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GameFAQs

The GameFAQs home page during Character Battle V.The GameFAQs home page during Character Battle V in October 2006. The day's match was Kirby vs. Luigi.
Type of site	Gaming
Owner	CNET Networks, Inc.
Created by	Jeff "CJayC" Veasey
URL	http://www.gamefaqs.com/
Commercial	Yes
Registration	Optional (required for contributing content and posting on the message boards)

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. 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 for discussion or gameplay help. Many of the boards are shared between GameFAQs and GameSpot, another CNET website. The site also features a daily opinion poll and related tournament contests.

GameFAQs is consistently cited by The Guardian as one of the top gaming sites on the Web, and the site has been positively reviewed by Entertainment Weekly. Additionally, GameFAQs.com is one of the 200 highest-trafficked websites according to Alexa.

The mods need to learn how to take a joke. Sballen and cjayc are tools.

Message boards

The custom-made GameFAQs Message Boards, coded by Veasey, began operation on November 7, 1999. 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, and as of November 7, 2006, there were more than 100,000 accounts actively in use.

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. 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.

GameFAQs has boards made purely for the purpose of socializing ("Current Events" and "Random Insanity" being the largest), some that cater to special interests (such as The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, or pro wrestling), and some purely for users from a particular region (e.g. United Kingdom, Australia/New Zealand). GameFAQs also has boards for official announcements, contributor discussion, contest discussion, suggestions, and site help.

Features

Posts made on the message boards are mostly plain text. Some HTML markup is used on the boards, including bold and italics tags. Unlike many message boards, GameFAQs does not allow tags for images, hyperlinks, underlining, or avatars. 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. Older posts are not kept indefinitely and depend on the number 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. Users can add favorite boards to a personalized list on the main boards page and can track specific topics (a feature added in 2006).

On June 20, 2007, advertisements on message list pages were moved from the top of the page to the middle of the message lists. Shortly thereafter, the ads were moved to the bottom of the message lists. On October 8, 2007, an "ignore user" system was launched for users above a certain level.

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.

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. 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.

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". Another known spinoff forum is called "LUElinks", a site originally created for members of LUE. It has over 10,000 registered users and 20,000,000 posts. Unlike GameFAQs, it is not open to the public.

FAQs

All of the guides and walkthroughs on GameFAQs are contributed by volunteers. 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, though GameFAQs does also accept stand-alone images, such as maps and puzzle solutions. 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. The author retains the copyright on the submitted material, 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. 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 can opt for a mailed gift card upon contest entry.

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. 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 smallest margin between any two choices in a contest poll was three votes—this occurred in the four-way match between Alucard, Liquid Snake, Ness and Zidane Tribal on September 22, 2007, with the three vote difference between first-place winner Liquid Snake and runner-up Alucard.

The annual Character Battle has been the subject of two webcomics—Penny Arcade featured the Character Battle in their comic on August 23, 2002, and Creative Uncut's Inside the Gamers Studio strip mentioned the Character Battle in their ninth comic.

10 Best Games Ever

During the 10-Year Anniversary Contest in 2005, 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.

Notes and references

• Note: This article uses posts to message boards as references. These posts are from the site's staff and thus can be contextualized as official announcements and regarded in the same light as announcements on a corporate website.

1. Kuchera, Ben (2006-03-06). "Think your job sucks? Try writing strategy guides". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2007-03-25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
2. Schofield, Jack (2000-05-11). "Games watch". The Guardian. p. 11. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2007-08-06. SPOnG, the Super Players Online Gamesbase, would like to become to games what the Internet Movie Database is to films. Since the IMDb is one of the world's best websites, that would be useful, though GameFAQs might be a better place to start. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
3. Pratchett, Rhianna (2003-02-06). "Web watch". The Guardian. p. 8. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2007-08-06. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
4. Boseley, Sarah (2004-12-16). "Cream of the crop: 100 most useful websites". The Guardian. p. 22. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2007-08-06. GameFAQs lists game player-created walkthroughs, plus links to cheats, reviews and previews {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
5. "Internet Capsule Review". Entertainment Weekly. 2000-02-04. Retrieved 2007-01-24. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
6. "Related Info for: gamefaqs.com". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2007-01-24.
7. "GameFAQs: Message Board Frequently Asked Questions". Archived from the original on 2000-05-10. Retrieved 2006-12-21.
8. Veasey, Jeff (2006-09-13). "Ask GameFAQs: How much?". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2006-09-20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
9. Veasey, Jeff (2006-11-07). "Happy Birthday to Us … and to you!". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2006-11-17. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
10. Carless, Simon (2004). Gaming Hacks. O'Reilly. ISBN 0-596-00714-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
11. Flor, Nick (2004). "The Architecture of the Symbol Engine in a Programmable Autonomous Business" (PDF). Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on E-Commerce Technology. IEEE. pp. 119–126. doi:10.1109/ICECT.2004.1319725. ISBN 0-7695-2098-7. Retrieved 2007-01-25. {{cite conference}}: Unknown parameter |booktitle= ignored (|book-title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
12. "System Boards". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2006-12-30.
13. "Social Boards". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2006-12-30.
14. "Special Interest Boards". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2006-12-30.
15. "Regional Boards". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2006-12-30.
16. "Site Boards". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2006-12-30.
17. ^ "Board Basics". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2006-09-20.
18. "Message Board Terms of Use". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2006-10-01.
19. "Rules and Standards". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2007-11-08.
20. "GameFAQs: Manage Account (login required)". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
21. "Additional Features". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2006-09-30.
22. Veasey, Jeff (2006-12-06). "Topic Tracking". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2007-01-31. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
23. ^ Veasey, Jeff (2007-06-20). "Ad Changes". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2007-06-24. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
24. "Message Board Announcements - Beta Ignore User System". Retrieved 2007-11-08. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help)
25. Cite error: The named reference about was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
26. "Rules and Standards". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2006-09-20.
27. Cite error: The named reference qa was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
28. Veasey, Jeff (2005-08-16). "Ask GameFAQs: Errata?". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2006-09-21. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
29. Cite error: The named reference radio was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
30. "LUElinks registration page". Archived from the original on 2005-03-11. Retrieved 2006-09-23.
31. "LUElinks - Stats". Retrieved 2007-01-04.
32. 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"
33. "Composing Your Guide". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2006-10-26.
34. "Images (Maps and other graphics)". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2007-01-01.
35. ^ "After You've Submitted". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2006-10-26.
36. "Copyrights, Trademarks, and Plagiarism". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2006-10-26.
37. "FAQ Bounty". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2007-03-18.
38. "FAQ of the Month". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2007-03-18.
39. "Review of the Month". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2007-03-18.
40. Cohen, Corey (ed.) (2004). The Ultimate Xbox Strategy Guide. Future Network USA. OCLC 60827530. ASIN B000E7URBQ. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
41. Amrich, Dan (ed.) (2004). The Ultimate PS2 Strategy Guide. Future Network USA. OCLC 60579744. ASIN B000E7URPM. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
42. "Summer 2002: "The Great GameFAQs Character Battle"". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2007-09-23.
43. "Summer 2003: The Great GameFAQs Character Battle II". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2007-09-23.
44. "Spring 2004: Best. Game. Ever". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2007-09-23.
45. "Summer 2004: The Great GameFAQs Character Battle III". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2007-09-23.
46. "Spring 2005: Got Villains?". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2007-09-23.
47. ^ "Summer 2005: The Great GameFAQs Character Battle IV". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2007-09-23.
48. "Summer 2006: Best. Series. Ever". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2007-09-23.
49. "Fall 2006: The Great GameFAQs Character Battle V". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2007-09-23.
50. "Poll of the Day #2566". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2007-09-23.
51. Note: Two different spellings were used—"Battle Royale" and "Battle Royal".
52. "Fall 2007: The Great GameFAQs Character Battle VI". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2007-11-05.
53. "Poll of the Day #2882". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2007-09-23.
54. "Penny Arcade comic". Penny Arcade. 2002-08-23. Retrieved 2006-12-17. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
55. "Inside the Gamers Studio comic". Creative Uncut. 2003. Retrieved 2006-12-17.
56. "Fall 2005: 10-Year Anniversary Contest—The 10 Best Games Ever". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2007-09-23.

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

• CNET websites
• Internet forums
• Internet properties established in 1995
• Online game databases
• Review websites
• Video game websites