GameSpot
GameSpot is a computer and video gaming
website that was launched in May of
1996 by
Pete Deemer,
Vince Broady, and
Jon Epstein.
At launch, the site focused exclusively on
PC games. Its sister site, Videogamespot.com, was launched in December of that year to cover console systems. In
1997, Videogamespot.com became Videogames.com for a short while, and by
1998, the PC and console sections were united under the GameSpot banner.
GameSpot presents
video game and
PC software and hardware reviews, previews, downloads, news, and information. After starting out on its own, GameSpot was purchased by
ZDNet. Later, ZDNet was purchased by
CNET Networks, which currently owns GameSpot.
GameSpot is one of the most popular gaming review websites on the Internet. In
2004, GameSpot won "Best Gaming Website" as chosen by the viewers in
Spike TV's second
Video Game Award Show. Other big gaming websites such as
IGN and
GameSpy have been their biggest rivals.
On
October 3,
2005, GameSpot adopted a new look similar to that of
TV.com, now considered a sister site to GameSpot. The redesign has made the overall interface better and more efficient.
GameSpot's main page has links to the latest news, reviews, previews, portals to specific platforms (
PC,
PS2,
PS3,
PSP,
Xbox,
Xbox 360,
GameCube,
Wii,
Nintendo DS,
Game Boy Advance, and
Mobile), and other sections and features as well as the list of the most popular games on the site. It also includes a search engine for users to track down games of interest to them as quickly as possible. For users who choose to become registered members of the site, there is also a section on the main page which keeps tabs on updates to their tracked games, rewarding them immediate updates to games which hold their interest.
As of
February 21,
2006, GameSpot discontinued the GameSpot Complete service. It now maintains two premium membership services: Total Access and Gamespot Plus.
Total Access is essentially a replacement of GameSpot Complete, as it is the same price of $5.95 per month or $39.95 per year, and offers the same basic benefits[
1]. According to GameSpot, Total Access offers "all the features of GameSpot Plus ... plus high-speed downloads, no ads, subscriber only contests and betas, access to all GameSpot tournaments, and discounts on games and accessories."[
2]
The second premium service, GameSpot Plus, is a new, less expensive, intermediate level. According to GameSpot, this gives subscribers "high-res movie streams and downloads, downloadable game guides, and access to all live-event coverage, including participation in live, staff-moderated chat."
The most notable difference of these premium services is the lack of GameSpot Complete's 10 percent discount at EBGames.com. This is likely the result of the EB Games-GameStop merger, and unrelated to the change in GameSpot subscription services.
GameSpot has separate sections for the current most popular consoles, as well as for the PC platform. There are other separate sections for various features such as reviews, previews, news, cheats, videos, tech, and downloads. GameSpot is well known for its original features, such as "GameSpotting," a conglomeration of staff editorials usually posted on Sundays, but was replaced in June 17, 2005 by a new feature called "Freeplay," a daily editorial in which a GameSpot editor writes about games, beginning his or her editorial with the last paragraph of the previous editorial. In turn, Freeplay later ceased to operate in this way, and began using the same system as GameSpotting had.
Another feature is Burning Questions by
Alex Navarro in which users write in and have their questions answered, usually in a sarcastic tone.
Other popular features include "On the Spot," a weekly live video show, hosted by Associate Producer, Rich Gallup. "The HotSpot" is GameSpot's own
podcast in which various GameSpot editors discuss different issues and news stories in the gaming world.
In 2005 a feature called "Today on GameSpot" was introduced along with the redesign of the site. It is very similar to an older feature, now no longer running, "Let's GameSpot." Sections of "Today on GameSpot" include "The Rorie Roundup," which gives tips and hints on the latest games; "That's Fresh," which details the newest releases; "The Last Word," a Friday feature hosted by GameSpot News that recaps the week's biggest gaming-related news; "The Lowdown," which describes downloads on the site; and "Top Notch Games," which names GameSpot editor's favorite games (often being inducted into the
Greatest Games Of All Time). Aside from "The Last Word" section of "Today on GameSpot" all of the other sections were discontinued due to the cost and time required to create each episode.
Every year, GameSpot holds the Best & Worst of the Year awards, which recognize achievements in the gaming industry, positive and negative. To see the official website of the 2005 awards, click
here.
In January 2001 GameSpot introduced video reviews for games, which have become very popular and are released for all major games and those that the editors believe deserve special mention (for example, the very worst games). Reviews are arguably the most important feature of the website, as people expect GameSpot editors to give an objective judgment. GameSpot has a detailed guide on-site for the purpose of explaining their exact reviewing policies, as well as answering frequently asked questions about their reviews.
When GameSpot Complete was introduced in late 2001, older reviews were restricted to Complete members; however that was repealed several months later.
All games are judged on five different categories: Gameplay, Graphics, Sound, Value, and Reviewer's Tilt. Each category is assigned an
integer score from one to ten, and these five integers are combined using a weighted average to arrive at an overall score. Should a game score at least 9.0, it is designated as "superb," and given "Editor's Choice" recognition. Although many games achieve this status each year, only four in GameSpot's history have ever gotten a perfect ten —#
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time[3] for the
Nintendo 64#
Chrono Cross[4] for the
PlayStation#
Soul Calibur[5] for the
Sega Dreamcast#
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3[6] for the
PlayStation 2.Six games, however, came very close to the perfect score of 10, which (with a score of 9.9 each) were —#
Tekken 3[7] for the
PlayStation#
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 for the
PlayStation[
8] and
Dreamcast[
9]#
Perfect Dark[10] for the
Nintendo 64#
Super Mario Bros. Deluxe[11] for the
Game Boy Color#
NFL 2K[12] for the
Dreamcast#
NFL 2K1[13] for the
DreamcastOn the other end of the spectrum,
Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing[14] is the only game to have ever received a 1.0, rated as "abysmal", the lowest score possible.
While games are rated mostly with regard to how they compare to the other games available on their specific platforms, games released simultaneously for multiple platforms are also compared between systems, which often results in differing scores being given to the same game depending on the system, usually due to the inherent strengths and weaknesses of each platform.
GameSpot's forums were originally run by ZDNet. Later on, they were run on
Lithium. GameSpot uses a semi-automated moderation system with numerous volunteer
moderators. There are currently more than 50 moderators, of which "AnonymousBroccoli" is the longest running, beginning his position in January
2002.
One distinct feature of the GameSpot community is the ability of GameSpot Total Access users to create their own user-created board, which may be open to the public or can be private. The board's creator can appoint their own moderators, and also can display HTML markup at the top of their board. Also, all users have the ability to create or join what is known as a "Union." A Union consists of a user-created board which is attached to an editorial front, as well as a homepage with news bulletins and members lists.
One particular fad that originated on GameSpot's forums, specifically the "System Wars" board, is the use of animal epithets to describe
users with an allegiance to a certain console-making company.
*
Sheep: used to describe
Nintendo fans because they allegedly "follow their master" (Nintendo).
[The System Wars Informational Thread.]*
Lemming: used to describe
Microsoft fans because of their alleged lack of intuition outside of what Microsoft tells them.
*
Cow: used to describe
Sony fans because of their alleged willingness to allow Sony to "milk" them with expensive add-ons and peripherals such as the PS2 hard drive, network adapter, and multitap.
*
Hermit: used to describe
PC gamers because it is believed that between playing PC games and posting on the forums, they do nothing but use their computer all day.
*
Manticore: used to describe the self-proclaimed "true gamers" who have no preferred company, and instead own all consoles.
These terms are widespread amongst many of GameSpot's forums. In GameSpot's 2005 April Fools joke, the editors acknowledged the forum joke by putting a picture of each animal in the banner of the homepage of each respective system. They also changed their site tagline to "Where games go to FLOP," an acknowledgement of some users' claims that any anticipated game that receives a score under a 9.0 on GameSpot's rating scale has flopped.
In addition to the traditional message board system, GameSpot has expanded its community through the addition of features such as user blogs (once called user journals) and user video blogs. Users can track other users, allowing them to see updates for their favorite blogs. If both users track each other, they are listed on each other's friends list.
Registered users have the privilege of having their own profile which they can make visible to only themselves, friends or everyone through their preferences. Profiles can be useful and convenient to the user themself and to others. In a profile a
blog can be started and updated. When making a blog post the WYSIWYG box is identical to that seen on the forums. Other users can also report offensive messages in blogs as well. As of August 2006, a new section was launched called "My RSS" which allows the user themself and others to subscribe to the
RSS feeds. So far there are feeds for "Tracked Games", "Tracked Unions", "Friends' Reviews", "Friends' Blogs" and "My Blog". Other elements on profiles include their latest videos, games, tracked blogs and ratings.
Games
Users who maintain a game collection may want to put their collection on their GameSpot profile so that they can keep track of them and let others see what games they own. Upon clicking the "Games" tab, another set of tabs are displayed below. The "Latest Additions" shows what games they have added recently, tracked recently and wanted recently. The next tab called "Tracked Games" displays the amount of games they are tracking. By keeping track of games they can be notified of updates through e-mail and at the top right hand section of any GameSpot page (if a user is not logged in a login/password box is displayed instead). The "Collection" tab shows how many games the user owns. If they own so many games on one platform they will receive an aficionado emblem or if they have bad taste an emblem will be displayed on their profile too. More information on emblems can be found in the section below. The next tab is called "Wish List" that allows users to add games they want to try out or intend to buy in the future. Any game can be added to a wish list whether it is out or is pending for release in the future. A game that is not out in a region (North America, Europe, Japan) cannot be added to their collection. If a game is currently out in Europe for example users from their can add the game to their collection but users in North America and Japan can't. If the game has been imported from Europe then the system can easily be bypassed. To do this the user needs to be on the UK subdomain of GameSpot. The final tab in this section is called "Now Playing" which users can copy games from their collection and put there to indicate they have recently played that game.
Emblems
Emblems are awarded to users by completing various tasks. Some emblems show your user status (free subscription versus paid subscription). Other emblems denote contest winners, voting participants, staff/moderators, and game aficionados. There are currently close to one hundred emblems available. GameSpot's sister site
TV.com also has the emblem feature with their own TV-themed emblems.
GameSpot's fairly new design has attracted some controversy from the message board users who were members before the change. Many users dislike the new design because of the lower screen resolution and constant glitching, though these are not all of the complaints the new design has attracted.
The redesign happened in October of 2005, and the forums were down the longest of all the features on the website. When they returned, however, they were filled with bugs and code not running correctly. Since then, the GameSpot developers have been hard at work creating fixes and performance is returning to normal.
GameCenter was a service which allowed players to host their own servers, chat with their friends, and play an assortment of PC games online with players all around the world, all while tracking users' stats. As of
March 6,
2006, the GameCenter subscription service has been discontinued and merged into the GameSpot Total Access service. As a result, GameSpot is discontinuing support of the GameCenter client, but will continue tournament events for Total Access members.
The most recent GameCenter has no relation to the original
GameCenter, which
CNET Networks ran from
1995 to
2001 as a competitor to GameSpot. Shortly after
CNET Networks acquired
ZDNet and GameSpot in
2000, the original
GameCenter disbanded.
GameSpot UK was started in October 1997 by Ian Howie and Asher Rospigliosi. The site operated until mid-2002, offering Europe centric content which often differed from that of the US site. In 1999 GameSpot UK won the PPAi (Periodical Publishers Association interactive) award for best web site - beating both FHM and NME. Following the purchase of ZDnet by CNet the site was merged with the main US site. Recently CNet has relaunched the GameSpot UK site. It opened on
April 24,
2006 and is edited by Phil Elliott, with
Guy Cocker as Staff Writer.
GameSpot UK,
News article*
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GameSpot (main site; US)
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GameSpot Asia **
GameSpot Belgium **
GameSpot India **
GameSpot China **
GameSpot Korea **
GameSpot Netherlands**
GameSpot UK
