Opened in 1998, I’ve been working on FantasyAnime.com for the past 23 years! Uuf, it doesn’t feel that long. I’ve had people message me saying, “Wow, you’re still online! I used to go to your site when I was in middle school.” - and then my hair instantly turns grey 👴
In this article, I’m going to talk about my experience maintaining a fan site for such a long time. I’m also going to reminisce about the early days of the Internet.
The early days of fan sites
^ Examples of RPG fan sites on GeoCities
Back in the 90s, this was when it was cool to create your own fan site. It was relatively easy. There were a bunch of popular free web hosts: GeoCities, Angelfire, Tripod, and more. They gave you a handful of MB of space to do as you pleased (which was a lot back then). Microsoft Frontpage and Dreamweaver made it easy to build sites. Others were dedicated enough to learning HTML.
It was a great time to be on the Internet. Fan sites were a work of art. When visiting a fan site, the first thing you’d notice was the custom name. Instead of calling themselves “Final Fantasy 6 fan site”, you saw names like “Welcome to Figaro Castle”, “Terra’s Domain”, etc. RPG fan sites were full of random animated GIFs, vibrant background images, and MIDI music playing in the background. Here's the MIDI I played on my main page (converted to MP3).
In RPG fan sites you could learn more about your favorite RPGs, discover new RPGs you’ve never heard of, download & print pictures of your favorite characters, download MIDI music (MP3s weren’t around yet), grab a new desktop wallpaper for your desktop, and spend 5-20 minutes downloading a Super Nintendo ROM on your dial-up.
^ Examples of anime fan sites in the late-90s
Anime fan sites were especially valuable. In the mid-90s, such anime as Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo, and Dragon Ball Z were wildly popular. Anime fan sites informed us about the episodes that weren’t released here. Sailor Moon fans learned there were 5 seasons and several movies (while only the first season was shown here). Tenchi Muyo fans learned there was an OVA. Furthermore, we learned there were video games based on popular anime and that we could download their ROMs for playing on our home computers.
How did we find fan sites? Well, high-quality fan sites were lucky enough to get listed in the Yahoo links directory (the #1 search engine of the early Internet). For everyone else, we relied on link exchanges and joining webrings for exposure. Fan sites normally had a Links page with affiliate banners and lots of links. In the early 2000s, we had a few fan-based link directory sites such as the Anime Web Turnpike (for anime sites) and Shining Force Central (for Shining Force sites).
When downloading pictures was bleeding edge tech
^ Examples of galleries in anime fan sites
In the 90s and early 2000s, fan sites were the only way to obtain pictures from your favorite anime, whether it be TV snapshots or scanned art. Pictures in general were a novelty back then. The very concept of being able to download a picture was new and exciting. The joy from downloading a picture you loved was like receiving a free poster. And people treated them that way by printing them out.
Although now my site is stronger with classic RPGs, back in the early 2000s I was more focused on anime. I had massive screenshot galleries for Pokemon, Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo, Dragon Ball Z, Ranma 1/2, Vampire Hunter D, and others. I had a TV tuner card to capture these shots.
^ My Pokemon site in 1999 :) Rockin' those frames!
The Pokemon gallery in particular (I called it the Pokemon Picture Archive) was the most popular. At one point it was one of the top 5 Pokemon websites in the world! I think it was getting around 50,000 visitors a day? It housed hundreds of screenshots. That was a big deal because free web hosts didn’t give enough space for putting up hundreds of pictures (and I was paying for web hosting to accomplish this).
However, Google Images and other image search engines eventually came into existence. They killed off the need for picture-based fan sites. With the competition too overwhelming, I wasn’t motivated to continue maintaining my anime galleries and decided to close them.
It was fun while it lasted. I enjoyed contributing to the craze of the ‘new technology’ of downloading pictures from the Internet.
Maintenance is a b*tch
^ In my Tenchi Muyo RPG shrine, I managed to 100% preserve the Flash interactive hover map when recreating it in HTML5
People don’t realize the work involved behind the scenes to keep a site maintained. Things break over time as Internet browsers evolve. Or things become obsolete and need to be removed or replaced by a modern alternative (Flash, for example). Or a server upgrade is forced on me that breaks parts of the site.
Remember when the dot-com bubble popped? I’ll never forget. It happened in the summer of 2000. My web host went under, along with most Internet companies. My site was offline for maybe 3-5 months until I was able to find a new web host.
The biggest technical challenge for me was the Internet’s transition to mobile. We’re in the age of the smartphone and websites must be mobile-friendly. I know how to make a site mobile-friendly - that part isn’t the issue. The issue is the vast amount of pages on my site (there are thousands) that need to be manually recreated to be mobile-friendly. It’s an astronomically time-consuming task. So far, I’ve only been successful in turning around 20% of the site mobile-friendly. And Google continues to “punish me” each day and bring fewer people to the site the longer it remains not 100% mobile-friendly.
Fan sites that go dead
I always have to remove broken links; other gaming or anime sites always seemingly shut down after a couple of years and my link to them goes dead. Removing broken links to other fan sites was always difficult for me. I was friends with these people. When fan sites exchange links, it’s a special bond.
Just the other day I had to remove a dead link to a long-time fan site that’s been around since the beginning. I messaged her, pleading why and reminding her how great her site is. She had simply lost interest and didn’t want to maintain it anymore.
I came across this article with an anime fan site creator talking about their experience. It was going to college that made her lose interest and abandon her sites. Normally, it was a major life change that made people abandon their fan sites. Fortunately for me, I persisted and never let my major life changes take me away from my FantasyAnime.
Remember message boards?
^ Sample of a message board
The first forms of popular interactivity were guest books and bulletin boards. On the bottom of the main page of a fan site, it was common for you to see “Don’t forget to sign my guest book before you leave!” They were anonymous and weren’t designed for discussion. Internet technologies improved, and message boards (or forums) were born. Finally, a website could have an online community!
My site had forums from the early days up to the mid-2010s. Maintaining and moderating forums was time-consuming! Ugh, and the drama! When you admin a community, sometimes you need to make tough decisions. More than once I had to ban a popular forum user because they just wouldn’t stop being a douche to new users who asked questions that were “too stupid.”
What killed Internet forums? Obviously, the rise of social media. But there was something else that especially gave my forums a brutal death. There was a persistent, relentless troll who made it his religion to make my life miserable. He harassed my community and me for years. And he was good at it! In the end, he “won” - he drove everyone away from my forums. It was a nightmare that felt like would never end. Thankfully, in the age of social media, I haven’t been harassed by another troll like that again.
Always been the black sheep of the gaming scene
It’s always been my mission to make it as easy as possible for people to experience the classics. All of my guides and tutorials are a testament to my drive to help others.
Well, one method of assistance I’ve been adamant about is hosting ROMs. For every RPG I chose to shrine, I also host its ROM so people can download it. I want to save people the trouble of having to figure out how to find the game themselves. If I didn’t host the game’s ROM, I would risk people losing interest in trying the game if they weren’t motivated to look for it themselves.
Since the beginning, my firm decision to host ROMs has been a huge hurdle for my site to gain popularity. It’s been one lost opportunity after another that other websites have refused to link to me. Any message board with a “don’t link to ROM sites” rule put my site on the blacklist. I’ve even seen my site censored in Reddit boards and Wikipedia. People aren’t even allowed to link to my emulator tutorials since at the bottom I talk about how you can find ROMs on Google. I’m that awesome/helpful site that no one is allowed to talk about in gaming communities.
It’s disheartening. You put a lot of work into a site for many years, only to have it easily dismissed because of a few ROMs. They’re a small piece of the site - I have so much more amazing content to offer besides the ROMs.
The power of one
RPGFan.com, RPGamer.com, and RPGClassics.com have somewhat been competitors. We’ve all been around since the beginning. RPG Fan even started in 1998, the same year as me. RPG Fan and RPG Gamer have persisted and evolved to the times. RPG Classics isn’t updated anymore, but they’re still online and maintained.
The big difference between my site and theirs is that I chose to do it solo and they chose to have a team. The vision I’ve always had for my site has been specific. I prefer doing everything on my own rather than bossing people around and pushing them to follow my vision. Plus I enjoy the freedom. It’s relaxing for me. I design for my day job, so I always deal with being told what to do. My site is my escape to do everything however I want.
I haven’t been completely alone, though. People have helped me collect content such as the periodical game saves. Some of my rare content was forwarded over to me. Many parts of the site were added by request - I listen to the feedback and suggestions people give me.
Still, sometimes I think “what if” and how my site would’ve turned out if I decided to have a team from the beginning. Would it still be shrine-based or more editorial like RPG Fan, I wonder?
Supplying you with original stuff
^ Some of my new wallpapers where I Photoshop pixel art on nature photos
All the site designs are original. All the screenshots I captured myself. Most of the desktop wallpapers and maps I made myself. A handful of the games, such as Rudra’s Secret Treasure, I purchased the game so I could obtain high-res scans. I encoded all of the MP3s. I even purchased a couple of rare RPG soundtracks so I could rip them in high-quality for you.
^ I bought the special, rare Shining Force soundtracks for the sole purpose of ripping them in high-quality formats for you
Unlike other big RPG sites, nothing on my site or anything I post on social media is watermarked with “Made by FantasyAnime.com”. I don’t want to obstruct the beauty of my RPG nostalgia with self-promotional marketing. Everything I make is free for the community to use as they wish :)
The kind emails throughout the years
I appreciate the emails people have sent over the years, thanking me for the help my site offers. I’ve received thank you emails from soldiers fighting abroad, who said my site and its game downloads were a great distraction during downtime.
One time I received a thank you email from a big name! Alex J Jimenez, the D&D expert who helped produce “Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom,” thanked me for helping him relive the memories from his time working on the game. He appreciated it that I posted GamePro Magazine’s interview with him for the game.
There’s one email in particular that stuck to me the most. Someone thanked me for keeping the site up because it reminded them of the days when their mother was still alive.
In the age of social media
^ Spreading nostalgia across 7 social media channels
It was around 2009 when I created the first social media channels for my FantasyAnime.com. I did it only because it was the thing everyone had to do to stay relevant. Why else would a website go on social media but just promote itself all the time? At least, that was my initial motivation.
Over time, I began genuinely enjoying posting about RPG nostalgia all the time. It’s essentially expressing the spirit of my site to keep the memory of the classics fresh and alive. I enjoy the opportunity to learn more about my site’s audience. I love reading everyone’s comments about remembering the classics.
I rarely use social media to promote my site. Many of my followers don’t even know I have a site! I’m realistic and make an effort to respect your time. I know that, say, if I update a ROM hack, 98% of my social media followers wouldn’t care about that. So I’m not going to bother shoving news about it in your face.
One interesting thing I learned from social media was that a large number of my audience doesn’t even play video games anymore (and that’s ok!). They’re here to relive the nostalgia and fondly remember the good old days. It’s ok if the responsibilities of life keep us away from gaming. Our happiest memories will always be there for us.
Why am I still here working on the site?
When you work on a fan site for so long, it becomes a habit. Does money motivate me? Eh, not really. I used to have an ad on the homepage and a PayPal button. After Google AdSense (Google ads) and PayPal gave me lifetime bans after finding out I have ROMs, I lost interest in compensation and donations (that happened in the late 2000s, I think).
Classic RPGs and retro anime represent my childhood. In a sense, my FantasyAnime.com is a living memory of my childhood. I feel like as long as the site stays up, my childhood is still alive. Every time I work on a piece of the site, I’m reliving fuzzy nostalgic childhood memories.
I love the work that goes into creating an RPG shrine. When I come up with ways to integrate a game’s graphics into a web page layout, it almost feels as if I’m creating a remake of the game. It’s a fun, satisfying challenge. Back in the Flash days, I loved working with game graphics to put together an interactive hover map full of cute animations.
As humans, we all want to help others. I’m driven by being able to help others enjoy the classics. I’ve been helping people with emulation since the very beginning. I still remember the early days when I first added SNES ROMs to the site. My mailbox became full of people asking for help with emulation and running my ROMs. “How can I play Chrono Trigger with ZSNES?!” I enjoyed helping people figure things out and solve their problems. I still do today.
Where to from here?
Well, I’m not going to stop! I will continue keeping the site updated as my time allows. All the while, balancing the workload by coming up with new posts & GIFs for the social media channels. I’m trying to stay relevant. Not long ago I created a TikTok for FantasyAnime.
I have the challenges that I hope one day I can overcome, as well as endure the challenges that are always ever-present. Fan sites are a thing of the past. In the changes I am making now and changes I will make in the future, I will try to keep the fan site essence intact.
23 years in the making, FantasyAnime.com will continue keeping the memory of the classics alive! I will not cease in my mission to share with the world the happiness and wonder that RPGs and anime have given me.
Pools, hot tubs, fire pits, and open-air showers can be built in the backyards, and smart home tech will monitor air quality, temperature, and lighting.
This is a great development.
Yes, this community is meant for the well off, but it helps pushes the 3dP community forward in terms of technology and bureaucratic red tape (basically showing that these homes are safe and work well so the city can sign off on them).
That said, I do have some concerns about a sudden massive surge in concrete usage, since it’s already one of the most carbon-heavy industries in the world.
Also worth noting that this particularly company is not quite a typical 3dP setup: they’re not printing on site; they print off site and ship there to assemble.
Gotta say, my views of on-site 3d printed homes has kinda waned. It still has potential, and particular cases where it’d be useful, but I think the near future will be more about modular homes that are constructed (sometimes with 3dp) offsite, shipped in, and stacked together like legos. Just seems like a smoother and more cost effective method for most uses.
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