Game Central: Past, Present and Future

Since Game Central has been going strong for quite a few months now, I thought I’d give you all a little retrospective down memory lane as to how we arrived to where we’re at now.

Game Central started out as a little idea I had back in 2001. However, I never did anything with it until I got involved with Keenan and Tom from PC Gamer’s (PCG) forums and TF2 server.

Shortly after getting to know a few of the regulars, an outright civil war erupted on the PCG boards between posters and editorial staff. After the dust settled and cleared, I approached Keenan and Tom. I asked them: “Hey— interested in starting up a PC exclusive gaming site?” Fairly excited, they both jumped on the band wagon, and the site was officially launched.  The existing PC Gamer Fan Podcast was retired. We started anew, and with the fresh start came the Game Central Podcast; we opened the gates for first episode  mere days after the site went live.

The coming months saw a concentration on the community, building it up and securing a great place for people to talk, discuss our platform, and just generally enjoy PC gaming.  The forum and the Ventrilo server were integral parts of establishing a social gamer gathering.  Some of us were friends with a chap named “Snoman” who was greatly skilled at organizing gaming servers and digging up the capital to keep them going.  He was instrumental in cementing the “Punishment Portal” as the place to be for online gamers.  A great man of the people, Snoman constantly supplies servers for the public with little or no financial help.  It’s true that the community provides some much needed auxiliary help with donations and assistance on the servers themselves, but it’s safe to say that without Snoman’s ardent dedication, Game Central would not be where it is today.

In late December of ‘08 and January of ’09, Keenan and Ryan burned the proverbial midnight oil slaving away to rebrand the site and bring a great new service to the readers. And in March, the fully-featured completely reborn site took its first worldly breath. Overall, it was a great success.  A large multitude of articles and editorials were released to the general populous, as well as a few reviews. Since that day, fresh, new content has been flowing out on a regular basis.

Recently, in May to be precise, the GC team got together for a prophetic meeting and decided to assign official job titles, more complex and regular duties, as well as instigating a plan for a more continuous delivery of article and review updates.  We at Game Central are dedicated to providing a quality experience of interesting and informative editorials, all intimately related to our beloved PC gaming.

And the GC Podcast is no exception. It’s only grown stronger and stronger as time has progressed.  It’s been constantly refined and streamlined for optimal presentation, with Chris as the host, Keenan as the producer and editor, and Tom, myself and Kirill as the regular contributors.  The GCP has enjoyed a wide variety of industry professionals and varied guests, including Ex-Ziff Davis 1Up Show founder Jane Pinckard, the good folks from Pandemic, Evan Lahti from PC Gamer magazine, David Murphy of Maximum PC fame, and many others.  The podcasters routinely discuss details and nuances that are near and dear to PC gamers’ hearts. Topics range from game music, to narrative debate, to retro gaming; we’ve even had a few of the oh-so-rare females on for their perspectives of PC gaming.

Game Central is entirely funded by the staff and community donators.  There is no omnipotent company forcing us to place ugly obtrusive ads on the site, and as such, we can ensure the reader with an enjoyable visual feast, minus the headache of a typical gaming site’s cluttered neon mess. The ads that we do permit are for products we believe you would appreciate in your possession, such as certain choice gems from the wonderful vault of Good Old Games (GOG).

Speaking of GOG, we now have an amicable partnership where we can recommend and review games, to you, our devoted readers. With this connection to GOG, we now receive a commission for all the games you purchase that are linked from us (only if you registered an account through our ads).  So if you want to help support the development and infrastructure of Game Central and you wish to purchase one (or more!) of the GOG classics, please navigate to the ad!

While we cannot 100% predict what lies ahead for us, we are dedicated to keeping the site as clean of unsightly banners as possible, which will in turn only permit advertisement of goods and services that are pleasing to the PC gamers’ fine-tuned eyes. And on the note of quality products, we’ll soon be instigating the sale of Game Central merchandise, starting with T-shirts. Check the forums often for updates.

While I cannot delve into the exact minutia and detail about our future plans (as that would ruin the surprises), we’ll be spearheading the site’s vidcast component like a bunch of crazed ancient Greek hoplites.  Eventually, our goal is to have the vidcasts become as regular as our written editorials.

And for all those possibly seeking to take that extra step, Game Central is not an elitist “closed shop” site where outsider contributors are commonly rejected. We welcome every person’s contributions and talents, whether it’s with finances, gaming servers, articles, reviews or even suggestions for new areas.  If you wish to pitch an editorial or review for yourself, then please do so (but it’s always safer to describe your idea first before actually writing it). Email your reviews to Samy Masadi, and all other editorials to Tom Conroy.

We will soon have a page with all freelancer guidelines and regulations.

Feel free to follow us on Twitter, and join the Facebook, Xfire, and Steam groups and please express your opinions of our articles using the commenting system found below them. And last but not least: register on the forum and become a full-fledged member of the community!

From myself and all of us at Game Central, “Game On.”