Starmen.Net
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| URL | http://www.starmen.net/ |
|---|---|
| Commercial? | No |
| Type of site | The largest EarthBound series fansite |
| Registration | required for forums |
| Owner | Reid Young |
| Created by | Reid Young |
| Launched | 1998 |
Starmen.Net is the largest EarthBound fan site on the internet, celebrating Shigesato Itoi's RPGs Mother (released only in Japan, for the Famicom), EarthBound (for the SNES, known as Mother 2 in Japan), Mother 1 + 2 (a compilation of Mother and EarthBound, released only in Japan, for the Game Boy Advance), and Mother 3 (a recently released Japanese sequel to EarthBound), as well as HAL Labs's fighting games Super Smash Bros. (for the N64) and Super Smash Bros. Melee (for the GameCube), in which Mother 2's main character, Ness, is a playable character.
[edit] History
Starmen.Net began as the personal website of Reid Young (reidman). His site was started in 1998, three years after the United States release of EarthBound, and was originally known as "You Are Now EarthBound". The site began to grow when Clyde Mandelin (Tomato) contacted Reid, then 16, about expanding his site. With the help of Edward A. Vazquez (Buzz Buzz), the site became EarthBound.Net.
EarthBound.Net added a forum, and also began to cover Super Smash Bros., because Ness, the main character of EarthBound, appears in it. As the site grew, reidman and Tomato brought on a staff of volunteers to create content and maintain the site. In 2001, there was a dispute over the domain name, in which Buzz Buzz claimed that reidman and Tomato had turned EarthBound.Net into their own "personal glorification site" and seized the domain name to build his own site. The previous EarthBound.Net was remodeled and reestablished as Starmen.Net.
As Starmen.Net, the site has gone through a few facelifts, and the forums are home to thousands of members. The devotion of Starmen.Net EarthBound fans has been astounding. A petition hosted by Starmen.Net asking Nintendo to revive the game Mother 3 and develop it for the GameCube received over 30,000 signatures from fans in America and Japan, over the Internet and in handwritten form. Four copies of the 600-page petition were bound and sent to Nintendo of America, Nintendo of Japan, gaming magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly, and Shigesato Itoi, along with an art album of fan art and music. Starmen.Net fans have also attracted notice for writing letters to Nintendo, sending an abundance of letters in EarthBound themed envelopes to Nintendo Power, and calling Nintendo of America by telephone to express their sincere interest in the EarthBound series.
The site is currently divided into various sections, which cover topics such as the individual EarthBound games, the Super Smash Bros. games, creative works by fans, articles, a community mailbag, an internet radio station, and the forums.
[edit] Note
Most visitors have found the site's focus on fan-created content a refreshing change from most video game databases. Due to the sheer size of the site's fanbase, the staff have used this as leverage for a number of proactive initiatives, helping spread the word of the Mother franchise in a more engaging, artistic manner, rather than relying on basic fact-collecting, which does little to draw new fans to the series. As such, Starmen.Net has emerged as a nexus for creativity, one that has delighted regulars and newcomers since its inception.
