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Modding community website GameFront has been resurrected almost six months after it was closed following its acquisition by former rival outlet ModDB.
GameFront was closed by parent firm Defy Media in March after 17 years of service sharing files.
At the time, ModDB attempted to preserve the site’s many game conversions and mods by asking its users to re-upload the files to its own servers.
“When we first heard the news of GameFront’s closure we were incredibly sad and disappointed, but we understood the many challenges the site faced,” ModDB explained in a blog post.
“A lot has changed since 1999. We no longer have to download the hottest gaming trailers in AVI format and watch them once we get our codecs in order, Youtube does that for us. Nor do we have to manually install demos, patches and gaming clients, our digital distribution program solves the hard stuff. And while epic total conversions that push boundaries like Counter-Strike and DotA once did are not as common, mods like these remain as important as ever in making new and old games great.
“So that’s why when we heard the news, we knew we couldn’t sit by idly and let GameFront (formerly FileFront and FileLeach) once a behemoth of the gaming world, slowly fade into obscurity.”
The site began talks with Defy, which ultimately resulted in the acquisition of GameFront and FileFront.
ModDB plans to eventually relaunch its former competitor under its original banner but a fresh guise, and called out to the community to help with its ‘three step plan’ to provide an “open gaming site, that embodies DRM free principles and allows anyone to create and share content they are working on, without restriction”.
