Games - HeavenGames

Home > Listing Index > Games > HeavenGames

	Games - HeavenGames

YAMATO TAKE OWNS YOUR LIFE.

Founded in 1996, HeavenGames (abbreviated online as HG) is a network of websites covering various genres of games, (primarily strategy games and City-building game|city building games). It is operated by the company Heavengames, LLC, which is owned by Tom “SpineMan” Mescher, Jan Jaap van der Hurk, Ho Yin Au|Ho Yin “Zen” Au, Sergio Prado|, Francis Cermak and Matthew Lowe. The company's main source of revenue is generally online advertising, and some of its wide user base, including forum users, in turn provide an audience for the advertisements.

Site Administration

As a network, HeavenGames provides separate websites for each game that the company chooses to cover. Each website, to retain affinity to the network, is named with the suffix “Heaven,” as in “Age of Empires Heaven.” The features provided to each website include a well maintained forum community (running on a highly modified UBB system), newspro, and a content management system.

HeavenGames currently covers (or in other words, has a website otherwise called a "Heaven" dedicated to covering to) :

Age of Empires (AoEH)
Age of Empires III (AoE3H)
Age of Kings (AoKH)
Age of Mythology (AoMH)
Age of Wonders (AoWH)
Age of Wonders II (AoW2H)
Battle For Middle Earth 2 (BfME2H)
Caesar III (C3H)
Children of the Nile (CotNH)
Cossacks (CH) (ARCHIVE)
Dungeon Siege (DSH)
Emperor:RotMK
Empire Earth 2 (EE2H)
Empire at War (EAW)
Empires:DotMW
Pharaoh (PH)
Rome: Total War (RTWH)
Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War (RAFH)
Rise of Nations (RoNH)
Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends (RoLH)
Stronghold (SH)
Stronghold 2 (SH2H)
Star Wars: Empire at War (EaWH)
Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds (SWGBH)
Zeus (ZH)

Moderation & Employees

HeavenGames employs non-paid volunteers whom are chosen from the forum community or gaming community surrounding each game covered. The employees are divided into four distinct groupings: EXCO, Seraphs, Angels, and Cherubs.

EXCO, or the EXecutive COmmittee, consisting of two employees, "GillB" and "Jayhawk", and co-owner "Spineman", control the administrative and operational responsibilities of the network. The EXCO keep in close contact with Heavengames' owners with "Draco" serving as the official legal advisor. Seraphs are the webmasters of each website whom handle the administrative, moderation and changes of their website. There is usually only one Seraph per Heaven, however, there have been some cases where this is not always true.

Angels and Cherubs are the volunteers selected by the Seraphs to work at each individual website. The work selected for both groups is usually constricted to website content or forum moderation, depending upon their skills. The main difference between an Angel and a Cherub is their senority. Staff members who have been around longer, and proven themselves as valuable staff members are given the Angel status. Each grouping, (excluding the EXCO) is assigned a separate username color for the forum communities: green for Cherubs, red for Angels, and orange for Seraphs. Members of the EXCO do not have a specific color. While GillB and Spineman go under "Angel" status, Jayhawk goes under Seraph status, because he is the webmaster of many Heavens.

The moderation of the forums is controlled by the Forum Moderation Team (FMT), which is made up of several active moderators. The FMT, while not directly involved in the IP banning of a forumer, upholds the code of conduct in complaints, moderator abuse, and requests for parole (a form of moderation where a banned forumer may be given a second chance). Currently, the FMT members are David, Angel Chris, Crazed Ewok, and Brad4321, with David and Angel Chris leading up the team.

All staff members participate in a multi-tiered profit-sharing system, where HeavenGames's yearly profits are divided amongst the staff according to staff evaluations.

Contributions to the gaming community

As of 2005, the original HeavenGames webmaster, Mike "Archangel" McCart, works full-time for Ensemble Studios. Other HG webmasters hired to the gaming industry include Lila Yee and Steve Cherrier, working for Related PR doing online marketing and promotion, and Graham Somers, first hired by Big Huge Games and then Ensemble Studios to become their Public Relations manager. The now-defunct Stainless Steel Studios also hired several members of HeavenGames' community to test and develop Empire Earth, Empires: Dawn of the Modern World, and Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War. Former staff member Merepatra works as a consultant for Breakaway Games. Take Two Interactive also hired another Heavengames staff member to foster public relations and feedback.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for HeavenGames ]

Searches on eBay

heavengames