April Fool's Joke? I hope so - GBAtemp.net acquired by CNET Networks

If true, this sucks. - Marc

OK, I'm thinking that I got pranked for about 30 minutes.

Dear members, GBAtemp is now over five years old and is continuously growing in both size and popularity in ways we would never have expected in the past. As you can imagine, keeping such a popular website running smoothly and without hiccups is both an expensive and tedious task.

Up until now the sites hosting has been funded by the staff and more recently our affiliates whom we thank very much. Unfortunately we have reached a point in our GBAtemp's life where it's impossible to keep the site running by ourselves; we don't have the time or funds to keep this community online 24/7 -- a huge task for such a small group of staff members who have day jobs to attend to.

You may have heard rumours in the past few weeks or months that GBAtemp was considering an offer from an interested party. These rumours are true. Today we become an official CNET Networks channel partner and the site becomes full property of GameSpot.

As you may have noticed, we have recently been experiencing a lot of down-time, this is completely due to the transferral of the site to a CNET Networks owned server and this move is nearing completion.

This is no reason to be alarmed; the community here at GBAtemp you know and love will remain, the site will remain basically the same but a few small changes here and there will need to be made to fall in line with CNET Networks partner site policies.

Please understand that this move is the best move to insure we keep GBAtemp alive. We are simply not able to keep on maintaining a site of this size by ourselves, nor fund it, so with help from our good new friends at CNET Networks and GameSpot a large weight has been lifted from our shoulders.

You will notice a few new staff members have joined the site today; Ryan, Adam, Liam, Peter and Ian. Please welcome them aboard. I'm certain they'll do a great job and have already moderated forums very well at both CNET and GameSpot.

Now I'd like to fill you in on a small few changes that must be made in order for us to continue, some aren't ideal but we will soon be making more new changes that should please everyone.

- Adverts on the portal - This helps us to fund the site. Adverts will NOT be placed inside threads, as to keep the community happy -- discussion will go uninterrupted.

- 'Testing Area' to close - By request of CNET Networks we are unfortunately having to close the 'Testing Area' sub-forum. This is out of our hands.

- Censoring - Profanities will be censored out in discussion to make the forum more family-friendly. Posts will be more heavily moderated in order to insure no illegal discussion takes place.

- Latest ROM Information and News under discussion with CNET Networks - We are trying our best to keep GBA, Nintendo DS and Wii "scene" release information on the site, we are currently under negotiation with CNET Networks and will let you know its fate as soon as we do.

Some changes will take immediate effect, others will be gradual, and more will be made in the future. As has always been the case with GBAtemp, we are always striving to be the best Nintendo console related discussion forums and will stop at nothing to insure that continues to be the case.

So to wrap up, GBAtemp is now the property of CNET Networks, Inc and their partner site; GameSpot. Big changes are underway with more to come in the future.

Thanks for your co-operation and loyalty,
Thanks from all the GBAtemp Staff - new & old,

Signed,
- The GBAtemp Forum team,
- CNET Networks, Inc.