Frequently Asked Questions

No. GameBoom is a game sharing and promotion website. We let anyone add their favorite games to our list. Once a game is added anyone can submit their own media (images, videos) and guides (tips, howtos) which are attached to the game's page. But unlike game wikis, we use this info to promote the games and invite other users to try the game.

No. GameBoom is an open community so you are entitled to share any and all games that matter to you. This means that you can add your favorite commercial and open-source games, for any platform (consoles, PC, mobile) and no matter how old or new they are. The only thing we ask is that the games are available now, please don't submit demos or pre-releases.

We wanted a name that was platform-neutral and that also expressed our goal of (free) game sharing. The word "boom" has been long associated with expansion and resounding rush. We aim to expand your gaming choices with community sharing.

Yes. This project was started to help open-source games, that is our main goal. Why permit commercial and closed-source games? Let us explain below.

The commercial gaming industry spends millions of dollars in advertising and distribution and we take advantage of their efforts, with the help of the Web, to the benefit open-source games.

For example, when our users add their favorite commercial games to our site this opens a window to bring other people interested in the same game(s), via web searches, blogs, aggregation, etc. If these visitors come to our website they will be exposed to all the open-source games they can download (for free!) and we hope this lure will be difficult to resist. This process brings new users to open-source gaming and we hope some will get involved in the open-source gaming communities. Many open-source games are hobby projects with limited resources. Only by bringing new interest and awareness will these projects grow, stay alive and become viable.

For our process to succeed, we need to treat open-source games like they were commercial products - yeah I know - and help them with product image, marketing, distribution and information. The goal is to "sell" open-source games to new users. And anyone can help by simply uploading their in-game screenshots and videos, and submitting game reviews and guides. We have many community tools to help with our efforts.

No. We believe that websites that limit their users in their choices - like closed vs open - also limit their audience to a specific niche -- not to mention that they restrict the freedom of their users. The gaming market is so huge and evolving that narrowing our focus to a specific platform or distribution channel is a disservice to gamers. We cater to gamers and games, not to platforms or nerd purity.

A safe assumption about our users is that they are avid gamers and technology users. Remember this disctinction and you will understand us. We want open-source games to succeed for our own selfish reasons -- one is an overlooked quality known as Choice.

Only the user that submitted the game and administrators can edit the game's page. But if you are the game's developer we can give you onwership of the game page. Just follow these steps:

1. Register on our website if you haven't yet (You need a working email activate your account)
2. Sign-in to our website (top right corner)
3. Find your game using the site search
4. Copy the URL to your game's page on our website
5. Click on Contact us and email the game's link along with proof of "ownership" to the game's project

A good way to prove ownership is to put a message for us in the game's official website. Simply paste the URL containing this message and send it to us. A message like "GameBoom look here!" should work.

Once we have verifiable proof we'll assign the game's page to your account. Although any sub-pages, like screenshots and guides, belong to the individual authors.

To add images to your posts, look for a link "Add image" at the left-bottom corner of the text input.

FAQ image

This will launch a popup to upload the image you want to attach.

To embed a video in your post simply the put the video's URL inside a [video:URL] tag. You can paste links from all popular video sites including YouTube, Vimeo and GameTrailers. This works for posts, walls and comments.

Example:
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uS5b8aQ6z8]

For more information about the video tag see the "Video Filter" section in Compose tips page.