The GameFan history thread

[Wolfie]

A couple of the very first things ever produced for GameFan, and my first finished airbrush projects for that matter




Not too awful I guess, but not too great either

[Rumpy]

Rumpy, love your avatar. Opie and Anthony rules on XM satellite radio.

Monster Rain.

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

um...is everyone so busy with the web/mag thing and or lives that there are no more memories?

[bahn]

um...is everyone so busy with the web/mag thing and or lives that there are no more memories?

I used to read GameFan, does that count?

[JMET]

I used to read GameFan, does that count?

You used to be good at telling jokes also.

[cka]

Man, with all this nostalgia going around - I decided to post one of Hi-Fi's old video featuring some of editors from GameFan Online. It was developed for shits and giggles to celebrate their new office digs.

GameFan goes Hollywood

office digs they bought with MY GODDAMN MONEY NO DOUBT

damn you GFN

[salmonax]

Wow. Just wow. The fact that Greg Off didn't just call the cops on the people who robbed him is amazing. I guess it's a testament to how powerful the enthusiasm for the job must have been.

[djpubba]

Another little story, nothing nasty or evil this time...

I remember, slighty before the magazine started, I was doing the Die Hard GameClub ads to run in EGM, I used to put my phone number in tiny, tiny print in the ad to get more business doing other people's ads. It said something like "ad designed by Mindset 555-1212" in, like, 5 pt type. DieHard's number in the ad was nice and big and color, in like 24 pt type. Then Street Fighter 2 came out. I literally got 20 calls a day from people wanting to order SF2 from DieHard but couldn't get through.

Soon after that I started full time on the Magazine and nearly everyone there played SF2 all the time. It was the original version where you couldn't control the bosses. One of the things I liked to do was make cheats for games with the Action Reply. The SF2 players there were always begging me to try to make a cheat to play the bosses. So I messed around and messed around and I finally came up with a combination of 2 or 3 different AR codes that let you control them, but with a different character's move set. So you'd do Ken's fireball move and M.Bison's firey spinning forward superman impression thingy would bust out. I was like a tiny god there for a while for pulling that off.

[kdeselms]

office digs they bought with MY GODDAMN MONEY NO DOUBT

damn you GFN

The GameFan Network debacle rests entirely in the lap of Express.Com, GF Online had absolutely zero to do with that and in fact, we didn't really know anything was up with it until we started getting harassing e-mails and saw the letters being published online. By that time, it was the beginning of the end for all of us...the hatchet started falling soon after. Of course, we were all given the command to issue "no comment" to anything internal related to what was happening.

Besides, the happiness in that video faded after about a week of being in Express.Com's offices...the vibe there was a complete 180 from the GF offices and they started treating us like product description writers...which is ultimately what they wanted from us, it turned out. Incidentally, I do have that video on my website, along with a couple of other rarities.

I can remember when they laid off everybody but Rick and Levi, who remained to do product descriptions and keep the shell of GFO alive...by that point, I had become completely belligerent about my displeasure with working at that place. My desk was facing a walkway and the head of the web operation would come up behind me, TOTALLY "Office Space" style with the "Keviiinnn...what's happening..." I'd have my resume open, surfing job sites, etc... I would routinely break the silence rule (they didn't want other areas hearing what was happening in the "games area" even though sound carried easily over the maze of cubicles) by playing metal. Other guys from GFO can attest to how vocal I got. When they laid me off, they commented that they'd never seen anyone so pleased to be given their walking papers. They said I had to sign an NDA not to talk about internal strife or anything related to the collapse, in exchange for two weeks severance - if I didn't sign, I didn't get paid. Of course I signed...knowing it wouldn't be long before I could talk freely. Sure enough, bankrupt within like, six months.

Another story was a meeting in which it was revealed by Allison (ex-Variety writer, heading up Express.Com's web editorial staff - including us) that basically, the promised video production department wasn't happening and in fact, I should stop focusing on doing videos and do more writing, preferably news stories which drew those crucial hits...I explained that I'd given up running the site in anticipation of this new role and now I'm left in a situation where I'm a copywriter. She looks at me straight-faced and goes, "Well that sounds like a career issue to me." Levi told me after the meeting, he saw the look on my face and my death-stare at her and thought for sure he was going to see blood. That's when my belligerent behavior began.

Bruce, good luck with the job search man! It's tough being freelance - I've been doing it in post-production for the past three years or more and am missing a full-time job now Get on a show, finish the show, look for the next show while doing freelance work. Wish I could latch onto a show that stays around for a while...but after American Candidate, I've sworn off of reality TV. Working tonight on a Fox show called "Who's Your Daddy?" Ugh...reality knows no shame.

[Wolfie]

So here's another non malice story.

So I had been doing the airbrushed cover for about 6 issues now, no easy feat since I wasn't allowed to scale the image up at all, (you see we could only scan images so big as scanning them in halves and then combining them in photoshop hadn't really been perfected yet or something). As it was the covers had to be cleaned up in photoshop anyway to get rid of dirt or fix the paint that had chipped etc... So I started watching the process as Tim Linquist was doing clean up one day. He showed me how to use the color dropper and I just thought it was the coolest thing. So I think on the next cover he let me do the clean-up or at least talked me thru it. Then I think by issue 7 I added some photoshop generated art into my airbrushed cover, it was the one with Rock and Roll Racing on the cover. All I had done was some shaded spheres that I scaled here and there and a bad KPT filter for the sky. I still thought it kicked ass tho!

Then I noticed the little airbrush tool and asked Tim if it worked like a real airbrush. He said yeah and showed me how it worked. So I'm thinking this could be really good. After fucking around a bit with that Tim and I convinced dave to let me try doing a whole cover on the computer. It was the issue 8 Zombies Ate My Neighbors cover. It had Monitaur protecting some kids from a giant baby and some other zombies. So all went pretty smoothly, it wasn't perfect, but I was learning as I went and also using a mouse (no wacom tablets back then!). So I show Dave and Jay and they point to the giant baby and say "What's up with the flesh color on the baby? Why's it grey? It looks dead." I look and I couldnt really tell and then had to confess that I was massively color-blind. I explained that I could get by by reading the color labels on my paint bottles etc... Jay thought that was the funniest thing "a color-blind artist" and Dave I think felt like he had been duped. Heh. I soon learned to always check the color picker to see what color range I was in. So Tim I'd have to say is the one who was most supportive of me going digital, and soon had my own Mac Quadra! LOL. Pretty sweet at the time I'm told.