GameFAQs is a video gaming website that hosts guides and other resources, as well as an active message board forum.

GameFAQs has run daily opinion polls and tournament contests, as well as annual Character Battles, since November 30, 1999.

[9] GameFAQs was started as the Video Game FAQ Archive on November 5, 1995,[10] by gamer and programmer Jeff Veasey.

The site was created to bring numerous online guides and FAQs from across the internet into one centralized location.

[11] Hosted on America Online (AOL), it originally served as a mirror of Andy Eddy's FTP FAQ archive.

[17] During the following months, the site grew in content and in design; two different styles were introduced in early 1997 to accommodate the support of tables in web browsers (or the lack thereof).

[22] GameFAQs went through several design changes, including a pink color scheme,[21] before arriving at the blue-colored layout that was used until 2004.

[25][26] These changes marked Veasey's increased concentration on the site, and it was around this time that GameFAQs became his full-time job.

[33] To continue generating revenue, an advertising banner sold to non-profit organizations was placed on the top of each page.

[37] On March 2, 2002, Veasey participated in a radio interview with WXBH AM-1190 on their program called "The Gaming Files."

"[29] This was true to a certain extent, as the only visible change over the next few months was the addition of a CNET footer to the bottom of every page.

Nearly all of the FAQs hosted on the site are in plain text,[56] though GameFAQs does also accept stand-alone images, such as maps, diagrams, and puzzle solutions.

[57] From December 2009, formatted guides which allow authors to use mark-up loosely based on Wiki markup in the document were being accepted.

[60] The author retains the copyright on the submitted material,[61] and their name is added to the site's "Contributor Recognition" section.

[62] The FOTM and ROTM contests are generally picked from comprehensive, complete guides or reviews for new games.

[68][69] After the redesign of May 2004, the game boards with enforced topicality were shared with the GameSpot community (another CBS Interactive website).

[70] The custom-made GameFAQs Message Boards coded by Veasey began operation on November 7, 1999.

Every day, approximately 20,000 topics and 200,000 messages are posted on GameFAQs' 60,000+ individual boards,[72] and on November 7, 2006, there were more than 100,000 accounts actively in use.

[77] On some boards, topics that have no new posts for a period of time are removed permanently or are locked and archived.

[10] On May 7, 2012, Tyner announced long-time moderator Devin Morgan had been hired as another administrator; his primary role was to work on the code of the site.

[3] GameFAQs' moderators are volunteer users selected by the administrator and are responsible for keeping order within the message board community.

Instead, messages that break the site's Terms of Service can be "marked" by regular users, which brings them to the attention of the moderators.