End All - Be All Gaming News Sites?

Guest

I had to look twice as I thought someone had really posted that under my name, but now I realize that you wrote it and it wasn't a real quote.

I wasn't really crying about it. I could actually care less about it at this point frags. It's old news. I was just commenting on some history. I don't want to get paid to play games, I'm jealous of no one. I help run a little fansite in the few minutes of spare time I have from RealLife. I'm hardly what you would call a "negative" person when it comes to Unreal or this community. Look it up.

I'm not looking for a chance to bash PU... just the opposite. I just wish PU would get the care that it deserves. We did our part to make it what it was. Let's see what you can do with it.

ggs

Guest

I'd be the first to admit that we screwed up big time as far as that was concerned, however in the grand scheme of things the loss of a few months forum posts are hardly going to have a catastrophic effect on the development of anyone's mod.

As hal mentioned previously, we didn't start BeyondUnreal to make money. While we're not raking it in as a result of our efforts on the site, the financial situation of BeyondUnreal has improved of late. If we wanted to do nothing but make money from the site, we'd charge for content, downloads and slap ads all over the site. While this sort of site would be fine for a corporation such as GameSpy, our mission statement states that...

Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2003 7:48 pm

were attracting every site admin that were talking about!
everyone should really register, that way we can know more about you

Guest

BU vs. PU is a non-issue. I left PU for specific reasons, which you can find in a PlanetCrap thread if you look hard enough. I said my piece once, and don't care to repeat myself. My opinion of GameSpy and how they run their business is my own, and I made it public. So be it.

Yeah, we lost our forums recently, due to an innocuous bug in our news system code (which took over a year to show itself, BTW), and because we didn't have a robust backup scheme. This was our very first big problem. I can tell you we had more frequent problems in my 2 1/2 years at PU/GameSpy, which had a full technical team (not me and a few of my cohorts at BU) supporting it from a technical standpoint. Not to mention the gobs of cashish on hand there...

I am working out details on improving our systems at BeyondUnreal, including improved spam protection for our hosted email accounts, full regular backups of everything, and a master/slave mySQL setup for our databases, which will allow for regular clean backups of our databases without any downtime. I anticipate getting everything done in 1-2 months.

As for our financial situation at BU, we are in good shape, the quote mentioned in this thread not withstanding. Yes, we lost money in our first year. I expected as much. This does not mean we're not a viable business. Contributions have been very good in 2003 so far, as the BU Online Store is selling product, we're selling gobs of POP email accounts and we have some good ad campaigns coming up. Even after footing the added expenses for some new hardware, I am certain we'll finish in the black for year two, assuming our revenue streams continue along as they have for the first half of the year. More importantly, we'll get those hardware upgrades we need to ensure full disaster recovery in a reasonable amount of time, with minimal data loss.

Let me make something clear here - I have nothing against PU or Fragmaster or redef or GameSpy - they just don't factor into my life, frankly. Our energies are focused on BeyondUnreal. We generally have fun running the place. It's not going to make anyone rich, and it'll grow depending on the revenues we receive from the community, including things like adding backup capability, redundancies, etc. We don't sit around bashing PU/GSI, we simply take care of our own business the best we can with the tools we have available. I think our team does a bang-up job.

Let's put this to rest, already. I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming......

Pete
-BeyondUnreal

Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2003 11:42 pm

Wow Petey stopping by. Wish it was on a better note. On the serious side of things. I have a feeling this isn't going to swing anyone's beliefs either way but that is ok. As long as we have our sites we can find a middle ground. I personally want BU, PU and UO to do well and some of the others can go away and some I want to do well. I won't name names but it is time to put this to bed. I will end in on one note though.

Unreal Op's logo still is the best out there!!!!

UO Noob Joined: 03 Jul 2003 Posts: 1

I thought this shit had finally dug itself a grave, I guess I was wrong. I'm not going to bother saying anything other than the obvious, go back to what you were doing and for gods sake... just let it be (Mainly directed at people who think we actually have something again GameSpy/PU) The fact of the matter is that most of us, if not all at BU couldn't give two h00ts!

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2003 3:21 am

Hey, this is Prophetus jumping in from the desert to say a few things.

As Hal explained, he wanted to shed some light about the split and in essence, show the readers that each site has their own flavors. Every Unreal fan will call some place their home. The responsibility of the admins is to cater to the people that support them. At times, a site must make changes. The key is to make sure the changes aren't too drastic. The situation with Gamespy was more about the strict controls of how a site could cater to their fans.

When we ran PU, we did so with our own forum software, paid by our own admins. Gamespy wanted to use their own forum software. At first, it was a mess and we provided our inputs, based off the inputs of our members. The sad thing was, the inputs given by several Planet sites weren't considered (at least that is how I took it). So, of course we became defensive about changing forum software. After all, we believed (and still do) that a successful forum ensures a strong member base. Yes, a strong news site is important, but forums are just as important.

Anyway, Gamespy pretty much laid the law down and said we will use their software, but in their defense, they did try to work with our request to keep the vB software. However, when they stated their requirements for the ads (pop ups and more), we decided that was too much. Pete decided to retire and rightfully so.

You see, he and the rest of us (and many other Planet admins) knew their members and fans would not enjoy the intrusive ads. This would greatly hinder the legacy we had built. When Pete retired from PU, key Gamespy leaders sent a request to several of us to take over. I was given the opprotunity to run PU when Pete left. However, like Pete, I knew that the rules about ads and Gamespy's wish to receive more control of each site, would demolish the very spirit of PU. I could not run the site, simply because I knew that Gamespy's requirements would not allow PU to live up to the standards of the community (at that time). Thus, I elected not to run PU and join Pete in creating BU.

This was never about making money...instead...we (specifically Pete) lost a lot of money in creating the site. Even though we continue to have problems with funds, I'm proud that the BU admins remain loyal and dedicated. So to say this is about money, is a false accusation. I could easily turn this around and say that running PU is about money...but how would I know? Well, other than this:

When we left PU, Gamespy stated that more ads would be required and that the Planet admins wouldn't get paid a flat salary, but instead from the amount of profit generated from the ads. Thus, at that time (and please note...this information is from a long time ago and the policy might have changed), we knew that to make money, we would have to provide more intrusive ads. So, if that policy is still true, then any and every Planet site that allows a crap load of intrusive ads does so...to increase their personal profit. Again...that was then and the policy could have changed. Either way, no accusation tossed...just a different way to look at the situation.

PU is successful in their own right, so is UO and BU. Each site caters to their own set of fans. I believe, none of the Unreal sites have goals to demolish the other, or "steal" their fan base. Instead, we want to make the Unreal game a success, in the game servers and when the fans just want to talk about m0nkey pr0n. Tycho may confirm, we do attempt to share our resources when we can. All the Unreal sites need each other to survive.

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2003 6:23 am

so bu is a buisness no different than gamespy gamespy just runs the better business looks like

imho
pu = best news and noob information
bu = more community news and unreal engine news
ina = best forums

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2003 7:30 am

All of these guests I can't tell who is who. However Proph, you guys do share info most of the time. That is very true. Stay safe and then come back and join Clan UO. Razz

J/K take care. I still appreciate the support both PU and BU give UO and this fall we can all have a beer at the UT2004 Event.

Wink

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2003 9:15 am

you forgot
uo = best logo
Wink

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2003 9:27 am

so bu is a buisness no different than gamespy gamespy just runs the better business looks like

Guest

damnit... forgot to include my name in the above.... again. Laughing

Guest

... and I think you're wrong, you were taking away from what I do, and this is what touched off this half-hearted flame war. I know what I'm doing, I know as much or more about Unreal as you guys (doubt I'm as good a player, though), I've been running game sites longer than you guys, and PU has a community too, it's just different than yours. To me, BU's forums seem to be mostly off-topic discussion for people who can't afford SomethingAwful accounts (just kidding), so I don't visit there much and just lurk on the official boards, but that's only my opinion.

You guys can dish it out, but you can't take it. If you guys can bash a site and company I work hard for, I can do the same to you once every six months even if it results in long rambling rants about shit that happened three years ago. Of course we have our side of the story too, but there's no need to dredge that up any further.

And if you were really *only* about the community, you'd just be a non-profit, but you aren't. And I don't blame you because running these sites ARE a business. They HAVE to be, or you're not going to stick around.

Anyways, it would be interesting to all meet at some event some day, because I'm 7'2, 300 lbs and I'd beat you all into a bloody pulp. Smile

Nah, not really, I met a lot of the really old school PlanetUnreal guys in early 2000 (Stallion, Mia'Cova I think, and some others that I don't think moved over to BU) and they were really swell folks. I'm sure you guys are too. Hug?

Guest

I'll be the first to admit that I get passionate about things that I love. Believe it or not, PlanetUnreal is one of them. Like I said, it was my home for a long time. It was all of our (BU) homes for a long time. I hated leaving, but I felt like it was the right thing to do.

If you've run sites longer than some of us, then you must be older than your photos appear. Wink

I've been on the site running side of things for only a few years or so, I've always been the consumer. But we have some crusty old-timers like Pete (who founded NaliCity, then later brought it to the fledgling PU), Yellow5 (who worked at ActionPlanet, then directed PU), and MalHavoc (of Stomped fame). So there's a bit of experience on this end as well.

I really doubt you know as much about Unreal as we do, having been immersed in it since we held the preview photos of Unreal in a 1996 gaming magazine. But this is sounding like a pissing match, isn't it? Wink

You go do your thing, and we'll do ours, and the community will be the better for it. And I promise to tone down my rants about Gamespy's past. They've done good things too. It's not EVAL.

The non-profit idea is not a bad one. I'm not a lawyer though and don't know the fine details. I do maintain though, that it's a community site. We aren't looking to make money and we all do this voluntarily fwiw.

Anyhow, no hard feelings, case closed.

My dad can beat up your dad. Wink

Guest

Oh, btw... Stallion is indeed with us. He goes by clambert (chris lambert) now. And you can usually catch Mia`Cova in #beyondunreal if you want to catch up on old times. Wink