Gaming Update

[Red Queen]

Gaming Update was owned and operated by Richard Gardner from 1999 to 2019, although in its latter years it largely laid dormant without any updates or community forums to speak of. However, to this day it continues to be a source of discussion and fond memories amongst those who were a part of it, it was the first community that @Oblivion Knight signed up to and later had the privilege of being a part of the staff, which sparked his interest in forums, website design and maintenance.

Former members:
@Oblivion Knight
@John Cord
@Darth Stinkius
@jamesyfx
@Dante
@MChapp1867

Please use this thread to discuss Gaming Update, and reconnect with old friends.

 

[MChapp1867]

I keep trying to find any trace of Gaming Update but it seems super hard to find anything of it. I suppose "Gaming Update" is a super vague and nebulous thing to type into a search engine. Anyone got anything of GU still hanging around?

 

[jamesyfx]

I've managed to pull together some of the 'styles' that GU took. I don't remember the last one whatsoever.. In fact, it's pretty much the same colour scheme as this site.... and some of them don't have images sadly. But hey!

Sorry it's gonna look a bit of a mess... But yeah..

 

[MChapp1867]

I definitely remember spending far too much time staring at most of those. Thanks for sharing! I don't recall that last one either. GU was always green to me. Apart from that time it got hacked and turned red..

 

[Smokey]

God I miss vBulletin 3/4 series.

 

[Oblivion Knight]

I never used vBulletin 4, but I definitely miss vBulletin 2/3. I became quite proficient at writing custom code for it..

I even miss UBB (later rebranded to UBB.classic) to a lesser degree. I still haven't seen a classic "news fader" style add-on done since!

 

[jamesyfx]

I'm most fond of vBulletin 2, behind the scenes it was nice and straightforward. Then I think in vBulletin 3 they introduced built in if/and/andif statements which made it a lot easier to code for even without knowledge.

Don't remember anything about vB4, but version 5 (and I still cannot believe that they are still on version 5) was just too much of a departure. Plus a whole lot of controversy happened which is why everyone promptly moved on to xF....

 

[Oblivion Knight]

I tried to reach out to Rich for a possible revival of Gaming Update before starting my previous website (Nerdface).. Unfortunately I didn't hear anything, so can only assume he's not particularly interested. Which is a shame, even if only for pure nostalgia purposes! 2019 should have been its 20-year celebration - instead it closed for "maintenance" and hasn't returned.

 

[Lee]

Ah, the old "closed for maintenance" trick.

I much prefer handing over the website to the community upon closure, it is a good way to ensure the legacy lives on, especially if I have lost "the love".

 

[Oblivion Knight]

I'm not much better to be fair - I have a bad habit of prematurely closing projects without consulting the community..

I promise that won't happen this time! Afterall, it's not my community, it's ours. I'll open up to donations if I'm struggling with running costs..

 

[Lee]

I'm not much better to be fair - I have a bad habit of prematurely closing projects without consulting the community..

I promise that won't happen this time! Afterall, it's not my community, it's ours. I'll open up to donations if I'm struggling with running costs..

Please don't do that. IF the time ever comes, I'm sure you will find a suitable person to take over.


I used to have a similar disposition though, one morning I would wake up and think "I can't do this any more" and close them down in a moment of madness.

Now I tend to stay offline if I get in that mood and give myself a few days to recuperate.

 

[jamesyfx]

If you've built up a community, it's worth keeping it afloat as long as it makes financial sense to do so. I imagine GU just wasn't getting enough traffic at the end of the day as people started blocking ads and there wasn't much site owners could really do about it at the time.

Maybe a premium type membership would've helped them get the coins in.

 

[Oblivion Knight]

I think Gaming Update was just left in an abandoned and "unloved" state for too long. It had no new content posted to it in over 5 years, and the forums had been closed for a few more years prior to that.. Nostalgia only goes so far!

If Rich has no interest in reviving things, he should auction off the domain to past members - I dare say he still has backups of the old forums somewhere.

 

[jamesyfx]

I think I remember reading that the old network that has GU under its umbrella () tried to rebrand itself to a kinda gaming and babes type thing.

If so.. suuuuch a terrible idea.. Even then the world was a lot more progressive! They stopped having stuff like booth babes at gaming conventions yonks ago..

 

[Oblivion Knight]

I kinda lost track whether it was a part of the Video Gamer Network, or the Web Media Network.. I saw that Rich has technically resigned from the latter.

Either way, I can't see a revival being likely.

 

[jamesyfx]

I think it was both; and also another network called UGO. I remember being tasked in making a new header for Gaming Update and I was told I had to put the UGO logo in a specific place and I couldn't mess with the colour of it or anything. The source file was horrible as well.. Jaggy edges and stuff.

Crazy times.

 

[Lee]

I miss the internet of old, pixelated jaggedy imagery was awesome and we should go back to it.

Anybody remember Geocities?

 

[jamesyfx]

Yeah! And Tripod!!

Theres a game called Hypnospace Outlaw which pretty much captures that early era of the internet.. You play as a moderator of sorts of a direct-to-brain internet service.. and you uncover stuff as you play. But it has an array of pages as part of the game and it's defo got that geocities vibe...

 

[Oblivion Knight]

I think it was both; and also another network called UGO. I remember being tasked in making a new header for Gaming Update and I was told I had to put the UGO logo in a specific place and I couldn't mess with the colour of it or anything. The source file was horrible as well.. Jaggy edges and stuff.

Crazy times.

For some reason I always thought UGO was just an advertising agency.. but nope, it was a third-party network that got bought out by IGN and consequently shutdown.