Gamespy.
Any on remember that site and service? Back in the days of 56k, it used to be the main way you would find games online, heck, it even came bundled with almost any game that had multiplayer.
They also had an awesome site, well really a set of sites. Gamespy, and its network sites were basicly where you wanted to go if you wanted anything to do with the game that was interesting you at the time. Not only did you have the news, reviews, previews, interviews, etc. on the main Gamespy site, but their network sites like PlanetQuake, PlanetAgeOfEmpires, or even just PlanetYourGameNameHere, they were the one stop place for game news, and then these planet sites had their own network of sites!
And then each of these sites had their downloads stored at FilePlanet.
No, stop. Do not bitch about the OLD fileplanet. Yes, the current FilePlanet we have is crap, the old file planet which was used exclusivly to serve gamespy, the “Planet” sites, and their networks was awesome, quick, and easy to use.
In fact, even after the GameSpy networks became hugly commercialised, I still visited them atleast once a week, that was untill IGN took over.
Yeh the sites still TRY to keep that humor, and ability to inform… but the soul is gone.
What made GameSpy and the Planet networks so great is now gone. The passion for each games Planet site feels like its been surgicly removed, but I guess thats the way gaming has gone these days.
You see, with the current crop of games, and its been this way for the past…. six or seven years now, games get their quick “omg such an awesome game” moment, before everyone moves on. No-one sticks with a certian series for very long, once the single player is done, and all the achievements in multiplayer is done, most gamers nower days move on.
Other than World Of Warcraft, in X-Fires “top 10 games” its basically changing every month, brands are very rarely revisited.
You have us oldies still playing the old games, and keeping the community for them alive, but go and try to find a forum, or news-fan-site dedicated to a specific game, its very hard to do.
No, I’m not saying that this is a hard and fast rule, obviously there are modern games where communities, and community forums have sprung up around them (Think Call Of Duty, and the Dawn of War games, and obviously Halo). But even then, these games were released at the end of, what I think, was the time when games were great.
Games don’t excite, don’t hold their communities, and so sites like GameSpy’s Planet network have died down. And there is no point for them trying to follow the current gaming trend with new Planet sites, as within a month, no-one will be visiting it.
Thats my guess why they got taken over by the IGN network. Its easier to make a “general gaming news” site, than a specific one.
And thats sad. It used to be good saying “I’m a Quaker” and pointing to PlanetQuake, or “I’m a CT” and pointing to PlanetHalfLife or PlanetRainbowSix (depending on your poisen.
Its also sad, because services like GameSpy’s old program, and The All Seeing Eye, and now fairly much useless. They arn’t maintained, full of bugs, and don’t have any community tie ins…. unless we are talking about steam.
But even then, Steam isn’t a server browser like GameSpy was. It used to be brilliant having all the games you played, and all their servers in one big list, you wernt limited by what game you had loaded, you could just go “Ohh, this server has lots of people” and find out a few seconds later your game for that night would be Unreal Tournament.
So whats my point? Well, I miss GameSpy and the Planet sites, for their community, news, and centralisation of all the things you could ever want, and the old days where $90 was justified on a game, because you knew you would still be playing it two years down the track.
And really, the only people we have to blame for this, is ourselfs.
And click the images, and relive the days of 56k!
