GameRevolution
| File:Grlogo.gif | |
Type of site | Video Games |
|---|---|
| Owner | Net Revolution Inc. |
| Created by | Duke Ferris |
| URL | http://www.gamerevolution.com |
| Commercial | Yes |
Game Revolution (formerly Game-Revolution) or GR is a gaming website created in 1996. Based in Berkeley, California, the site includes reviews, previews, a gaming download area, cheats, and a merchandise store, as well as webcomics, screenshots, and videos. Their features pages include articles satirizing Jack Thompson, E³, the hype surrounding the next-generation consoles, and the Video game controversy. Cameo writing appearances include Brian Clevinger of 8-Bit Theatre and Scott Ramsoomair of VG Cats.
Company history
Net Revolution, Inc., a California corporation was founded in April, 1996 by Duke Ferris as a holding company and as publisher of the Game Revolution website. Ferris served as president of the company until it was acquired in 2005 by Bolt Media, Inc.
Style of reviews
One of the site's most acclaimed attributes are their style of reviews, often blatantly insulting the game and developers of the game itself[1]. Game Revolution, through their roughly two-page reviews come to a summary in the American A-F Grading system. To their credit, Game Revolution claims rightly that they have never given an "A+", and their "A" is awarded to very few, very select games. Such games include Metroid Prime, Okami, Grand Theft Auto III, and Halo: Combat Evolved. On the opposite side of the spectrum, when faced with games they consider to be terrible, the site's reviewers often choose to make the actual reading of the review humorous. For example, when reviewing Survivor: The Interactive Game, multiple drop-down boxes that serve no logical purpose were added to poke fun at the game. To this day, the writers for Game-Revolution insist that The Crow: City of Angels is the worst game they have ever seen. One problem with the grading system is that it causes problems when meta review sites have to convert the score to a numerical value that doesn't quite reflect the grade that GR gave it.
Member Reviews
Recently, members have been given the ability to write their own reviews on the website, for any game in Game-Revolution's database. This has caused problems where some user reviews have written reviews about games still in development, but are in GR's database (such as when GR releases a preview, or screen shots of the game). Due to the websites smaller staff, a number of games do not have reviews for them; the member reviews fill this void.
Some GR members have been creating reviews akin to those of the main GR staff, including a mimic of GR's summary +/- system, and copying GR's somewhat humorous style and paragraphing.
GR Mailbag
Game Revolution also has a GR Mailbag (previously "Moron Mailbag"), a way of showing their personal responses to the numerous hate-mail they receive. However, the mail answered is not just limited to hate-mail, and may often include junk mail, mail they consider stupid, or even mail from intelligent persons.[2] Almost every response Game Revolution makes is humorous in nature, usually poking fun at the sender or the stupidity of the sent e-mail's contents. The Mailbag is updated the least out of the site's content, which the creators' like to point out in the rare occasions they do get to update.
Jack Thompson controversy
Sometime in August 2005, Jack Thompson contacted the Lou Kerner of Game Revolution and requested he remove an ´offensive´ AIM buddy icon from an affiliate site of Game Revolution known as Bolt.com. Kerner complied and had the offending icon removed immediately. However, Thompson saw the removal as an admission of guilt and contacted the NYPD to have Kerner arrested. However, no such action was taken. Duke Ferris, another employee of the site, wrote an article[1] on the matter and humorously pointed out the ridiculousness of the entire situation. To drive home this point, he even chose to present a primitively drawn image which had Thompson being devoured by a crocodile, and then challenged Thompson to go ahead and have him arrested. It is unknown if Thompson responded to the article.
Article regarding video game violence and youth violence
Perhaps Game Revolution's most revered article (as evidenced by its consistent referral by various video game websites[3][4][5]) was Duke Ferris's composition regarding the current public controversy with video games and its connection with violent youth. Snakes openly criticized the matter, and offered several bits of data to prove that there is no discernible connection between two. In fact, he points out that this year's youth has been the least violent in several years, yet political figures and the media have made it a point to make the issue seem the exact opposite. As with the style of the site, the article can be considered humorous in nature. The original article can be found here.
Community
Game Revolution hosts a small but vibrant community of users on its message boards and live chat room.
The forums have boards for specific systems, broken down by company (Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft), PC gaming (Windows, Mac OS and Linux), classic/vintage gaming systems, and role playing games. In addition, the popular "Misc" board in which just about anything can be discussed. This forum has consistently shown itself to be the most popular on the site, with regular discussions about movies, religion, politics, philosophy, music, etc.
The live chat room is primarily intended for discussion of a gaming nature, but for the most part other topics of conversation dominate.
Unlike other gaming websites, such as Gamespot, the Game Revolution forums has a realatively small community; membership exceeds over 1,100 people, and of those roughly 200 members on the message boards and chatrooms are frequent posters. Because of this, the forum members of Game Revolution share a stronger bond of camaraderie, detest console war talk and random flames, and engage in insightful debates over a broad range of topics.
Vox Pop
A recent edition to the Game Revolution forums, the Vox Pop is a "featured blog" tool created by Game Revolution employee Joe "joeblow" Accorsi. The feature is to have members of the Game Revolution community to submit blog entries that span numerous topics in video games today. Some examples include rants on how tech support is a failure and fustrating, to a history of video game companies like Atari, Nintendo and Sony, to even news in the gaming world. The Vox Pop works as a way to not only involve the community of Game Revolution with the website, but also as a chance for members to discuss topics in the gaming world that the staff of Game Revolution may not have the chance to do.
GR Showdown
A member of the forums, The Joker, has for several years organized and maintained the unofficial Game Revolution Videogame Showdown. In it, some of the most popular videogames from all consoles and genres are pitted against each other in a knockout style tournament to determine Game Revolutions top game of the year. The list of winners is as follows:
- 2006: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
- 2005: Metal Gear Solid
- 2004: Final Fantasy VII
- 2003: Grand Theft Auto III
- 2002: Half Life
T4C Debate
In early 2007, a topic was created by one of the members of the forums (Typewriter) about creating a "Game Revolution army" and trying to take control of several other videogame forums. The topic was obviously supposed to be humorous and actually creating this so-called army was never really considered a possibility. The topic continued to grow with an almost role-playing game nature in many replies. When one member (TheNesMan) suggested the popular (yet controversial) website Teens-4-Christ.orgas a target for invasion. However,an email(also below) was sent by the administrator of T4C.org, Bro. Randy, directly to Game Revolution's inbox. In it, Bro. Randy claimed to have informed the FBI of the topic calling it a breach of federal law. Nothing has come of this incident, yet it has made Teens-4-Christ an extremely popular topic to debate about on the Game Revolution forums. The first thread on "Teens-4-Christ" was originally created by the user (Frodo_Bag_Feet) under the name http://www.teens-4-christ.org/ In which many members criticized Teens-4-Christ and its Administrator Brother Randy.considered.
References
- ^ Example: The Crow: City of Angels Reiew
- ^ GR Mailbag
- ^ Kotaku staff (2005). "Do You Want to Know the Truth About Violence?". Kotaku.
{{cite web}}: External link in|work=|accessmonthday=ignored (help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ GP Staff (2005). "Good Reading.... Check 'em Out". Game Politics.
{{cite web}}: External link in|work=|accessmonthday=ignored (help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ "Website review: CAUTION: Children at Play - The Truth Abo..." StumbleUpon. 2005.
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