about
the short of it
#gamemp3s is a group dedicated to releasing high-quality video-game sound tracks, primarily via BitTorrent.
the long of it
#gamemp3s was founded as a channel on the DALnet IRC network by the_miker and Olmerd on the 27th of August, 2000. Mike and Olmerd aimed to distribute high-quality releases of video-game sound tracks at a time when most other groups were encoding in low-quality formats. The channel quickly gained members and, thanks to the extensive collections of its members, there was plenty to share (both third-party and official releases).
The channel grew, and it built a reputation on its usage of VBR MP3s (LAME's --r3mix option was used early on; by mid-2002 all new releases used --alt-preset; and by late 2006 this changed to -V 0.) Channel business went well, but DALnet had become increasingly unstable by late 2002 — the entire network went down for several days in January of 2003. The final straw, however, came in early February, when DALnet decreed that using a channel 'for the primary purpose of facilitating the transfer of files' was to be prohibited.
As a result of DALnet’s new policy, #gamemp3s moved to the Xelium network in March of 2003. With this move came a major change: The channel switched from using DCC and FTP as its primary distribution methods to BitTorrent. Soon afterwards, Mike and Olmerd faded from the scene, leaving Godai, Msia, and others to tend to the channel.
As of this writing, #gamemp3s has released over 1100 albums and has more than restored itself to its DALnet glory.
