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Shacknews is a website that hosts news, features, editorial content and forums relating to video game. It is owned by Gamerhub Content Network, which purchased the site in January 2014.[1]
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Type of site | Gaming |
|---|---|
| Owner | Gamerhub[1] |
| Created by | Steve Gibson Maarten Goldstein |
| URL | www |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Launched | 1996 |
HistoryEdit
Shacknews was founded in 1996 by Steve "Scary" Gibson, 20 years old at the time, as a website dedicated to following news about the then-upcoming game Quake from id Software. The original name of the website was "Quakeholio". Through the years, the website evolved to cover more than just Quake, and the name was changed. "Shugashack" was chosen after a discussion with friends about the general direction of the page and content. After a few years of frequent spelling confusion and interpreting the name as that of a pornographic website, the site was renamed "Shacknews".
FileShack, a site for game demos, patches, videos, and miscellaneous game-related files for Shacknews users and others, was launched in August 2002.[2]
The news on the front page of the site is normally separated into several categories for organizational purposes. While for much of the site's history, little original research was involved in Shacknews content, in recent years, main news items have steered away from the "link-and-quote" news method. Currently, Shacknews relies heavily on internally researched news, in-house feature content, and industry event coverage.
In addition to normal news posts, which allow focused discussion of an article's featured topic, there are twice-daily community posts. These posts have had titles including Evening Reading, First Post, werd, Morning Discussion, as well as various other one-off titles. Typically, these posts will feature some noteworthy or interesting news links; however, the major function of these posts is to allow for a "free-for-all" discussion in the post's comment section. These posts are where the majority of the Shacknews community congregate to converse with one another, as well as the site staff.
On February 3, 2009, Shacknews and all related Shacknews destinations were purchased by GameFly.[3]
In January 2014, Shacknews was acquired by Gamerhub Content Network, and the sister site FileShack shut down.[1][4] Asif Khan, a financial analyst, had been part of purchasing the site from Gamefly near the end of 2013 and became the site's CEO. Khan felt that the changes that Gamefly had made after 2009 had weakened the site's long-standing reputation, losing viewership to other video game industry websites, and wanted to bring it back to where it had been prior to 2009.[5]
Since 2014, David L. Craddock, one of the site's editors and a historian within the video game field, has published several Long Reads on Shacknews on the development of some of the core games in the field based on interviews with people involved in their development, publishing, and marketing. Some of these have been published as ebooks and physical books with editing assistance from Khan.[6]
ReferencesEdit
- ^ a b c Asif Khan. "Letter to the Chatty".
- ^ "Fileshack.com". Archived from the original on 10 August 2002.
- ^ "GameFly Acquires Shacknews". Shacknews. February 3, 2009. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
- ^ Andrew Yoon. "Goodbye, Fileshack". Retrieved July 13, 2019.
- ^ Brightman, James (October 27, 2014). ""Scared blank check journalism appears to be the status quo"". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved January 25, 2020.
- ^ "The Hard Truths About Being a Videogame Writer". Wired. January 25, 2020. Retrieved January 25, 2020.