. Every game listed on the site has a board to discuss the game or answer questions about the game. The site also features a daily
opinion poll and related contests.
GameFAQs is consistently cited by ''
The Guardian'' as one of the top gaming sites on the
Web,
[2][3][4] and the site has been positively reviewed by ''
Entertainment Weekly''.
[5] Additionally, GameFAQs.com is one of the 200 highest-
trafficked websites according to
Alexa.
[6]
History
GameFAQs was started as the ''Video Game FAQ Archive'' on
November 5,
1995.
[7] Hosted on
AOL, it originally served as a
mirror of Andy Eddy's
FTP FAQ archive.
[8][9] The initial version of the site had approximately 10 pages and 100 FAQs.
[10] In 1996, the site moved to its current domain at gamefaqs.com and changed its name to ''GameFAQs''.
[11] At this time, GameFAQs listed less than 1000 FAQs and guides and was updated on an irregular basis.
[12]
During the following months, the site grew in content and in design; two different styles were introduced in early 1997 to accommodate the support of
tables in
web browsers (or the lack thereof).
[13][14] Two key features of the site — the game search engine and the contributor recognition pages — were planned at this time.
IGN affiliation
In 1997, GameFAQs became an independent affiliate of the
Imagine Games Network (IGN), leading to the placement of affiliate links on the
home page.
[15] User contests were introduced during this period; the first monthly contest, which was held in 1998, received 253 entries.
[16] GameFAQs went through several design changes, including a pink color scheme,
before arriving at the blue-colored layout that was used until 2004.
In November 1999, several changes occurred in rapid succession.
[17] On the fifth, a search box was added to every page, at which time the site was celebrating its fourth
anniversary. On the seventh, the message boards opened in a
beta testing mode.
[18] The "Poll of the Day" was introduced at the end of the month.
[19] These changes marked Veasey's increased concentration on the site, and it was around this time that GameFAQs became his full-time job.
[20][21][22] Until this time, he had been working as a
programmer.
On
August 9,
2000, the site received one million hits in a single day for the first time.
[23] By 2001, the "GameFAQs Chat" (an
IRC chat server) had been launched;
[24] however, it was removed in May 2001 due to administrative issues.
[23]2001–2003
On
January 9,
2001, GameFAQs ended its association with IGN.
[26] To continue generating revenue, an advertising banner sold to non-profit organizations was placed on the top of each page. This lasted 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.
[23] In September 2002, the ad was moved from the horizontal
header to the vertical
sidebar. This led to changes to the links on the side, as well as the creation of navigational links at the top of the screen.
[26] Contributions to GameFAQs continued to increase, and Veasey, as sole operator and administrator of the site, dedicated significant portions of his time to ensure that GameFAQs remained updated and successful.
On
April 1,
2002, Veasey changed GameFAQs to "GameFAX" as an
April Fools' joke.
[29] 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 home page. Nevertheless, Veasey reported receiving hate mail from users.
[30]
CNET acquisition
On
May 6,
2003, CNET Networks (the site's long-standing affiliate and sponsor)
acquired GameFAQs and its
assets. The amount paid for GameFAQs and two other unrelated websites was
US$2.2 million.
[31] On
June 3,
2003, Veasey announced the merger to the users of the site.
He clarified that the user-submitted content (i.e. FAQs, reviews) remained under the ownership of the authors and was not (nor could be) sold to CNET; however, CNET acquired GameFAQs' rights to host them on the site. He assured users that GameFAQs would undergo no major administrative change and said, "The GameFAQs you see today is the one you'll see tomorrow."
This was true to a certain extent, as the only visible change over the next few months was the addition of a CNET
footer to the bottom of every page. Additional minor changes included moving the site to new
servers in
California (thus changing the board's time zone to
GMT-8) and merging the three board
subdomains (s1/s2/s3) into one (cgi).
From 2004 to 2006, GameFAQs witnessed further changes. In April and May 2004, GameFAQs implemented a large visual redesign,
[32] and the boards merged with the GameSpot boards to allow both communities to share the same game-specific boards (to the disdain of many GameFAQs users).
[33] To facilitate this, GameFAQs converted its board code from
ASP to
PHP, and GameSpot dropped its
Lithium code. On
April 11,
2006, a new design was implemented and the GameSpot
logo was added to the GameFAQs logo on the header of every page. This change was initially greeted with general disapproval by users on the message boards.
[34] To satisfy those who prefer the earlier layout, the old board pages have been preserved for certain users.
[35] Shortly after the redesign, Veasey began using the
Smarty template engine to generate many of the site's pages.
[36]
Veasey's departure
On
July 19,
2007, Veasey announced that he would eventually be leaving the site. According to his announcement, Allen "Sailor Bacon" Tyner will take over as editor of GameFAQs.
[37]
Message boards
The custom-made GameFAQs Message Boards, coded by Veasey, began operation on
November 7,
1999.
[38] Although the original purpose of the board system was to facilitate game discussion, other board categories have been added since the boards opened. Every day, approximately 20,000
topics and 200,000 messages are posted on GameFAQs' 50,000+ individual boards,
[39] and as of
November 7,
2006, there were more than 100,000 accounts actively in use.
[40]
Every game listed on GameFAQs has its own message board where both novice and experienced gamers can discuss game strategies and other game-related topics.
[41][42] Since the redesign of May 2004, the game boards with enforced
topicality have been shared with the GameSpot community. Certain popular games may have additional boards for social discussion. Game-specific boards for certain older consoles do not have topicality rules and are often claimed for social discussion — these are referred to as "secret" or "dead" boards. Every system also has a general board for discussing
hardware and upcoming games.
[43]
GameFAQs has boards made purely for the purpose of socializing ("Current Events" and "Random Insanity" being the largest),
[44] some that cater to special interests (such as ''
The Lord of the Rings'', ''
Harry Potter'', or
pro wrestling),
[45] and some purely for users from a particular region (e.g.
United Kingdom,
Australia/
New Zealand).
[46] GameFAQs also has boards for official announcements, contributor discussion, contest discussion, suggestions, and site help.
[47]
Features
Posts made on the message boards are mostly
plain text. Some
HTML markup is used on the boards, including bold and italics tags.
[48] Unlike many 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. Additionally, the forums use a
wordfilter to prevent the use of certain vulgar words.
[49] Older posts are not kept indefinitely and depend on the amount of posts on a board.
GameFAQs users gain one "karma" for every day they visit the boards while logged in. 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.
Registered users can choose between various stylesheets, search topics, and message display options.
[50] Users can add favorite boards to a personalized list on the main boards page and can track specific topics (a feature added in 2006).
[51][52]
On
June 20,
2007, advertisements on message list pages were moved from the top of the page to the middle of the message lists.
[53] Shortly thereafter, the ads were moved to the bottom of the message lists.
Moderators
The message boards are managed by the site's
administrators and
moderators. Initially, Veasey was the only administrator and therefore had full control over the boards; however, more administrators have since been appointed. The two active administrators are Veasey and Tyner, who use the accounts "CJayC" and "SBAllen" (formerly "Sailor Bacon"), respectively;
other CNET
developers and employees have administrator accounts but do not play an active role on the site.
GameFAQs' moderators are volunteer users selected by Veasey and are responsible for keeping order within the message board community. Because of the size of the boards, the moderators do not patrol every 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.
[54]
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 one of its earlier board numbers (
42) continued the reference. Users on LUE refer to themselves as "LUEsers" and often attach "LUE" to popular fads and events on the board, such as "LUEshi",
[55][56] an
ASCII artwork which depicts
Mario riding
Yoshi. Since its creation, LUE has caused problems for the administration (such as forum invasions) and has since been made into a private board. On many occasions, Veasey has said he will never allow new users into LUE.
As of
August 16,
2006, there are 17,205 accounts that can access LUE.
[57]
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 first spinoff forum was the
open source "GameFAQs Hell".
One of the largest spinoffs is "LUElinks", a site originally created for members of LUE.
[58] It claims to have over 10,000 registered users and 20,000,000 posts.
[59] Unlike GameFAQs, it is not open to the public.
FAQs
All of the guides and walkthroughs on GameFAQs are contributed by volunteers.
[60] Most of the FAQs are not actually lists of
frequently asked questions; instead, they cover aspects of gameplay in the same way as
strategy guides, with walkthroughs, item lists, maps, and puzzle solutions. Nearly all of the FAQs hosted on the site are in
plain text,
[61] though GameFAQs does also accept stand-alone images, such as maps and puzzle solutions.
[62] In addition to FAQs, contributors can also submit reader reviews, cheat codes, developer credits, game release data, game saves,
screenshots, and images of
game boxes.
When an author submits something to GameFAQs, it is screened by an administrator before being posted on the site.
[63] The author retains the
copyright on the submitted material,
[64] and their name is added to the site's "Contributor Recognition" section. GameFAQs agrees to host the guide only on their servers but does allow other affiliates to link directly to the guides (including
GameSpot,
Yahoo! Games,
AOL, and
GameFly).
GameFAQs features several ongoing contributor contests, including FAQ of the Month, Review of the Month, and numerous "FAQ
Bounties", which reward contributors who submit FAQs for uncovered, high-demand games.
[65] The FOTM and ROTM contests are generally picked from comprehensive, complete guides or reviews for new games. Winners are sent a
gift certificate for an
online retailer, or opt for a mailed
gift card upon contest entry.
[66][67]
In 2004,
Future Network USA published two commercial strategy guides with material from GameFAQs: ''The Ultimate
Xbox Strategy Guide'' and ''The Ultimate
PS2 Strategy Guide''.
[68][69] These guides were composed of FAQs written by contributors on GameFAQs.
Contests
User poll contests
Since 2002, GameFAQs has hosted annual (or biannual)
tournament contests consisting of daily
polls in which visitors to the site choose between competing
characters, games, or series. Registered users can submit prediction
brackets, and
prizes are awarded to those who score the highest. The contest polls are shown in place of or in addition to the regular Poll of the Day and have always been accompanied by an image depicting the entrants in the match. The number of votes in a contest poll typically far exceeds the amount cast in a normal Poll of the Day.
[70][71]
The annual Character Battle has been the subject of two
webcomics — ''
Penny Arcade'' featured the Character Battle in their comic on
August 23,
2002,
[72] and Creative Uncut's ''Inside the Gamers Studio'' strip mentioned the Character Battle in their ninth comic.
[73]
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 '', ''
Chrono Trigger'', '', ''
Super Mario Bros. 3'', ''
Super Smash Bros. Melee'', ''
GoldenEye 007'', ''
Metal Gear Solid'', '', and ''
Final Fantasy III/VI''.
[74]
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.
1. Think your job sucks? Try writing strategy guides Kuchera, Ben
2.
3.
4.
5. Internet Capsule Review
6. Related Info for: gamefaqs.com
7. About the Site
8. Andy Eddy's archive was formerly located at ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/vi/vidgames/faqs
9. The Great GameFAQs Q&A Veasey, Jeff
10. "Interview with Jeff Veasey" (2002-03-02). ''The Gaming Files''. WXBH AM-1190 (Cobleskill, New York).
11. VGFA on flex.net
12. Video Game FAQ Archive
13. GameFAQs (tables)
14. GameFAQs (no tables)
15. GameFAQs home page
16. October 1998: Select Fighter
17. GameFAQs home page
18. Second Anniversary Karma Bonus Veasey, Jeff
19. Poll of the Day #1
20. The Big Announcement Veasey, Jeff
21. Stumped by a video game? Chances are Jeff Veasey can help Neil Davidson
22. The Future of GameFAQs Veasey, Jeff
23. GameFAQs home page
24. GameFAQs Community
25. GameFAQs home page
26. GameFAQs home page
27. GameFAQs home page
28. GameFAQs home page
29. GameFAX
30. An important notice about the future of GameFAQs Veasey, Jeff
31. CNET Networks SEC Quarterly Report
32. New Layout/Boards Merger
33. Gamefaqs vs Gamespot Petition
34. Survey says... Veasey, Jeff
35. The v9 End of Life project Veasey, Jeff
36. The first major code change is live... Whew! Veasey, Jeff
37. The Long, Slow Goodbye Veasey, Jeff
38. GameFAQs: Message Board Frequently Asked Questions
39. Ask GameFAQs: How much? Veasey, Jeff
40. Happy Birthday to Us... and to you! Veasey, Jeff
41. Gaming Hacks, , Simon, Carless, O'Reilly, 2004, ISBN 0-596-00714-0
42.
43. System Boards
44. Social Boards
45. Special Interest Boards
46. Regional Boards
47. Site Boards
48. Board Basics
49. Message Board Terms of Use
50. GameFAQs: Manage Account (login required)
51. Additional Features
52. Topic Tracking Veasey, Jeff
53. Ad Changes Veasey, Jeff
54. Rules and Standards
55. LUE topic with many LUEshi's
56. Poll of the Day #2333
57. Ask GameFAQs: Errata? Veasey, Jeff
58. LUElinks registration page
59. LUElinks - Stats
60. Mary-Kate and Ashley: Winner's Circle; ''The Times'' (London); July 1, 2001; Stuart Andrews; p. Doors.2 "Guides to completing thousands of video games, compiled by gamers worldwide"
61. Composing Your Guide
62. Images (Maps and other graphics)
63. After You've Submitted
64. Copyrights, Trademarks, and Plagiarism
65. FAQ Bounty
66. FAQ of the Month
67. Review of the Month
68. {{cite book|title=The Ultimate Xbox Strategy Guide|author=Cohen, Corey (ed.)|publisher=Future Network USA|year=2004|oclc=60827530|id=
69. {{cite book|title=The Ultimate PS2 Strategy Guide|author=Amrich, Dan (ed.)|publisher=Future Network USA|year=2004|oclc=60579744|id=
70. Poll of the Day #2411 (69288 votes)
71. Poll of the Day #2425 (111582 votes)
72. ''Penny Arcade'' comic
73. ''Inside the Gamers Studio'' comic
74. Fall 2005: 10-Year Anniversary Contest - The 10 Best Games Ever
External links
;Official
★
GameFAQs
★
GameFAQs Message Boards
;Unofficial
★
GameFAQs Archive — archive of topics and announcements
★
Secondary Boards FAQ — information about the message boards
★
WikiFAQs — a
wiki with GameFAQs-related info
★
GameFAQsContests.com — information about the user poll contests
★
Zeikfried — a list of spinoff boards with downloadable
source code
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