FileFront Closing Down at End of March
Another one bites the dust.
Long time gaming file download repository FileFront announced today that it will be closing its doors at the end of the month, marking another victim of the ongoing recession. Filefront is in its tenth year of operation.
“We regret to inform you that due to the current economic conditions we are forced to indefinitely suspend the FileFront site operations on March 30, 2009,” reads the site’s farewell letter. “If you have uploaded files, images or posted blogs, or if you would like to download some of your favorite files, please take this opportunity to download them before March 30th when the site will be suspended.”
“We would like to give a warm thank you to all of you who have been part of the FileFront communities we have built together. Your support has had a meaningful impact for all of us here at FileFront,” continued the message before signing off, “Keeping gaming alive.”
While bandwidth costs have dropped steadily over the years, the recent events have forced FileFront to cease operations at the end of the month. FileFront was acquired by Ziff Davis Media Game Group in 2005. While UGO acquired Ziff Davis’ 1UP.com gaming property early 2009, FileFront stayed behind. With the sagging sales and support from Ziff Davis’ gaming group, FileFront saw harder times than ever.
Although the reliance on game-centric download service is decreasing, largely thanks to P2P technologies such as BitTorrent, destinations such as FileFront served the gaming community well.
One of the last major file services still in operation is the IGN-owned FilePlanet and the GameFly-owned FileShack. Both offer a paid-subscription account which for privileges such as decreased wait times and the removal of ads.
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ravenware This sucks. Filefront had damn good transfer rates.Reply
I will have to use gamershell.com again. -
sacre Oh and if this is an April Fools joke, it isn't very funny. I'm wasting my bandwidth redownloading the files I uploaded to their site.Reply -
ravenware I don't think its a joke.Reply
I have noticed the increased placement of ads on the site, but is for the same ad over and over again. I suspected they were running low on dough.
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megamanx00 WTF. Darn it all. That's too bad as I use to download stuff from them all the time. Guess it's just Gamers Hell left or using bit torrents.Reply -
yoda8232 Great, back to FilePlanet with so many fucking ads.Reply
FilePlanet WILL be MISSED. :(
R.I.P. FilePlanet -
idisarmu I read this several hours ago already on moddb.com... It's a real shame to see them go.Reply
I thought they actually had REALLY crappy transfer rates. (They always gave me about 30kbps vs 55kbps I got at gamershell or fileplanet or filefront.)
However, filefront required no registration... which is something that I will miss... a lot.
R.I.P. FF. -
ravenware idisarmuI read this several hours ago already on moddb.com... It's a real shame to see them go.I thought they actually had REALLY crappy transfer rates. (They always gave me about 30kbps vs 55kbps I got at gamershell or fileplanet or filefront.) However, filefront required no registration... which is something that I will miss... a lot.R.I.P. FF.Must be the location of the server. I would get 600KB on DSL and about 800KB+ on cable.Reply -
A good portion of the FileFront Network administration are working on setting up a new network in conjunction with Strategy Informer.Reply
Among those speculated to be involved thus far are some of the more porminent FF staff from over the years, includng Jeff "n0e" Mills, Phenix, Jos "Pro-Filer" Jongejan, Killer Kyle, Lulolwen, Sheepeep, Jamie, Kerian, DarthInsidious, STALKER, and Mikouen.