Xarcade! (c)

Xarcade!© is a forum founded by AlienGirl05 that emerged in early 2022. It has since then, through amazing dedication, become one of the top game forums throughout mid-2022, became the #1 user-created game forum throughout 2023, and continues throughout 2024 to reign as the most active user-created game forum to today.

Throughout 2022 and early-2023, a lot of the forum's most influential members joined, such as bpan2021, who joined early March, 2022, and is now the forum's co-owner. adrastea, awesomeming327., and RoyalCactus helped to manage corruption, and awesomeming327. made the extraordinary rule system we have today.

Among the original forum staff members through the first few months, AlienGirl05, rct2021, ElectricWolverine, and NSAoPS are the only original forum staff members that remains staff, but the others have returned.

HISTORY

The first thread was created by AlienGirl05 on January 11th, 2022, at 12:29 AM EST as "Xarcade WELCOME!!!". The proceeding threads created were "Xarcade GIVEAWAYS!!!", "Xarcade BANK!!!", and countless games. The first game was called "Doctor Office".

Through 4 days of sheer hard work, Ikeguy was the first to join the forum on January 15, 2022, at 8:01 PM EST. 12 hours after, ElectricWolverine joined. Around noon, EST, on January 18, claregu joined. As time passed, more and more games were made, and occasionally, more people joined. That caused the forum to skyrocket in rankings.

Throughout 2022, a lot of users joined the forum. Throughout March, over 50 people joined the forum. Because of the sudden growth at that time, Xarcade! became the second top forum in user-created forums.

Around the end of April, bpan2021 was the first official user of Xarcade! to get past 1000 XB, beating the previous record holder, LAFILLEDEPARIS, who had around 650 XB.

At the beginning of May, major forum administrators MinecraftArchitect and RhinocerosHornbill resigned from their positions due to an increasing conflict and abuse of power between them and the rest of the forum staff. MinecraftArchitect and criticized for lacking respect for the LGBTQ community, and performing actions against forum staff because of that.

On May 7, bpan2021 announced that the first Xarcade! Splashes of Color game contained the most posts and views, beating any other thread in that forum. Shortly after, Xarcade! officially announced its first place rank in user-created forums. By May 14, bpan2021 skyrocketed in XB, reaching an unprecedented 4000 XB. Xarcade! reached 100 members on May 16, 2022. Also during May, bpan2021 was honorarily promoted to an admin from a moderator.

Some memorable users, like foxjhl, RoyalCactus, TinyBlackBug, and ChrisalonaLiverspur joined during this time.

On May 19, ElectricWolverine announced the start of taxing. A past popular game series "The War" also emerged around that time.

However, as the forum became more popular, so did the issues that the forum had. One particular issue was the ruleset, as well as the unfair things that it allowed staff to do. Another particular issue was regarding corruption, which partially came with the poor ruleset.

Just before June started, bpan2021 made some unjust actions to warn claregu a lot of times, accumulating to a comically large 12 warnings for swearing. bpan2021 also banned RoyalCactus for swearing and getting too much warnings.

As a result of this, a lot of users, like RoyalCactus, ChrisalonaLiverspur, and adrastea (who previously went by a different username) started speaking out against the forum and bpan2021 for being corrupt. They spoke out against the staff for being corrupt.

Throughout June, the corrupt situation escalated into multiple arguments. Most of them were centered on bpan2021, because bpan2021 was accused of warnings others for rule violations and not himself, even though he broke rules himself.

A lot of other arguments also came, not necessarily on the topic of corruption. During that period, there was a lot of chaos.

Another result that came with the corruption management was the discussion of rules. Lots of posts with only slight rule violations, or even none, were reported and pointed out just for the fun of it. The users stated above were continuously trying to get the attention of the staff regarding the corruption, and how every post breaks the rules.

awesomeming327. came into light here, as well a lot of users, who were most likely drawn by the conflicts in the forum.

https://aops.com/community/p25337936 (NO REMOVE UNLESS ADD INFO, PLEASE PLACE NEW LINK AFTER SKIM THREAD AND ADD NECESSARY INFO, AND MARK WHERE YOU LEFT OFF)

On June 3, bpan2021 was the first to notice over 50 posts deleted from the Welcome thread. As per his brief history with corruption, most of the users of the forum blamed it on bpan2021. They were blaming bpan2021 without enough concrete evidence, only the fact that bpan2021 was likely to have done it because he was the first to post after the incident, and people have blamed him for being corrupt. People also blamed bpan2021 for corruption, by demoting every admin except for AlienGirl05 and rct2021.

However, bpan2021 argues that he would never have deleted the posts, but others have easily overpowered his arguments. One particular user, adrastea (back then, they went by a different username) continuously tried to prove bpan2021 guilty, and was invalidating every one of his arguments. While a lot of people agreed with adrastea, a lot of people also stayed by bpan2021's side. This flamewar continued for multiple days, with a lot of the same arguments being repeated. Thankfully, one user decided to email the AoPS Sheriff, in hopes of getting some insight on the incident.

To the relief of bpan2021 and many others, the AoPSSheriff stated that it was themselves that deleted the posts. This brought the peace of mind to bpan2021, as it meant he did not have to continue arguing with others. (The worst forum ever.)