Hey guys,

I was thinking I should keep you guys up to date on how one of your favorite sites is doing and what we are working on to make life better in your gaming hardware world. So without further adieu, here is the word on what’s going down at the labs.

Daddy needs a new pair of shoes…
Well, as you can see, we are not fully transitioned by any stretch of the imagination. The end of the FPSLabs Logo contest brings a whole new phase of our movement. We will have a new banner to wave and with that comes a shiny new site. I won’t make any promises as to its arrival, but plans have been set in motion. The look of the site is, of course, all up to the final winner for the logo contest. If you want to speed up the arrival of our new site, please let your developer friends know that we are looking for good people. That being said, what can you look for in the new site? All kinds of crazy features that other hardware sites have, don’t have, or will copy from us. Who knows, but we have some innovative features planned that are going to really help you guys get more involved. I would list them, but I don’t want you guys to get excited just yet. In short, stay tuned for a brand new site with kick ass features.

Where’s the beef!? Here it comes…
We are upping the ante now to bring you even more content than before. We have quite a few things in store. First and foremost, our hit price guides are being revamped to be so much more. Starting with this most recent update, you will see a monthly update to the price guides so that our systems are always recent and built with the latest available technology. Most sites take a much sequentially longer approach, but we believe that even though the entire system may not be able to be upgraded in only a month, some changes could help you have a better idea of what to look at. Also, we are going to change the way we do the price guides. While the current system is working for a quick reference on what to buy, we think a little more meat could help you understand our choices in the price guides and help you make better purchasing decisions. Thus, you can expect to see a much more robust set of price guides in September and beyond.

Continuing in the content theme, we will also be giving you a bit more gaming news than we used to. As you have probably noticed, EXE has slowed down considerably…ok, so that site hasn’t had new content since early this year. Well, you can bet that we noticed and we concluded that no one would enjoy having that type of content in our network more than the community at FPSLabs. Thus, you can look forward to seeing some innovative gaming coverage on our site. However, I would like to clarify a few things on this topic. We will not be trying to compete with mainstream gaming sites, in fact, we have no desire to even cover games that heavily. We will simply provide important news and announcements as they come out, mini-reviews, the Games We Play series, and other content in that regard. While we will not do extensive reviews of other games, we will most definitely link you to sites who have done reviews of the latest games available. We feel it’s important enough that you should have the convenience of having that content available to you without ever leaving our site, unless of course you want to check out one the full reviews that we link to. There was a very positive response with the Games We Play initial article on Insurgency, and it is my pleasure to announce we will be bring you more. The forums of EXE will be moving over to FPSLabs and joining in on the fun. One thing I can say for this community is that we have always welcomed newcomers and I love that. No matter how many new “Check out what I am gonna buy” posts we get, everybody still jumps in to help that person get an awesome gaming rig for his money. So, welcome EXE crowd, and join in the fun!

Even more content will be coming to you in the form of reviews. In the past, we have published roughly three reviews per week, and with the changes around these parts, we are going to publish even more content. We will continue to steadily increase this so that the community has more to enjoy than ever before.

Come get some.
Speaking of gaming, we have a brand new idea coming at you. We thought of many ways to bring the community closer together and get to know you all better. The best idea we thought of was to get together and completely slaughter each other. So starting soon, we are going to get spend 1-2 nights a week on a private server and game with each other. Shoes and I are ready to kick some serious noobface. Oscar and Jason will both have targets spraypainted on their back. Anyway, I am sure you all have questions as to how this will go down, but there will be an official announcement on this today which will include polls so you can vote on what day of the week, what games, and whether we should leave the server up all the time. I can't wait for our loving community bloodshed.

Labor
Hopefully it’s not hard to see that we are shooting for the top. We have no intent to slow down and we keep trying to bring you the best we can every day. With all the changes being made here at FPSLabs, we sure could use some help in a number of areas and I think you guys are the best people to ask. Whether you have writing skills, posting skills, art skills, or people skills, we could use your talents in various places on our team. If you are interested in working for the only competitive gaming hardware site that means anything in the world, hit me up. Let me know what you can bring to the table and what makes you want to be a part of this team. We’re tired of seeing the same-old boring applications you have to fill out, just shoot me an email at sgrubbs@gotfrag.com or PM me on GotFrag and be prepared to provide examples of your work if you are an artist or a writer. We are looking to build a solid forums team with some know how, so be prepared to be awesome enough for this position. This includes being moderator, tech support, all around cool guy in the forums, and various other roles. If you have the time, we can definitely fill it. ;)

One more thing, if you have ideas that you think could improve FPSLabs please feel free to contact me via that email address above or PM me. We are always open to ideas for improving our site. After all, this site is all about you guys. Make it your own and let me know what you are thinking.

Booya…
Lastly, I want to share with you a little bit about how awesome you guys are. In the last 3 months alone, we have almost doubled the number of people visiting our site and more than doubled the number of pages being read. This is tremendous growth and what is even more astounding is that this has been our trend since we opened in 2005. I can’t thank you all enough for your strong support and helping us grow so ridiculously fast. That being said, let’s kick some more noob ass and get out there. I know you all belong to other communities on the net and that is fantastic. Tell your friends about us and tell your other community members. I ask that you not be a jerk and go posting our site everywhere without relevance or respect, but if a guy is asking about computer components or anything else you can find here, inform them about our community and let them know they are welcome in both places. Again, please respect other forums and sites, but spread the word and help this community grow. A great deal of it lies in your hands…

Alright everyone, it’s time to draw this letter to a close, but like I said, stay tuned because great things are coming! Thanks for your support and talk to you again soon!


Stu Grubbs
Executive Editor of FPSLabs