GameFAQs

GameFAQs is a popular gaming website that has hosted FAQs and walkthroughs for gamers since November 1995. It was created and is currently maintained by Jeff "CJayC" Veasey. It has a large database of video games, and has been referred to as a site where readers "can get almost any information" regarding game strategies. The systems and games range from the 8-bit Atari days to the next-gen consoles 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, and reviews, 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.

History

GameFAQs was started on November 5, 1995 by CJayC. 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 The site in this period can be seen by accessing the following link in the Internet Archive. ^*, less than 1000 FAQs and guides based predominately on games popular on the main systems, although other systems were also listed. The site was also updated on an irregular basis.

In the next few months the site grew in content and in design, with two different designs introduced in early 1997 to accommodate differences in web browsers the site was customised for browsers that supported tables, as shown in this link from the internet archive, and for browsers with no support of tables (or text-only), as shown in this link from the internet archive, [http://web.archive.org/web/19970218070917/www.gamefaqs.com/thome.html, new features were introduced by CJayC that would shape GameFAQs' future - such as user requests for information; a search engine; recognition for contributors; and more.

IGN affiliation

By late 1997, GameFAQs had moved off of the AOL servers and was partnered with then titled Imagine Games Network (IGN). During this period of time, CJayC increased his concentration on GameFAQs, and it is assumed that this is when GameFAQs became his full-time job.CJayC, "The Future of GameFAQs", Official GameFAQs News and Notes. Accessed March 28 2006 Until this time, he had been working in either the radio field or with computer/web programming (evidence taken from a later radio interview). A new aspect of the site was also introduced, namely user contests, with the GameFAQs Second Birthday Contest receiving 1000 entries, and resulting in two winners.

In November 1999 The site in this period can be seen by accessing the following link in the Internet Archive. ^*, a number of changes occurred in quick succession. On the fifth, a Quick Search box was added to all pages, at which time the site was also celebrating its fourth birthday, and on the seventh, the message boards opened, initially in a beta testing mode, and a Poll of the Day was implemented by the end of that week.

During the next year, GameFAQs chat was implented, which saw more people visiting the domain at different times of the day. The GameFAQs chat was initially created to facilitate a minor number of administrator-owned channels, but eventually users were allowed to create their own (such as #trivia, #lobby and #console_war) through a petitioning system . Rooms which had been created but had low usage were also closed down later on.

Post-IGN

2001 saw major changes for GameFAQs. First, CJayC decided to end the association with IGN. The site in this period can be seen by accessing the following link in the Internet Archive. ^* To continue generating revenue, an advertising banner was placed on the top of each page that was sold to non-profit organizations, whilst in May 2001 CNET Networks became an official affiliate of GameFAQs. This month also saw the chat feature deprecated, due to administrative problems.

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 an overall change in the sites layout, with navigation features at the top of the screen, changes made to the links on the side, namely minimizing and creating subsections . In terms of contributions, GameFAQs continued to grow larger and larger, and CJayC, as sole operator and administrator of the site - dedicated hour 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)The site as altered for the joke can be seen by accessing the following link in the GameFAQs Archive as an April Fool's joke. The site's layout was changed to green and black to imitate those of the Xbox, with the intention being to make users believe that GameFAQs was now dedicated solely to 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 getting "flames, threats, and the like" [http://chris.insder.com/image/gfhoax.gif gfhoax.gif, a screenshot of a forum post where CJayC notes such a response. over the joke.

CNET acquisition

On June 3, 2003 CJayC, "The Future of GameFAQs", Official GameFAQs News and Notes. Accessed March 28 2006, CJayC announced to general GameFAQs users (moderators of the boards had previously been alerted) that its long-standing affiliate and sponsor, CNET, had acquired CNET file (PDF) the site and all of its assets (minus user-submitted guides/FAQs, as the copyright remains to the authors) -- CNET did however acquire GameFAQs' rights to host them on the site.

He assured worried users that GameFAQs would undergo no major change ibid 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 April and May 2004, GameFAQs underwent its biggest visual and administrative change yet. At the demand of CNET "GameSpot Boards Merger/New PHP Layout". GameFAQs Archive. April 27, 2004. (and to the disdain of many GameFAQs users) , it partially merged its game boards with those of GameSpot, and also implemented a change in the board's look.

Today, GameFAQs is fully owned by CNET. CJayC still maintains responsibility for working on the site: e-mails, cheat 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.

On April 11, 2006, GameFAQs changed its appearance, almost completely intergrating the site into CNET, and adding the Gamespot logo to the title image on the GameFAQs main page. A new theme was put into place, with changes to hopefully be made in the near future. This move was initially greeted with general disapproval by posters to the GameFAQs message boards. In order to satisfy those who prefer the 2004 layout, the old one has been preserved ^*, however, this only works with the boards and not the main site.

FAQs

Something of note is that many of the contributions to GameFAQs are not actually lists of frequently asked questions. More commonly, they cover various aspect of gameplay, including walkthroughs, item lists, maps, character and plot analysis, and other guidance to play video games well.

When someone contributes a guide to GameFAQs, the author retains the copyright of the material. GameFAQs agrees to only host the guide on their servers, but allows a few other affiliates to link directly to the guides (GameSpot, Yahoo!, AOL, etc).

Message boards

GameFAQs is noteworthy for its active message board community, partially because it maintains a board for every game in its database, as well as numerous social boards and a wide range of special-interest boards to cater for different communities.

Contests

User Poll Contests

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. - In progress

Top 100 Games

In celebration of its 10th anniversary, GameFAQs users chose the 100 best games of all time 10-Year Anniversary Contest - The 10 Best Games Ever Accessed March 28, 2006.. The top 10 were:

Notes and references

Note: This article uses posts to message boards as references. These posts are from the webmaster, and thus can be contextualised as official announcements from the site's creator, and regarded in the same light as an announcement on a corporate web site.

External links

GameFAQs
Secondary Boards FAQ
WikiFAQs - a Wiki dedicated to GameFAQs
GameFAQsContests.com - a website about GameFAQs' spring/summer contests

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