User:Cynagen/WSGF WIP

Widescreen Gaming Forum (WSGF) is a website dedicated to informing users of their options in all things widescreen. It employs two methods of content delivery to visitors, primarily by a Wiki, and by forums. The WSGF has been featured many times in multiple web, print, and television media as the "one of the best sources of help for wide screen gaming."

History
The WSGF started 2003-10-13 as just a forum for widescreen users to collaborate upon about issues with widescreen support in already existent games. After being operational for 3 years, in May 2006 they added a MediaWiki to the website to better organize content and provide quicker solutions for widescreen gaming with games that either did not support or partially supported widescreen resolutions. As of their 4th anniversary, the forum has over 12,000 members, and over 110,000 posts. Since May 2006, the WSGF has averaged over 400,000 unique visitors per month, and over 850,000 page views.

Features
The WSGF features many sections dedicated to different aspects of the widescreen community.

Forums
Originally the only content medium provided by the website, it has flourished into a location for sharing information on fixes, as well as impartial reviews on hardware by users.

Certification
Recently, there has also been a ratified set of rules for certification as 100 percent widescreen support for games, complete with rubric grading scale and volunteer support to correct widescreen ratio issues. Most common being field of view.

Games list
Provided within the wiki at Widescreen Gaming Forum is a "Master Games List" which details games added by users, depicting their supported resolutions, screen ratios, and widescreen fixes (if nessicary).

Reviews
The site also features reviews both by the volunteer staff (usually featured in the wiki), as well as user reviews of hardware within the forums.

Impact
The WSGF has been instrumental in pushing widescreen resolutions for games as the number of widescreen monitors sold increases. Some of the most recent and notable instances where the WSGF have made a direct impact in the computer gaming industry have been the Bioshock widescreen controversy, where they were referenced numerous times for identifying the issue (the Bioshock Wikipedia article features the unbranded version of Paddy The Wak's comparison screenshot), and during the development of Vanguard, in which the owner of WSGF was a participant in overseeing the correction of FOV and aspect corrections within the game's rendering engine. The WSGF community has supplied over 150 custom solutions (hand performed patches) for enabling games to work in widescreen. In addition, as of January 2008 it hosts custom patches and mods for 35 games (patching executables.)