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.