Wow, what a thing to wake up and see on HN. I never thought I would see something from my past on this site.
I officially worked for the GGL from '04 to '09 as one of their initial developers, then as pretty much their only guy to take care of their web infrastructure (Architecture to Ops and everything in between) and I gotta say I'm not surprised this happened this way. So, I can probably add and address a few things here...
@Stealth- & lazyjones: The server setup that ClanBase was residing on was well past its prime and was pretty much overwhelmed every day between 2pm and 7pm ET. I can't really speak for the CB founders (Tal, Wob, and Godsmurf), but I'm pretty sure their was that the site would be well taken care for and pushed into better success by the GGL (we had the money after all). At the time the GGL bought CB, the GGL were seen as a rising star organization in the gaming communities and there were no black spots on their name at that time (and no belief their would be as a lot of big names were associated with it)
Re: "ClanBase Crew":
The ClanBase crew were/are tops in my mind. I've been a gamer for a longtime now and have run or have helped run some highly visible tournaments and the CB Crew were the most organized group I ever saw. I'm still in awe with how they ran it. They had a full system from bringing in new people, training and growing them and ensuring they retain only the best talent. It was quite impressive and I still consider some of them as good friends. I hated resigning as I feared this could happen to their community. So to see a message from their side saying they are done is completely understandable and possibly overdue.
The GGL also had a few other "business incidents" (as I liked to call them) that occurred before RackSpace that I really didn't like seeing, as it affected good, gaming friendly companies and people (namely Speakeasy and Game-Hosting). From my point of view, the issues they had can all be traced back to their exec level and their lack of focus and understanding of what they were doing (especially with the competitive gaming community). This ultimately led to them giving themselves black eyes over and over and burning through VC money like crazy. (ie> GGL China and the olympics... did we really need to expand to China? ie2> Massive server infrastructure in US, but very little in Europe, really???)
I gained two big things from my experience at the GGL:
1. Understanding of how _not_ to run a Gaming Startup or possibly any startup (so if I do it, I know how I will do it... and it will look nothing like this disorganized mess)
2. A lot of great friends from the GGL employees, ClanBase crew, Speakeasy and Game-Hosting.
I can say the GGL was at least not like the CyberXGames was, but ultimately, I think the way the GGL went was just disappointing to everyone involved. So much potential just wasted. And worse, all that gaming history lost. (Although I do have most of the Quake related history archived away!)
I officially worked for the GGL from '04 to '09 as one of their initial developers, then as pretty much their only guy to take care of their web infrastructure (Architecture to Ops and everything in between) and I gotta say I'm not surprised this happened this way. So, I can probably add and address a few things here...
@Stealth- & lazyjones: The server setup that ClanBase was residing on was well past its prime and was pretty much overwhelmed every day between 2pm and 7pm ET. I can't really speak for the CB founders (Tal, Wob, and Godsmurf), but I'm pretty sure their was that the site would be well taken care for and pushed into better success by the GGL (we had the money after all). At the time the GGL bought CB, the GGL were seen as a rising star organization in the gaming communities and there were no black spots on their name at that time (and no belief their would be as a lot of big names were associated with it)
Re: "ClanBase Crew": The ClanBase crew were/are tops in my mind. I've been a gamer for a longtime now and have run or have helped run some highly visible tournaments and the CB Crew were the most organized group I ever saw. I'm still in awe with how they ran it. They had a full system from bringing in new people, training and growing them and ensuring they retain only the best talent. It was quite impressive and I still consider some of them as good friends. I hated resigning as I feared this could happen to their community. So to see a message from their side saying they are done is completely understandable and possibly overdue.
The GGL also had a few other "business incidents" (as I liked to call them) that occurred before RackSpace that I really didn't like seeing, as it affected good, gaming friendly companies and people (namely Speakeasy and Game-Hosting). From my point of view, the issues they had can all be traced back to their exec level and their lack of focus and understanding of what they were doing (especially with the competitive gaming community). This ultimately led to them giving themselves black eyes over and over and burning through VC money like crazy. (ie> GGL China and the olympics... did we really need to expand to China? ie2> Massive server infrastructure in US, but very little in Europe, really???)
I gained two big things from my experience at the GGL: 1. Understanding of how _not_ to run a Gaming Startup or possibly any startup (so if I do it, I know how I will do it... and it will look nothing like this disorganized mess) 2. A lot of great friends from the GGL employees, ClanBase crew, Speakeasy and Game-Hosting.
I can say the GGL was at least not like the CyberXGames was, but ultimately, I think the way the GGL went was just disappointing to everyone involved. So much potential just wasted. And worse, all that gaming history lost. (Although I do have most of the Quake related history archived away!)
-Joe aka Syn (from Darkside)