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Brawl Central (website)

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Move.png It has been suggested that this article should be moved to Smash Bros Central.
The reason given for the move is: As far as I can tell from my dive into Wayback Machine, the website was renamed to Smash Bros. Central before its closure. If anybody knows about this or if I'm wrong, please contact me, I'm super curious. (Discuss)

VGDistrict (previously known as first Brawl Central, then Nintendo Hub, at some point Smash Bros Central, also abbreviated as VGD) started off as an unofficial Super Smash Bros. Brawl fansite. It acted like the Smash Bros. DOJO!! by providing information related to Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but it also has legitimate sources from Japanese forums (translated).

Brawl Central ceased to exist in 2008, becoming Nintendo Hub. Many of the Brawl-related features were kept, such as character boards and competitive Brawl forums. However, the site has expanded to encompass many more series, with over 20 forums related to game series. Most are first-party Nintendo franchises, while others are not. Examples of this include the Guitar Hero / Rock Band forum, and the Gears of War and Halo forums. The site has since undergone yet another change, switching its main focus to all video games in general, rather than focusing on only Nintendo. The new site was VGDistrict, which stood for Video Game District.

On November 2009, T3h Kaiser and other admins, moderators, and forum members were tired with the way that the admin Chris ran VGDistrict and thus left to make Xugo Gaming. VGD was set to close down later that month, but on November 24th, Chris decided to keep the site open and used cheaper hosting to help try to secure the site's financial stability. On Friday, December 11th, 2009 VGDistrict was revamped and all previous members and posts were deleted. The new site featured less boards that any of its predecessors. The site ran until around June 2013, where it shut down, rebranded, and began redirecting to Smash Bros Central, which added features such as a wiki and tournaments[1]. This would continue being run until around January 2014.

Smash Bros Central was started (as Brawl Central) and run by Smash Bros. players and SmashBoards members Chris and the Buzz Saw. At some point, 3 other admins (T3h Kaiser, Pumpkins, and NGW) were appointed, with Buzz retiring. The main website featured many different pieces of information and news of Nintendo and other video game related news, constantly being updated by news editors. The forum's section had members gather and discuss topics ranging from video games to questions and forum games. The administrators and moderators kept the site clean, although members sometimes got to "vote" in regards to whether or not something should be deleted.

Domain History

The Smash Bros. Central website, dated May 29th 2020.

Smash Bros Central would live on until Early 2015 until the website presumably shut down[2]. The domain would be taken up by a business company[3], containing dozens of articles relating to business studies. Tab names would simply be labelled "Business". This would continue being used until around March of 2018, where the website would be open for purchase again.

In June of 2018, Smash Bros Central's website returned with a black screen saying "Soon...". It once again sported the Smash Bros Central name on tabs, implying an intention to return. As of 12th March 2022, however, the same screen remains.

The domain for VGDistrict would not see after January 2014 until July 2017, where it became a redirect for SSBWorld[4]. On April 22nd, 2020, the domain name for VGDistrict expired and was auctioned [5] on GoDaddy's website. The domain name was valued at $1,305 USD based on domains of similar naming conventions, but ended with no sale. In September of 2020, it was sold by a Chinese vendor, though the resultant website was taken down.

References