Brawl Central (website)
- Not to be confused with Team:Brawl Central.
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 and translating sources from Japanese forums.
History
Brawl Central was started 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.
In 2008, Brawl Central rebranded to Nintendo Hub. Many of the Brawl-related features were kept, such as character boards and competitive Brawl forums. However, the site had expanded to encompass many more series, with over 20 forums related to game series, mostly those from first-party Nintendo franchises. Examples of non-Nintendo brands include the Guitar Hero / Rock Band forum, and the Gears of War and Halo forums. It later rebranded to VGDistrict.
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.
VGDistrict 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, where the site would no longer run.
Domain History
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.