Newgrounds
Encyclopedia
Newgrounds is an American
entertainment and social media
website. Founded on July 6, 1995 by Tom Fulp
, the site primarily hosts Adobe Flash
animations
and games, but also features a music-oriented page, along with an art portal. Tom Fulp remains the site's owner and still regularly produces in-house content.
Its offices are headquartered in Glenside
, Pennsylvania
.
game called Taipan!
.
As Newgrounds received more quality submissions the "Tom and Wade Recommend" section grew from 1 to 2, 2 to 4, and 4 to 6 icons. As of 2009, there are 36 icons on the home page; 12 for Flash animations, 12 for games, 4 for music and 8 for art. The rate at which this page was updated also increased, from weeks to days, eventually leading to the removal of the "Tom and Wade recommend" heading and becoming a staple of the Front Page, making it easy for new users to the site to find quality content.
Originally the icons were created by moderators, as were the long Flash descriptions (the same process used for the collections pages), but this proved to be an extremely time-consuming, tedious task. Currently users are given the ability to attach their own icons with their submissions, and write their own brief descriptions.
On January 12, 2004 the home page archive was launched, keeping a month-by-month list of Flash content that was deemed to be worthy of display on the Newgrounds homepage. This includes either those who performed well in the daily awards, or simply those the admin deemed worthy.
On June 27, 2006, the Icon Helpers system was launched for Newgrounds volunteers to make and submit icons for newer flash content that was lacking an icon, making the integration to automated collections pages much more effective.
On a few occasions, while maintenance has been performed on the site, the home page has been replaced by an "under construction" page showing the Newgrounds tank picture being welded by a programming crew. The image is accompanied by a message describing the work done, such as that displayed during the major update that occurred in July 2007, July 2009, 21 October 2009, June 2010, November/December 2010 and the crash
of October 2011: "IN UR TANK, UPGRADING UR SERVERZ :3". The October 2011 crash was believed to be caused by the Homestuck End of Act 5 Flash, hosted on Newgrounds.
Voting on submissions regularly and depositing experience (10 points earned for voting on 5 submissions in a day) increases the voting power a user carries. For example, a level 35 user's vote is worth 7.65 votes. This power is further increased by successfully voting on submissions during the judgment period. Protecting a submission that passes judgment earns protection points, whilst blamming a submission that gets blammed earns blam points.
Uploaded files must conform to certain requirements:
Finally, when the submission is uploaded it receives its own page on Newgrounds and undergoes 'judgment'.
To aid the production of Flash to be submitted, Newgrounds has a variety of preloaders (loading screens that appear at the beginning of a flash game or video) that can be downloaded and integrated into their Flashes.
On May 27, 2009, the Flash Portal underwent a large redesign, switching to a wide layout. Users that disliked the new layout have been given the option to change it via their account preferences.
, Violence
, Audio
, Text and Adult themes
(None, Mild, Excessive and sometimes Explicit depending if it is text or not). The ratings are:
The ratings are only intended as a guide; there is no system in place to prevent people from viewing submissions of any specific rating. The system enables the submitter to record a credit for all the audio used in the submission and links directly to any audio taken from the Newgrounds Audio Portal. However, the ratings may be slightly similar to the ESRB ratings.
license).
Uploaded files must conform to certain requirements:
Since the 2007 redesign, the Audio Portal has become more flexible and allows artists to edit their submissions or remove them providing they haven't been used in a submission to the Flash Portal or haven't been listened to more than 3000 times. Icons can also be added to audio submissions. Unlike the Flash Portal, audio submissions do not face Judgment from Users but instead appear directly on the Audio Portal Main Page.
The main purpose of the Audio Portal was to prevent users from breaking copyright laws; users were using copyrighted songs in their submissions, thus breaking the law and running the risk of being sued. Therefore, the Audio Portal was introduced so that users could submit their own original work. Animators looking for music could pick a song from a list of many different genre
s ranging from drum and bass
to jazz
, therefore all users had a good chance to get the kind of music they were looking for without breaking copyright laws.
However, over the years the Audio Portal grew from simply being a resource for the flash portal to draw music and loops from to a full blown portal with a life on its own - with notable users using it as a nursing grounds to increase their talents and then set off in the world under major record labels. Kingbastard and [API] are two examples of this.
Over time however an issue of "Zero-Voting" began to occur. Users would "zero vote" other members in order for their own songs to rise to the top. This issue was magnified with the arrival of the 2007 redesign, which allowed users to vote every day in the art portal on submissions, whilst before the redesign they could only vote once on a submission ever. This also had the unexpected backlash of users fiving up their own submissions, which resulted in a neverending loop of users needing to five their own songs to counteract the massive amount of zeros that were being dished out to their submissions by others. This led to an extreme depression across the audio portal, with many high-ranking musicians leaving the portal in disgust, claiming only to return when the "system was fixed".
Currently many users await the much anticipated 2011 site redesign to see if these problems do indeed get resolved.
The Audio portal was shut down three separate times early in its lifetime, and is now a permanent feature. Wade Fulp has stated that this experience had a negative impact on many audio contributing users. This incident is cited as one of the reasons Ross was hired. Audiences can rate songs from the audio portal and send them to other users, too.
, Trance
and Dance
. When browsing through the Audio Portal, a person can choose to sort the list of Audio by genre in order to facilitate the search.
's console video games Alien Hominid
and Castle Crashers
.
More recently, The Monthly Audio Contest (MAC) was attempted to be reinstated - however, the originator of this contest (Rucklo) objected and thus the name of the new monthly contest has been changed to NAC (newgrounds audio contest) - with secondary NACs being referred to as SNACs. In addition the NACs are now a newgrounds supported monthly official contest on newgrounds. The monthly contests have historically been run by notable members of the audio portal community and are considered to play an important role in fostering and strengthening the collective spirit of the audio portal community. The NACs are Run collectively through Chronamut and Brokendeck.
Another competition worth mentioning on the Newgrounds Audio Portal, is the Newgrounds Audio Death Match (or NGADM). In the form of a knockout based competition, an unlimited number of people can join for the auditions, which last for approximately a month, after which 32 finalists are chosen from these auditioneers. These finalists then have to pass through a series of 5 rounds, where they get paired up with random opponents, and compete with a completely new song per round to see who can do better in the eye of the six judges. With this system, the 32 finalists get narrowed down to 2 for the Final Round. Winners, Runner-ups and 3rd Placers get a prize forum signature custom made for the competition as well as a FrontPage (See Achievements) and a review from each of the judges. Although the NGADM is not an official Newgrounds competition and is as such not yet supported by Tom Fulp in terms of money, it has already occurred twice, the NGADM 2009 and the NGADM 2010, and the third NGADM (2011) is currently in planning. The competition is currently administrated by Echo and Supersteph54.
Unfortunately this system has led to what people coin the "tuesday night zero voting spree" in which a flurry of zero voting occurs across the board in order to raise chances of one's own song entering the top 5 or the top 30. However it does have the benefit of keeping scores on newgrounds in the audio portal around the 4.40 range, much like fires in a forest help maintain growth and renewal.
Being on either of these three achievements, or all 3, results in exponential amounts of views, votes downloads, and reviews of a song. Much more than one would have if they were simply on the audio portal genre charts. However being on these charts tends to expose your songs to more "realistic" voters, and most song's scores end up suffering as a result, with their song only being on the top 30 or top 5 once or twice in its lifetime.
Unfortunately with the introduction of the top 30 rankings on the individual genre charts means significantly less to users these days, with songs having a score of 5 generally being wiped off the top of the list by older users who see these users as simply attempting to raise their scores to the top. The charts fluctuate an extreme amount and placement on the charts no longer indicates any measure of quality in a song, as it did post 2007 redesign.
. Photography is not allowed, except to document other works.
Skilled artists among the community are given the 'scouting' privilege, which allows them to authorize individual users to submit their art directly to the Art Portal, and also the ability to 'scout' other artwork. The intention of this system is to keep the art featured in the Art Portal to a relatively high level of quality, adopting a method dissimilar to the judgment system used by the Flash Portal. Users who have been scouted and have submitted artwork of poor quality can lose their submission privileges. A team of moderators oversees the scouting tree, pruning users who manage to take advantage of the system. If a user were to be removed from the tree, anyone who was recursively scouted in his branch would also be removed. This system was unique to image portals at the time of its inception and is the first known instance of such a system.
, Salad Fingers
, Blockhead
, Madness Combat, Jerry Jackson Looney Tunes
, Pac-Man
, SpongeBob SquarePants
, Tiny Toon Adventures
, Mario
, The Simpsons
, Eddsworld
and Pico. The admins create the collections and decide which submissions go into the collection, but viewers can vote on which collections they think a given submission should be put into, which may influence this decision.
Newgrounds has made recent moves to move to a user run Genre system for organizing flash, though this system is still in a data-collection phase.
has a community with many unique postings a day. Its community discusses a topics in 16 forum categories ranging from site related Flash
submissions to personal and off-topic discussion. The most popular section on the forum is "General" discussion which, as of July 5, 2011, houses more than 669,000 topics. The entire BBS
currently contains more than 1,040,000 topics. In the Flash or Art forum there is a far more serious and moderated discussion as the staff strongly encourage a creative community. The most registered users to ever be on the BBS at the same time was 774 (July 17, 2007, at 5:23 PM).
Newgrounds also has a fluctuating number of forum mods.
The forums are often used to run competitions and community projects. Competitions are generally held for Audio, Art, Music, and Writing on monthly basis by an assortment of administrators, moderators, and regular users. Prizes are funded by Newgrounds and have generally been cash, store credit or hardware. In a more unofficial capacity, the NG News forums have been annually used to give away Wacom
Tablets to artists who could not afford them otherwise, but have contributed promising art over the last year. These prizes have enabled or motivated many artists to contribute to the world of Flash movies, collaborate, and release hard editions of their product in online stores.
The store currently only accepts credit cards. Store credit can also be earned from winning various contests.
It has become more common in recent history for the community to collaborate and sell anthology style works in the store. Prime examples of this are the Newgrounds calendar and artist discs.
Notable events:
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
entertainment and social media
Social media
The term Social Media refers to the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into an interactive dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0,...
website. Founded on July 6, 1995 by Tom Fulp
Tom Fulp
Thomas Michael "Tom" Fulp is the co-owner of video game company The Behemoth, and the creator and administrator of Newgrounds, a popular website for sharing Flash files...
, the site primarily hosts Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
animations
Flash cartoon
A Flash animation or Flash cartoon is an animated film which is created using Adobe Flash or similar animation software and often distributed in the .swf file format. The term Flash animation not only refers to the file format but to a certain kind of movement and visual style which, in many...
and games, but also features a music-oriented page, along with an art portal. Tom Fulp remains the site's owner and still regularly produces in-house content.
Its offices are headquartered in Glenside
Glenside, Pennsylvania
Glenside is a census-designated place in Abington, Cheltenham, and Springfield townships, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 8,384 at the 2010 census...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
.
Front page
The home page of Newgrounds displays recent submissions chosen by administrators as a special showcase of their favorites. On April 21, 2003 the first front page icon for a user-submitted Flash game was posted under the heading "Tom and Wade Recommend." The game that was posted was Taipan 3000 by Josh "Psycho Goldfish" Tuttle, a remake of a popular Apple IIApple II
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...
game called Taipan!
Taipan!
Taipan! is a turn-based strategy computer game for the Apple II and TRS-80 which was created in 1982. It was created by Art Canfil and the company Mega Micro Computers, and published by Avalanche Productions....
.
As Newgrounds received more quality submissions the "Tom and Wade Recommend" section grew from 1 to 2, 2 to 4, and 4 to 6 icons. As of 2009, there are 36 icons on the home page; 12 for Flash animations, 12 for games, 4 for music and 8 for art. The rate at which this page was updated also increased, from weeks to days, eventually leading to the removal of the "Tom and Wade recommend" heading and becoming a staple of the Front Page, making it easy for new users to the site to find quality content.
Originally the icons were created by moderators, as were the long Flash descriptions (the same process used for the collections pages), but this proved to be an extremely time-consuming, tedious task. Currently users are given the ability to attach their own icons with their submissions, and write their own brief descriptions.
On January 12, 2004 the home page archive was launched, keeping a month-by-month list of Flash content that was deemed to be worthy of display on the Newgrounds homepage. This includes either those who performed well in the daily awards, or simply those the admin deemed worthy.
On June 27, 2006, the Icon Helpers system was launched for Newgrounds volunteers to make and submit icons for newer flash content that was lacking an icon, making the integration to automated collections pages much more effective.
On a few occasions, while maintenance has been performed on the site, the home page has been replaced by an "under construction" page showing the Newgrounds tank picture being welded by a programming crew. The image is accompanied by a message describing the work done, such as that displayed during the major update that occurred in July 2007, July 2009, 21 October 2009, June 2010, November/December 2010 and the crash
Slashdot effect
The Slashdot effect, also known as slashdotting, occurs when a popular website links to a smaller site, causing a massive increase in traffic. This overloads the smaller site, causing it to slow down or even temporarily close. The name stems from the huge influx of web traffic that results from...
of October 2011: "IN UR TANK, UPGRADING UR SERVERZ :3". The October 2011 crash was believed to be caused by the Homestuck End of Act 5 Flash, hosted on Newgrounds.
Flash Portal
The Flash portal is utilized by Newgrounds members to submit Flash content. Registered users can submit new Flash games or animations and can vote between 0 and 5 on existing submissions. They can leave textual reviews as well, to which the author can reply. If the submission has been uploaded recently, the user can choose to "Blam" the submission (a vote from 0 - 1) or "Protect" the submission (a vote from 2 - 5). Submissions will be deleted if they fall below the following scores after each amount of votes:- 100 votes: 1.0
- 150 votes: 1.25
- 200 votes: 1.6
Voting on submissions regularly and depositing experience (10 points earned for voting on 5 submissions in a day) increases the voting power a user carries. For example, a level 35 user's vote is worth 7.65 votes. This power is further increased by successfully voting on submissions during the judgment period. Protecting a submission that passes judgment earns protection points, whilst blamming a submission that gets blammed earns blam points.
Uploaded files must conform to certain requirements:
- The file must have the extension .swf.
- The file may not exceed the given capacity of 10 MB (Megabytes) except by prior agreement with the Administrators - a size that used to be far smaller but has been increasing in line with increasing bandwidth and tolerance for download times.
- Basic quality guidelines are in place - disallowing 'pictures in a slide show format with no interactivity', 'movies or games made from public .FLA files', 'photographs that are illegal' and so on. If these are not met, the submission will be 'whistled' by users.
Finally, when the submission is uploaded it receives its own page on Newgrounds and undergoes 'judgment'.
To aid the production of Flash to be submitted, Newgrounds has a variety of preloaders (loading screens that appear at the beginning of a flash game or video) that can be downloaded and integrated into their Flashes.
On May 27, 2009, the Flash Portal underwent a large redesign, switching to a wide layout. Users that disliked the new layout have been given the option to change it via their account preferences.
Rating systems
Authors self-rate submissions for each of these categories: NudityNudity
Nudity is the state of wearing no clothing. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic. The amount of clothing worn depends on functional considerations and social considerations...
, Violence
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
, Audio
Sound recording and reproduction
Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...
, Text and Adult themes
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
(None, Mild, Excessive and sometimes Explicit depending if it is text or not). The ratings are:
- E (Everyone) = This Flash is suitable for viewers of all ages (aged 10+).
- T (Teens) = This Flash is suitable for viewers aged 13+. Mild Audio, Mild Text, Mild Violence
- M (Mature) = This Flash is suitable for viewers aged 17+. Explicit Audio, Explicit Text, Intense Violence, Some Drug use, Mild Nudity/Sex
- A (Adult) = This Flash is suitable for adults only (viewers aged 18+). Explicit Audio, Explicit Text, Excessive Violence, Excessive Drug Use, Graphic Nudity/Sex
The ratings are only intended as a guide; there is no system in place to prevent people from viewing submissions of any specific rating. The system enables the submitter to record a credit for all the audio used in the submission and links directly to any audio taken from the Newgrounds Audio Portal. However, the ratings may be slightly similar to the ESRB ratings.
Awards
When a Flash movie or game is submitted to the Flash Portal, it has the chance to win any of the following awards.- Daily awards:
- Daily Feature/2nd/3rd/4th/5th: The five submissions submitted during a day that have the highest rating at the day's end are given awards and showcased on the front page.
- Weekly awards:
- Weekly Feature/2nd/3rd/4th/5th: The five submissions submitted during a week (Wednesday to Tuesday) that have the highest rating at the week's end are given awards and showcased on the front page.
- Review Crew Pick: This award is given to the submission with the best score in reviews, but requires a large number of reviews to qualify.
- Underdog of the Week: This award is given to the submission with the biggest discrepancy between the review score and the popular vote. The flash submission must also have at least 30 reviews in order to win. This usually reflects a submission considered poor by most but with a cult following.
- Turd of the Week: This award is given to the submission with the lowest score that passed judgment that week. If the file has been switched for another file by its creator once it has passed, it can no longer win this award. This stops a user from switching files in order to promote something else, by winning an award to go onto Front Page.
- Monthly awards:
- King of The Portal: This award is given to the user with the most portal awards during the previous month. Only the Daily Feature, 2nd, and 3rd Place awards count towards becoming KOTP, with each award being worth 3, 2, and 1 point respectively. Whichever user that accumulates the most points during the month will be awarded KOTP.
- Best of the Month: As of February 2005, the 2000 active highest-ranked (based on experience points) Newgrounds users, as well as moderators and nominees, have been able to vote for the best five submissions of the month (later updated to five movies and five games). Any submission that wins at least one of the first five awards above or is selected to appear on the front page within the month is eligible. Each of the ten winners is sent a check of $250, a certificate, store credit in the Newgrounds store, stickers and often another prize that changes from month to month and is often supplied by sponsors. In the case that a prize is won by a Newgrounds-exclusive submission made by NG staff, the prize is passed onto the next ranked down. As of March 2009, the $250 prize has stopped in favour of revenue sharing, although in June 2010, they reintroduced a single $250 prize for the best original movie of the month.
- Yearly awards (Newgrounds Tank Awards), since 2007, decided on from all the submissions in a given year by a panel of judges. Nominations consist of the top monthly winners, winners of themed contests and staff inclusions. Winners receive a heavy bronze statue featuring the Newgrounds tank logo.
| Complete list of Newgrounds Tank Awards winners | |
|---|---|
| 2007 | Movie of the Year: Waterlollies Brackenwood Brackenwood is a series created by Adam Phillips, webmaster of the website. It currently includes a continuing series of short Flash animations about the inhabitants of a small fictional forest planet called Brackenwood... |
| Game of the Year: NG Rumble | |
| User of the Year: Luis Castañón | |
| Musician of the Year: Selcuk Bor | |
| 2008 | Movie of the Year: Chuck's New Tux! |
| Game of the Year: Fancy Pants Adventures: World 2 | |
| User of the Year: Renae Pille | |
| Musician of the Year: Christian M. Krogsvold | |
| 2009 | Movie of the Year: Tarboy |
| Game of the Year: Level Up! | |
| User of the Year: Joshua Tomar | |
| Musician of the Year: Hania Lee | |
| 2010 | Movie of the Year: The Pigpen |
| Game of the Year: Depict 1 | |
| User of the Year: Bahamut | |
| Musician of the Year: Matt Cavender |
Audio portal
The Audio Portal is a place where artists can submit all types of music. When an artist submits their first song an administrator or audio moderator will have to review it before it gets listed. All the music is free to use (under a BY-NC-SA 3.0 Creative CommonsCreative Commons
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
license).
Uploaded files must conform to certain requirements:
- The file must have the extension .mp3.
- The file may not exceed the given capacity of 15 MB (Megabytes).
- The file must be sampled at 44.1 kHz.
Since the 2007 redesign, the Audio Portal has become more flexible and allows artists to edit their submissions or remove them providing they haven't been used in a submission to the Flash Portal or haven't been listened to more than 3000 times. Icons can also be added to audio submissions. Unlike the Flash Portal, audio submissions do not face Judgment from Users but instead appear directly on the Audio Portal Main Page.
The main purpose of the Audio Portal was to prevent users from breaking copyright laws; users were using copyrighted songs in their submissions, thus breaking the law and running the risk of being sued. Therefore, the Audio Portal was introduced so that users could submit their own original work. Animators looking for music could pick a song from a list of many different genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
s ranging from drum and bass
Drum and bass
Drum and bass is a type of electronic music which emerged in the late 1980s. The genre is characterized by fast breakbeats , with heavy bass and sub-bass lines...
to jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, therefore all users had a good chance to get the kind of music they were looking for without breaking copyright laws.
However, over the years the Audio Portal grew from simply being a resource for the flash portal to draw music and loops from to a full blown portal with a life on its own - with notable users using it as a nursing grounds to increase their talents and then set off in the world under major record labels. Kingbastard and [API] are two examples of this.
Over time however an issue of "Zero-Voting" began to occur. Users would "zero vote" other members in order for their own songs to rise to the top. This issue was magnified with the arrival of the 2007 redesign, which allowed users to vote every day in the art portal on submissions, whilst before the redesign they could only vote once on a submission ever. This also had the unexpected backlash of users fiving up their own submissions, which resulted in a neverending loop of users needing to five their own songs to counteract the massive amount of zeros that were being dished out to their submissions by others. This led to an extreme depression across the audio portal, with many high-ranking musicians leaving the portal in disgust, claiming only to return when the "system was fixed".
Currently many users await the much anticipated 2011 site redesign to see if these problems do indeed get resolved.
The Audio portal was shut down three separate times early in its lifetime, and is now a permanent feature. Wade Fulp has stated that this experience had a negative impact on many audio contributing users. This incident is cited as one of the reasons Ross was hired. Audiences can rate songs from the audio portal and send them to other users, too.
Genres
When submitting a piece of music, the user can choose out of a list of predefined genres in order to better classify his song and make it easier for other people to sort through a list and find what they are looking for. The most popular genres are those which are basically electronic music, such as TechnoTechno
Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...
, Trance
Trance music
Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that developed in the 1990s.:251 It is generally characterized by a tempo of between 125 and 150 bpm,:252 repeating melodic synthesizer phrases, and a musical form that builds up and breaks down throughout a track...
and Dance
Dance music
Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...
. When browsing through the Audio Portal, a person can choose to sort the list of Audio by genre in order to facilitate the search.
| Complete list of Genres | |
|---|---|
| Ambient | Bluegrass |
| Blues | Brit Pop |
| Classical | Classical Rock |
| Country | Dance |
| Drum N Bass | Dubstep |
| Funk | General Rock |
| Goth | Grunge |
| Heavy Metal | Hip Hop - Modern |
| Hip Hop - Olskool | House |
| Indie | Industrial |
| Jazz | Latin |
| Miscellaneous | New Wave |
| Pop | Punk |
| R&B | Ska |
| Techno | Trance |
| Video Game | Voice Acting |
Competitions
In the Newgrounds Audio Portal there are also occasional contests in which money and shirts can be won. Some user-created music from the Audio Portal was used in The BehemothThe Behemoth
The Behemoth is a video game development company that was created in 2002 by John Baez, artist Dan Paladin , and programmers Tom Fulp , Brandon LaCava, and Nick Dryburgh. Dryburgh later left the company. The Behemoth development studio is located in San Diego, California...
's console video games Alien Hominid
Alien Hominid
Alien Hominid is an independently developed console video game released for Sony PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube in 2004 through publisher O~3 Entertainment. A PAL version was later released during May 2005 for PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox through ZOO Digital Publishing...
and Castle Crashers
Castle Crashers
Castle Crashers is a beat 'em up console video game independently developed by The Behemoth and published by Microsoft Game Studios. It features music created by members of Newgrounds. The Xbox 360 version was released on August 27, 2008 via Xbox Live Arcade as part of the Xbox Live Summer of Arcade...
.
More recently, The Monthly Audio Contest (MAC) was attempted to be reinstated - however, the originator of this contest (Rucklo) objected and thus the name of the new monthly contest has been changed to NAC (newgrounds audio contest) - with secondary NACs being referred to as SNACs. In addition the NACs are now a newgrounds supported monthly official contest on newgrounds. The monthly contests have historically been run by notable members of the audio portal community and are considered to play an important role in fostering and strengthening the collective spirit of the audio portal community. The NACs are Run collectively through Chronamut and Brokendeck.
Another competition worth mentioning on the Newgrounds Audio Portal, is the Newgrounds Audio Death Match (or NGADM). In the form of a knockout based competition, an unlimited number of people can join for the auditions, which last for approximately a month, after which 32 finalists are chosen from these auditioneers. These finalists then have to pass through a series of 5 rounds, where they get paired up with random opponents, and compete with a completely new song per round to see who can do better in the eye of the six judges. With this system, the 32 finalists get narrowed down to 2 for the Final Round. Winners, Runner-ups and 3rd Placers get a prize forum signature custom made for the competition as well as a FrontPage (See Achievements) and a review from each of the judges. Although the NGADM is not an official Newgrounds competition and is as such not yet supported by Tom Fulp in terms of money, it has already occurred twice, the NGADM 2009 and the NGADM 2010, and the third NGADM (2011) is currently in planning. The competition is currently administrated by Echo and Supersteph54.
Achievements
When submitting to the portal, there are 3 achievements a user can strive for. One is the weekly top 5 - which is determined by highest score combined with amount of votes, taken between the hours of 12:00 and 12:05 AM Wednesday morning. Only songs submitted that week may qualify for this. The second achievement is the weekly top 30, which is determined the same way as the weekly top 5, but applies to all songs submitted ever. The third Achievement is to be featured on the frontpage of newgrounds. This is decided by the mods who shows up here, not by the user.Unfortunately this system has led to what people coin the "tuesday night zero voting spree" in which a flurry of zero voting occurs across the board in order to raise chances of one's own song entering the top 5 or the top 30. However it does have the benefit of keeping scores on newgrounds in the audio portal around the 4.40 range, much like fires in a forest help maintain growth and renewal.
Being on either of these three achievements, or all 3, results in exponential amounts of views, votes downloads, and reviews of a song. Much more than one would have if they were simply on the audio portal genre charts. However being on these charts tends to expose your songs to more "realistic" voters, and most song's scores end up suffering as a result, with their song only being on the top 30 or top 5 once or twice in its lifetime.
Unfortunately with the introduction of the top 30 rankings on the individual genre charts means significantly less to users these days, with songs having a score of 5 generally being wiped off the top of the list by older users who see these users as simply attempting to raise their scores to the top. The charts fluctuate an extreme amount and placement on the charts no longer indicates any measure of quality in a song, as it did post 2007 redesign.
Art portal
The Art Portal was launched on June 18, 2009. Art submitted is generally subject to a creative commons license, similar to the Audio Portal, but users have the option of opting out of it. The Art Portal is intended to be a showcase of the best art created by the Newgrounds community; users are encouraged to submit art to the Portal, which will be automatically featured in a private gallery on their userpages. Users can vote on the art, creating an average score for the artwork, but this does not accrue experience, unlike voting on animation submissions. Newgrounds allows art of any genre or medium to be submitted, although the community predominantly focuses on digital artDigital art
Digital art is a general term for a range of artistic works and practices that use digital technology as an essential part of the creative and/or presentation process...
. Photography is not allowed, except to document other works.
Skilled artists among the community are given the 'scouting' privilege, which allows them to authorize individual users to submit their art directly to the Art Portal, and also the ability to 'scout' other artwork. The intention of this system is to keep the art featured in the Art Portal to a relatively high level of quality, adopting a method dissimilar to the judgment system used by the Flash Portal. Users who have been scouted and have submitted artwork of poor quality can lose their submission privileges. A team of moderators oversees the scouting tree, pruning users who manage to take advantage of the system. If a user were to be removed from the tree, anyone who was recursively scouted in his branch would also be removed. This system was unique to image portals at the time of its inception and is the first known instance of such a system.
Collections
The admins of Newgrounds maintain a group of collections of submissions. General groups such as Games or Toons are subdivided into types or years. The collections help viewers of Newgrounds navigate the website easier and find what they are looking for. For example, the Clock Crew collection contains Flash videos pertaining to the Clock Crew, a specific group on Newgrounds. Series collections are also allotted to popular serial Flash, such as Eskimo Bob, Retarded Animal Babies, Neurotically YoursNeurotically Yours
Neurotically Yours is a webtoon created by Jonathan Ian Mathers, depicting a squirrel named Foamy, who is the neurotic pet of a goth girl named Germaine . Over the years Germaine's character seems to have taken a backseat as Foamy's angry rants against society became increasingly popular. There are...
, Salad Fingers
Salad Fingers
Salad Fingers is a post-apocalyptic psychological horror Flash cartoon series originally created by British cartoonist David Firth in July 2004 which gained rapid internet popularity in 2005...
, Blockhead
Blockhead
Blockhead is the name of a theoretical computer system invented as part of a thought experiment by philosopher Ned Block, which appeared in a paper entitled Psychologism and Behaviourism...
, Madness Combat, Jerry Jackson Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...
, Pac-Man
Pac-Man
is an arcade game developed by Namco and licensed for distribution in the United States by Midway, first released in Japan on May 22, 1980. Immensely popular from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is considered one of the classics of the medium, virtually synonymous with video games,...
, SpongeBob SquarePants
SpongeBob SquarePants
SpongeBob SquarePants is an American animated television series, created by marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg. Much of the series centers on the exploits and adventures of the title character and his various friends in the underwater city of "Bikini Bottom"...
, Tiny Toon Adventures
Tiny Toon Adventures
Steven Spielberg Presents Tiny Toon Adventures, usually referred to as Tiny Toon Adventures or simply Tiny Toons, is an American animated television series created by Tom Ruegger and produced by Amblin Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation. It began production as a result of Warner Bros....
, Mario
Mario
is a fictional character in his video game series, created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. Serving as Nintendo's mascot and the main protagonist of the series, Mario has appeared in over 200 video games since his creation...
, The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
, Eddsworld
Eddsworld
Eddsworld is an independent British comedic flash animation production company created by Edward Gould in 2004. Eddsworld was also part of CakeBomb , but has always stood out as its own franchise...
and Pico. The admins create the collections and decide which submissions go into the collection, but viewers can vote on which collections they think a given submission should be put into, which may influence this decision.
Newgrounds has made recent moves to move to a user run Genre system for organizing flash, though this system is still in a data-collection phase.
Newgrounds Forum (BBS)
The Newgrounds ForumInternet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
has a community with many unique postings a day. Its community discusses a topics in 16 forum categories ranging from site related Flash
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
submissions to personal and off-topic discussion. The most popular section on the forum is "General" discussion which, as of July 5, 2011, houses more than 669,000 topics. The entire BBS
Bulletin board system
A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and log in to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, a user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging...
currently contains more than 1,040,000 topics. In the Flash or Art forum there is a far more serious and moderated discussion as the staff strongly encourage a creative community. The most registered users to ever be on the BBS at the same time was 774 (July 17, 2007, at 5:23 PM).
Newgrounds also has a fluctuating number of forum mods.
The forums are often used to run competitions and community projects. Competitions are generally held for Audio, Art, Music, and Writing on monthly basis by an assortment of administrators, moderators, and regular users. Prizes are funded by Newgrounds and have generally been cash, store credit or hardware. In a more unofficial capacity, the NG News forums have been annually used to give away Wacom
Wacom
in Krefeld, Germany. Wacom is a Japanese portmanteau: Wa for "harmony" or "circle", and Komu for "computer". Wacom tablets are notable for their use of a patented cordless, battery-free, and pressure-sensitive stylus or digital pen...
Tablets to artists who could not afford them otherwise, but have contributed promising art over the last year. These prizes have enabled or motivated many artists to contribute to the world of Flash movies, collaborate, and release hard editions of their product in online stores.
NG Store
Initially, Newgrounds sold stickers and other merchandise through a watered down version of today's store and cafepress. In 2007, Newgrounds started a basic store that was hosted completely on site, selling shirts and stickers of different Newgrounds series such as Pico and Tankmen. On August 19, 2008, Newgrounds launched its official store, selling more products than ever, including those made by other Newgrounds artists. Items for sale include:- Many T-shirts representing or displaying popular and successful artists or their work upon them.
- Keychains, stickers, discs, toys, comics, posters, patches and DVDs depicting popular Flash series.
The store currently only accepts credit cards. Store credit can also be earned from winning various contests.
It has become more common in recent history for the community to collaborate and sell anthology style works in the store. Prime examples of this are the Newgrounds calendar and artist discs.
Charity
Since the Newgrounds API was released and users were allowed to split their earnings between authors, users have been donating a portion of their earnings to charities by creating and sharing accounts which resemble the names of the charities for donating. This began in 2009, when a user, ForNoReason, took it upon himself to organize flash artists.- The Yellow Ribbon FundYellow Ribbon FundThe Yellow Ribbon Fund is a charity that primarily helps returning American service men & women, injured during active service, who are recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Bethesda Naval Hospital...
supports injured service men and their families.
- Breast Cancer Awareness supports awareness and research for the cure of breast cancer.
- CARE was introduced in the wake of the 2010 Haiti earthquake2010 Haiti earthquakeThe 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake, with an epicentre near the town of Léogâne, approximately west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. The earthquake occurred at 16:53 local time on Tuesday, 12 January 2010.By 24 January, at least 52 aftershocks...
.
In the media
- Teletubbies: In 1998, Tom Fulp of Newgrounds created a spoof of TeletubbiesTeletubbiesTeletubbies is a BBC children's television series targeted at pre-school viewers and produced from 1997 to 2001 by Ragdoll Productions. It was created by Ragdoll's creative director Anne Wood CBE and Andrew Davenport, who wrote each of the show's 365 episodes. The programme's original narrator was...
called Teletubby Fun Land which resulted in a law suit from the BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. This resulted in a boost of notoriety and media exposurePublicityPublicity is the deliberate attempt to manage the public's perception of a subject. The subjects of publicity include people , goods and services, organizations of all kinds, and works of art or entertainment.From a marketing perspective, publicity is one component of promotion which is one...
, and the video was renamed Telebubby Fun Land. - Kaboom!: In mid-2002, Newgrounds received notoriety for hosting Kaboom!, a game in which the player controls an apparent Palestinian suicide bomber who kills men, women and children in Israel. Despite receiving criticism and calls for its removal from the internet by congresswoman Nita Lowey, the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, and other groups, Newgrounds continued to host the game.
- Oklahoma City Escapades: Newgrounds received more negative attention in 2004 by refusing to remove Oklahoma City Escapades from its site, which is a game that was developed by Joshua Bend, that spoofs the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. It was eventually removed when Bend deleted his account.
- Jeff Weise: Jeff WeiseJeff WeiseJeffrey James "Jeff" Weise was an Ojibwe Native American adolescent, and a student at Red Lake Senior High School in Red Lake, Minnesota. He murdered nine people and wounded five others in a shooting spree on March 21, 2005, in the Red Lake Indian Reservation located in northwest Minnesota...
, infamous for the Red Lake High School massacreRed Lake High School massacreThe Red Lake massacre was an incident of spree killing that occurred in two places on the Red Lake reservation in Red Lake, Minnesota, United States. The first murders began on the morning of March 21, 2005, when 16-year-old Jeffrey Weise killed his grandfather and his grandfather's girlfriend...
, posted a violent animation on Newgrounds.com. Its existence was discovered and reported after the massacre. - Adam Fulton (Livecorpse): Adam Fulton was an animator with 100 submissions who committed suicide after a surreal series of events leading to a three day manhunt for his arrest. These events were described in a two-part suicide e-mail, which were released to the mass media and can be found at answers.comAnswers.comAnswers.com is an Internet-based knowledge exchange, which includes WikiAnswers, ReferenceAnswers, VideoAnswers, and five international language Q&A communities. The Answers.com domain name was purchased by Bill Gross and Henrik Jones at idealab in 1996. The domain name was acquired by NetShepard...
- Numa Numa Dance: Gary BrolsmaGary BrolsmaGary William Brolsma , also known as simply The Numa Numa Guy, is an American singer who gained worldwide attention after posting onto the Internet, near the end of 2004, a webcam video of himself miming to the song "Dragostea din tei" by Moldovan pop band O-Zone...
first published his "Numa Numa Dance" on Newgrounds on December 6, 2004, where it has since been viewed more than 15 million times, and copied onto hundreds of other websites and blogs, making it the second-most watched viral video of all time (only losing out to Star Wars KidStar Wars Kid"Star Wars Kid" is an Internet meme involving a video of a high school student from Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada, wielding a golf ball retriever in imitation of Darth Maul's lightsaber moves from the Star Wars films....
). He has also received mainstream media coverage from Good Morning AmericaGood Morning AmericaGood Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...
, The Tonight ShowThe Tonight ShowThe Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...
and Best Week EverBest Week EverBest Week Ever is a weekly television program on the United States cable/satellite network VH1. It started airing in 2004 and was put on hiatus in the summer of 2009...
, and, according to The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, was an "unwilling and embarrassed Web celebrity." On September 8, 2006, he reappeared with a professionally produced video titled "New Numa". The release of the video has prompted the New Numa Contest which offers up to $45,000 in prizes. On November 14, 2007, he posted yet another Numa video on YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, entitled Numa Three: Crazy Loop!, this time using a song that did not have the word "Numa" in it and in English. - Attack of the Show! From July 5–8, 2005, Tom Fulp was a co-host on Attack of the Show!Attack of the Show!Attack of the Show! is an American live television program shown weeknights on G4, G4 Canada and Fuel TV in Australia. The program is hosted by Kevin Pereira and Candace Bailey...
; he would showcase and describe popular Newgrounds Flash submissions. - The Virginia Tech Massacre media blowout: V-Tech rampage, Virginia Tech Shootout!, and others achieved fame from allegations of making fun of the Virginia Tech massacreVirginia Tech massacreThe Virginia Tech massacre was a school shooting that took place on April 16, 2007, on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States. In two separate attacks, approximately two hours apart, the perpetrator, Seung-Hui Cho, killed 32 people...
. - The Torture Game 2: Newgrounds currently hosts a game in which a player tortures a lifeless rag doll-like human. The game sparked controversy, receiving short airtime on Fox News.
- Wallace and Gromit: To promote the Wallace and GromitWallace and GromitWallace and Gromit are the main characters in a series consisting of four British animated short films and a feature-length film by Nick Park of Aardman Animations...
short A Matter of Loaf and DeathA Matter of Loaf and DeathA Matter of Loaf and Death is an animated television short created by Nick Park, and the fourth of his shorts to star his characters Wallace and Gromit...
, Aardman AnimationsAardman AnimationsAardman Animations, Ltd., also known as Aardman Studios, or simply as Aardman, is a British animation studio based in Bristol, United Kingdom. The studio is known for films made using stop-motion clay animation techniques, particularly those featuring Plasticine characters Wallace and Gromit...
submitted a Wallace and Gromit mini-game on the site. - Sirtom93 Arrest: Sirtom93, an active user on the Newgrounds BBS informed Newgrounds in a thread how he would burn down his school with gasoline and was caught and arrested after Administrators and users collected his personal information and forwarded it to the local police. The newspaper in Sirtom's area did not mention Newgrounds by name, which annoyed many users.
- Time: TimeTime (magazine)Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
's website ranked Newgrounds as one of the Top 50 Websites of 2010. - The Room gameThe Room (video game)The Room Tribute or The Room is an unofficial video game released on September 9, 2010, based on the film of the same name. It was programmed by Tom Fulp and the game's artwork was provided by staff member Jeff "JohnnyUtah" Bandelin, with music by animator Chris O'Neill...
: In September 2010, Newgrounds owner Tom FulpTom FulpThomas Michael "Tom" Fulp is the co-owner of video game company The Behemoth, and the creator and administrator of Newgrounds, a popular website for sharing Flash files...
released a flash game tribute to the movie, The RoomThe Room (film)The Room is a 2003 independent drama film starring Tommy Wiseau, who also wrote, directed, and produced the feature. In addition to Wiseau, the principal cast includes Juliette Danielle, Greg Sestero, Philip Haldiman, Kyle Vogt, Carolyn Minnott, and Robyn Paris...
, and became popular and part of multiple press. - Videogames: The videogames released so far from The BehemothThe BehemothThe Behemoth is a video game development company that was created in 2002 by John Baez, artist Dan Paladin , and programmers Tom Fulp , Brandon LaCava, and Nick Dryburgh. Dryburgh later left the company. The Behemoth development studio is located in San Diego, California...
have credited Newgrounds. Newgrounds is also credited in Team Meat's Super Meat BoySuper Meat BoySuper Meat Boy is an independent video game designed by Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes and developed by Team Meat. It is the successor to McMillen and Jonathan McEntee's October 2008 flash game Meat Boy. Super Meat Boy was released on the Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Arcade in October 2010, on...
which, like Alien HominidAlien HominidAlien Hominid is an independently developed console video game released for Sony PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube in 2004 through publisher O~3 Entertainment. A PAL version was later released during May 2005 for PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox through ZOO Digital Publishing...
, was originally a flash game on Newgrounds, and various Newgrounds characters make cameos.
Events
Newgrounds hosts and participates in many events throughout the year to give users a chance to meet each other or to interact in general. Some events are organized by regulars but usually by forum moderators and site administrators.Notable events:
- Big Apple Con
- Comic Con 2008