NeoGAF

NeoGAF

NeoGAF logo NeoGAF logo
Type of site	Gaming
Available in	English
Owner	Tyler Malka
Created by	Jim Cordeira
URL	http://www.neogaf.com/
Commercial	Yes
Registration	Free

NeoGAF (formerly named the Gaming Age Forums) is an internet forum that discusses video games, founded as an adjunct to Gaming-Age, a video game news site. Since April 4, 2006, the site has been independently hosted and administered.

The site is well-known for its strict codes of conduct. Many developers and publishers have said the site has a substantial impact on the industry, and many use it to get user feedback on their games. The approval of an account registration usually takes between six months to two years.

History

The Gaming-Age Forums began as an adjunct to Gaming Age, a video game news and reviews website, running the UBB forum software and hosted on the Gaming Age servers. As Gaming Age outgrew its hosting, IGN took over hosting of Gaming Age's forums. After IGN ceased hosting of GAF in the summer of 2001, GAF moved to ezboards, and the administration of GAF became more estranged from Gaming Age.

As the Gaming Age staff became gradually more divorced from the day-to-day operation of GAF, problems with the new Gamesquad hosting cropped up. As software bugs in vBulletin 2, the version GAF was using at the time, continued to worsen, the Gamesquad hosting became increasingly more impractical, until the forums' database became corrupted, forcing a move to new hosting in order to change software and salvage what was left of the forums' database. In the spring of 2004, a fundraiser was held to move GAF to new hosting. On June 6, 2004, GAF took its current form (known as "NeoGAF" to long-time posters) and moved to new hosting and new software, vBulletin 3.

As of April 4, 2006, the forums were relaunched as "NeoGAF", the former in-moniker, by its administrators. NeoGAF also features its own front page, an upfront admission that the forum's audience had drifted from that of its birthing news site, but yet mandated a single portal to represent the forum's members. Initial plans are to use the front page to highlight the individual accomplishments and biographies of GAF's publicly industry-relevant members, as well as to offer a more visible home to any extraordinary information that would otherwise have to be housed in an ordinary thread of conversation. More details can be gleaned (if sparsely) from this official thread declaring the changeover. In December 2007, the forums held a fundraiser, and ended up raising $5,600 for Get Well Gamers, a California-based charity with the goal of entertaining sick children. Denis Dyack of Silicon Knights has also posted on the forum until he was permanently banned.

Notable members

Many notable people from the video game industry have posted on NeoGAF, including David Jaffe (creator of the Twisted Metal series and God of War), Cliff Bleszinski (designer on the Unreal franchise and the Gears of War series), Jeremiah Slaczka (co-founder of 5TH Cell and creator of the Drawn to Life franchise and Scribblenauts), Vic Ireland (founder of Working Designs). Andy McNamara (editor-in-chief of Game Informer), Jeff Green (former editor-in-chief of Games for Windows: The Official Magazine and former editor for 1UP), Gary Whitta, former editor-in-chief of PC Gamer and Hollywood screenwriter, Shawn Elliott (former editor of Games for Windows: The Official Magazine and former editor for 1UP) and Greg Kasavin (former editor-in-chief of GameSpot), Ryan Payton (former assistant producer at Kojima Productions, now of Microsoft Game Studios), as well as developers at Bungie, Tim Lewinson (former senior designer at Disney Interactive Studios, Bethesda, Monolith Productions, Relic Entertainment, Krome Studios, Sidhe Interactive, Rare, and Insomniac Games), and James Stevenson (Senior Community Manager of Insomniac Games) . Denis Dyack of Silicon Knights has also posted on the forum until he was permanently banned .

Also notable is the user Koshiba, famous for her gaming knowledge and resemblance to Neko Case. After years of insightful posting and deep analysis, she left in early 2011 due to a user criticizing her for posting photos of her assets.

Notable sub-communities

• The so called PonyGAF sub-community has gathered together and sent fan mail through Equestria Daily, an unofficial My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fansite, that has been acknowledged by Lauren Faust.

• The "Girl/Dating Age" sub-community of NeoGAF has several dozens of regular members and has been viewed 340,000 times in less than a year. Its purpose is to help people who are novice in love get a girlfriend and/or keep her.

• The "GAF+" sub-community Ray Kurzweil, a transhumanist group which has been mentioned by famous transhumanist Ray Kurzweil in a speech on the mainstream acknowledgement of transhumanist ideas and concepts.

• Ancient/Anti-PC/"Common sense"-brigade, a number of forum members which often display bigoted views such as homophobia, transphobia, islamophobia, luddite thoughts, anti-scepticism, religious fundamentalism and more.

Cultural impact

In the video game Scribblenauts, if the words "neogaf" or "gaf" are written, the NeoGAF logo will appear in the game. It can be mounted by the player and used similar to a helicopter (except it will not stay aloft in the air). If it is interacted with, the logo will spawn a gamer character.

The video game Persona 4 quotes a popular NeoGAF meme when a teacher in the game says "I don't know how much you know about world history, but I'm an expert".

Forum Projects

NeoGAF is developing a video game, titled Dudebro: My Shit Is Fucked Up So I Got to Shoot/Slice You II: It's Straight-Up Dawg Time, that is voiced by Jon St. John.

External links

• NeoGAF Forums