Game Central Network aka GCN is the network of gaming websites run by Brent McAhren ( The PC Nerd ), and Mark Beechinor ( DJ Shamrock ) consisting of Half-Life 2 Central, Battlefield 2 Central, Game Technology Central, Role-Play Central, and (soon to be) Unreal Central. In its entirety it was launched August 1st, 2005 but it has been around since May of 2003.

=Community=

Consisting of over 1600 members, it is what has saved the website many times before due to their dedication. The forums are their home and they primarily inhabit Coffee Room , the (primarily) free for all portion of the forum.

=Present=

As of September 29th, 2005 it is down due to issues with the hosting and will return soon.

Currently the Game Central Network is running but not at full capacity due to it s primary developer losing time and the lack of staff.

As of September 8th, there are 1660 content items and 1814 members.

=History=

GCN went under a number of various hosting and management changes over it s lifetime. In May of 2003, EL3CTRO and Psycho_byte decided that they were rather bored over their summer vacation so they decided to create a fansite to the recently announced and long-awaited sequal to Half Life which was imaginitavly titled, Half-Life 2, and after a flurry of server changes and code tweaks, HL2Central came into being. With the help of GoY (GhostofYoda), Pommy and Brad (Three friends from the popular Jedi Knight community [http://www.massassi.net the Massassi Temple]) they created a thriving HL2 fan site. The website gained popularity steadily over the summer of 2003 and grew even more so when the announcement was made that the game was going to be released September 30th, 2003. With the hard work of new staff members DvS and Chewcky and the rest of the HL2C team, HL2Central became the best source for HL2 news on the net. However this status was short lived as the rush of new users ceased four months after it s opening when a source code leak revealed that the game was no where near completion and the community finally realized that Valve Software would not be able to honour the release date they set.

==First Management Change==

After the truth of the matter about Half-Life 2 and it s release date was realized, the previous owners found themselves demoralised, and lost interest in the site. The site and domains were put up for sale on eBay on April 12th 2004 and were taken down from auction 2 days later. A Half-Life 2 mod manager, Stephen Murray aka The_S-Man of Citizen-132, offered to run the website, and being a well-known ally of Psycho_byte, he was given full ownership rights to the domain and the site. Psycho_byte and EL3CTRO left the HL2 community until it s actual release, and haven t, as yet, begun any other fansite projects. At this time the website was less of a glory of what it had been around Novemeber, the community was slowing down because there was no true reason to participate in a website for a game that was clearly not going to exist for quite some time. The new management promised to bring HL2C back to what it used to be.

==Initial Planning for GCN==

A short time after management had changed, the idea of starting an entire network of gaming websites came to mind. It would bring some purpose into having a website during a time at which the purpose of HL2C was null. Initial plans started with the idea of having completely seperate websites, and a central forum system. This changed when true testing occurred and identified the weakness.

==Loss of Interest==

August 2004. The current owner began to lose interest, with less and less contact and participation day by day. The website was still keeping up with the news despite a number of critical hosting issues with GamingSource s free hosting plan in exchange for advertisements.

==Release of Half-Life 2==

A surge of new members joined the forums. Every day there was a new face, and a new (well some of the time) question. The forum was impossible to browse without reading a spoiler for Half-Life 2 at the time.

==Owner becomes bored of gaming==

Stephen Murray quits May 15th 2005 due to the fact that he lost interest in gaming. The network was handed over to a long time staff member DJ Shamrock. The website continued to progress toward development until the first portion of a series of unfortunate events occurred.

==The Series of Unfortunate Events==

In the midst of a domain transfer between past and present owners, the hosting changes. A total of a week is lost to incorrect nameservers. The domains are transferred, the site is running fine and then the forums software, Invision Power Board 1.3 ceases to function. The problem with the forum software malfunctioning was not that the forums would no longer be inaccessable, but rather, the news posting portion of the website was ran on the forums. A community fund was started which raised enough money to purchase the Invision Power Board Lifetime License. The new forums were up, and the network as a whole was finally starting to take flight. The forums moved from their standard location on Half-Life 2 Central to the Game Central Network domain. Progress continued in development of the website until it s launch on August 1st, 2005.

==Launch==

The network launches and traffic triples, reaching and exceeding it s peak popularity within two weeks.

=External Links=