GameBanana

GameBanana is a popular game-related website, allowing users to submit and/or access game News, Maps, Skins, Sprays, GUIs, Sounds, Tutorials, Articles, Contests, Forums, Wallpapers, Flash Movies, Scripts, TEXtures, Servers, etc. for several game-related programs including: most FPS's, and Steam. Most of the content is GeneRally submitted by GB's own users with moderators accepting or rejecting these contributions on a regular basis.

History

Recently CSBANANA was renamed to GameBANANA in order to support more non-Valve or non-CS related FPS games, and the first of the few games supported is the popular Battlefield 2. The site The site's slogan is "The FPS Customization Community" and it is now known for being the alternative Counter-Strike site on the net, branching away from the main tree of CS websites so to speak. Everything on the site is free to download, with an optional subscription for those wishing to contribute and gain some superficial (albeit nifty) features. The forums see significantly less traffic than the site itself, however, due to large help and off topic sections they remain a strong resource for those needing assistance or wishing to discuss non-CS related matters.

One interesting point is that unlike many site's forum systems GB's is custom built - the site's owner replaced the vBulletin system formerly in use with one of his own design. Users of the site (particularly forum or server regulars) are often called GBers, bananites or stupid FACES. Another curious phenomenon (though perhaps not unique to GB) is the continued involvement of people who no longer play the game to which the site is devoted. Numerous cases have been documented where SomeOne who no longer plays the game continues to contribute to the site, some even refraining from anything CS related and only participating in off topic discussions and miscellaneous content. On 1 November 2005, the site owner and administrator renamed the site to GameBanana and expanded its sections to support all FPS (First Person Shooter) games.

The CSBanana.com domain now redirects to GameBanana.com. In its new site, the owner informed its community of its change in a news article: "To reflect our ever expanding list of supported First Person Shooter games we now have a new name - GAMEBANANA, or GB, and a new motto - The FPS Customization Community. Let's face it - Valve is expanding and so should we - Counter-Strike is a great game but there are other great games out there and we wanna cover them! BF2 represents the first non-Valve game we support - a few of our inspired veterans have already uploaded a ton of BF2 maps, be sure to check them out. If this new initiative is well received we'll follow with other popular, customizable FPS games such as the UT series.