User:Razzalyn

Introduction
Gameanyone.com is currently known for it's Video Game guides which are typically known in the Youtube community as "Let's Plays". There are also some Text guides commonly known as F.A.Qs or "Frequently Asked Questions" in the gaming world. This article will go over a fair bit of history and information about the website. This is an inprogress entry so it will be continually updated.

History
Gameanyone.com was founded in early 2003-2004 as a board game website. The domain was later bought by the current owner known as Derek Jordan in late 2006. After the purchase, he turned it into a forum where users can talk about video games and the like while in the process he gave permission for a Gamespy clan, ODK, to use a dedicated portion of the forum for their use. Gameanyone.com thrived on stronghold which at the time was and is still is one of Derek Jordan's favorite games. In early 2006 the site got it's first two moderators, eddie and escence, both of whom are no longer members of the site and have long since moved on.

In early 2007 shortly after the site was formed, the forum took a turn which then defined what it is today; It became a video game database which allowed for videos of games to be added to it and used as 'Walkthroughs' of sorts by the head guy himself. A little while after this turn for the site it was made possible that users themselves could add their own guides in order to make the database grow and become more widely used. In Mid 2007 the site underwent first of many changes as traffic was pouring in because the fad of "Let's Plays" and Video Game "Walkthroughs/Playthroughs" were still new and quickly becoming a mainstay of both Youtube and Gameanyone.com. While it was still a growing site, it had fierce competition for getting guides up which mostly consisted of some of the early Directors and Staff of the website.

Also in mid 2007 gameanyone obtained stumpedgamer.com in effort to expand its collection of walkthroughs.

Among the new additions to staff were the first moderator, VergilDante100 who were already a big help on the forums and a big contributor before being promoted. This addition to the staff came in July of 2007 when the current staff voted him in for his hard work and dedication to the site and his contributions.

2007 Was a very slow year for the site as very little was getting done even director wise and growth seemed to have virtually slowed to a point of stopping, however hope came in the year of 2008.

2008 Was the start of a new era for Gameanyone.com and a lot of changes and traffic generated. Guides were flying into the site on a weekly basis and people were beginning to use Gameanyone.com over any other guide websites and 2008 also ushered in a new video player which adjusted with Youtube quality changes, HQ, and HD as well as the Directorship system was born which can be viewed as the 'top dogs' of the guide making community at Gameanyone.com, this included popular Directors on both Youtube and Gameanyone.com like Davetheusher and Overlord73.

In the middle of 2008 there were quite a few video game walkthrough sites to emerge in the wake of Gameanyone.com, nextgenwalkthroughs and mahalovideogames to name a few but the daddy would always remain Gameanyone.com as compared to the others, GA still had a lot of unique traffic and chatter on the forums which included a new feature to the site; The shoutbox which replaced the old defunct chatroom. This time period also marked the introduction of a new moderator to the team, Volvagia, whom is a known Scottish playthrougher and well respected in both terms of guide making and moderation.

At the end of 2008 there were serveral new directors to the site, Shadowzack, Skorch82 as well as the only retired director, Tormentor which helped the site become what it is today.

2009 is another landmark year for Gameanyone.com which kicked off with a bang with early release of a Killzone 2 walkthrough which to this day, generated the most traffic to the site since incorporation in 2006, all thanks to Overlord73. The record this guide set was a whopping 30,000 unique users in a single day, which many remain active to this day and a record that has yet to be surpassed even to this day. Some other very popular guides include a Modern Warfare 2 guide by Shadowzack, Skorch82's Fallout 3 guide, and Davetheusher's Desert Bus guide.

At the end of March Gameanyone.com obtained the defunct website stumpedgamer.com which was bought off the owner which also ushered in some of their top users and also generated a lot more work for the staff of the website. Exclusives continued to pour in this year and skorch82 was promoted as an admin of the website whom has excellent coding knowledge and it was a welcomed addition and brought a lot of changes, both technically (behind the scenes) and on the user level (generated traffic).

Features
There are many features to the website of GameAnyone.com, the main one being Watching and Submitting Video/Text Walkthroughs. Other features include a Game Search so you can search up your favorite game guides, a forum search so you can search up the various topics of the website, a raffle which you buy the tickets via credits (Gained from posting or submitting guides and getting comments on them) at varying levels, a store where you can purchase things like a Gameanyone.com T-Shirt and a Flash Arcade.

The Walkthrough Adder

This is the adder interface, it's pretty self-explanatory and very painfree to use. The general idea for adding your walkthroughs is to make a youtube playlist and then add the videos in order from start to finish, then you submit the playlist url in the 'youtube playlist' box. You then give a short description.

Benefits to adding Walkthroughs

The main benefit is to know that people will enjoy the guides you submit, help the site grow and become a strong community. The other rewards to adding walkthroughs is to up your level which vary by your user position. The main goal of this site is to have fun with what you're doing while helping people out.

Raffle

This is ran in various incraments of time, prizes range from having your choice of a video as a 404 Error page, 25,000 credits to be used in other raffles or to extend your experience points to next level as well as be used in the forum shop, T-shirts or even electronics like a brand new Hard Drive.

Flash Arcade, Forum Store and Poster Reward

The Flash Arcade has various games to pass time on while using the forum. The Forum Store has various items to go in your profile like Video Game Consoles, Mario icons and many more. They're mostly for show at this point and time however, but it's something to spend your excess of credits on. The Poster Awards are a new feature which you then get a trophy added to your profile and a nice bit of credits if you've one. Various Awards are given to things such as:

 Best Commentary Best Quality Best (Genre) Guide Creator  and many, many more subjects.

Membership Levels
There are types of memberships at Gameanyone.com, User, Apprentice and Director. This doesn't count Admin or moderator as those count more towards "Staff" than user membership.

User Membership

This is the membership everyone has once they sign up for Gameanyone.com, as a user you can do just about everything you could want at the site. There's no limitations with being a regular user, however you don't get a lot of perks that for example a Director would get.

The only requirement needed to be met is a simple active email account and registering at the forum. You don't even have to a be a user to enjoy the guides, but it's nice to become a part of the community if you wish to follow certain user's guides or offer your own.

The benefit of registering is you can submit your own guides or even tutorials to help people out. You can also receive help with many things ranging from PC troubles or recording issues. You will also receive a credit discount in the forum store and on raffle tickets the higher level you go as a user.

Apprentice

Users who apply to become a GameAnyone Director but get denied because we don't think they are quite ready, will become GameAnyone Apprentice which is a preliminary director group.

If you become an Apprentice, you must watermark/audiomark each of your new videos to stay an Apprentice.

The benefits of being an Apprentice are not quite as good as being a director, but the group acts as a holding place for potential future directors.

Basically, Apprentice can be seen as "Directors in training" in a way if you continue to improve and reapply to become a director, you also get credit discounts for the store/raffles as well.

Director

Directors are seen as the top users of the sites. When you sign up with the purpose of submitting guides, chances are you are eventually wanting to become a director which has a lot of benefits but it also has requirements you must first meet to become a director:

To qualify(Applicants who DO NOT have ANY watermarked or audiomarked videos will have their applications voided and in-progress guides do not count), you must:

1. Watermark or audiomark each of your new videos with GameAnyone.com. 50 is the minimum to qualify for director. 2. Pay 1000 credits for the application. Credits can be earned by making posts on the forum. 3. Be voted in by the current team of directors. Voting can take up to a week. 4. You must render in 720p True HD -OR- have decent commentary on your videos. We do evaluate both extensively.

Once you met these requirements your application is then sent in and reviewed and voted on by both the staff and Level 2 directors of Gameanyone.com. There are various levels of Directorship at GameAnyone which you progress by uploading guides, filling out requests and so on. The main benefits to being a director is you get your every guide backed up incase your videos go missing or corrupted, you get even more discount in the forum shop and raffles. Another bonus is you can add your walkthroughs while in progress and can even get your videos featured on the front page for more views and comments.