ActionTrip

ActionTrip.com, founded in 1999 by Uros "2lions" Jojic, is an independent computer and video game related website dedicated to providing the latest news of the gaming industry. Beginning as a modest gaming portal, tracking and linking to off-site news and reviews, ActionTrip gradually grew to one of the largest portals to serve both the American and European gaming markets. Presently, ActionTrip hosts original reviews, previews, interviews, and other articles written by its professional and freelance staff, all filled with the website's famous offbeat and colorful commentary. The humorous and fun-loving nature of the site can be summed up in the motto, which reads, "What we lack in quality, we make up for in stupidity."

Balkan roots

Actiontrip started its gaming life as a site called Exxtreme3d [http://www.exxtreme3d.co.yu] , in Serbian language, created by Jojic and Grbavcic in the late 90's. Due to the lack of any compromise and humorous note of almost every post, it grew to one of the most popular computer gaming-related sites on the Balkans. In 2001. Actiontrip.com was growing popular and Exxtreme3d, its Serbian version was renamed to actiontrip.co.yu, and the off-line version of Serbian actiontrip- Macromedia Director powered .exe monthly magazine on CD-rom, accompanied with game demos and trailers, became available in Yugoslavia by the end of the year.

Experimenting with the digital press distributed on the newspaper stands didn't go too well, and the Actiontrip on CD-rom disappeared after 6 issues. Translated Actiontrip reviews, previews and editorials, the bright point of the issue remained wanted by the gamers and shortly after the Actiontrip Magazine failure, Jojic became an editor of the already popular Serbian printed gaming magazine Game that started featuring translated Actiontrip.com texts, as well as the exclusive content, that was similar in style. In January 2005. Game had its last issue, and was scrapped due to the financial issues. Just to be resurrected in October of 2005under the brand Gameplay (not to be confused with the Croatian GamePlay gaming magazine), with almost identical staff, conception and graphic design. Serbian version of the Actiontrip texts remained one of the key elements of the magazine. Gaming Poster and the DVD with demos, trailers and gaming-related software became the integral part of the magazine.

Community

Throughout the years, a large and tightly-knit community of regular visitors has grown. All articles and news postings may be commented on, and members take full advantage of the opportunity. Typically, the most heavily trafficked posting of the day is the "Mornin'" post, the first posting of the day, which usually plays host to some of the more offbeat comment conversations that take place. Users often will compete for the prestigious "First post", the first comment to the Mornin' posting.

Forum

In early 2003, the ActionTrip Forum was born, and has spawned into an entirely self-sustaining community, almost entirely independent from the website's main news section. Though some do cross over, users typically reserve themselves to either the main news page or the forums, and interaction between the two is rare, almost nonexistent.

Other features

In addition to the news and articles, ActionTrip features original comics, typically satirizing current issues in the gaming community. Several of the comics, most notably the World of Warcraft-oriented ones, have been featured on other fansites. Users can also browse through the website's large database of game-related files (cheats, trainers, patches, mods, etc.)

ActionTrip also hosts images of glamour models through its 'Babe of the Day' section. A daily poll is provided to let the visitors decide the 'hotness' of the day's picture on a scale from 1 to 10. Originally it featured soft-core nudity in most of the images. However in May 2004, due to advertisers’ complaints, the 'Babe of the Day' section was reformed to contain no nudity.

ActionTrip offered a subscription-based membership service called 'ActionTrip PLUS!'. Membership benefits included a vast gallery of female models, including the aforementioned 'Babe of the Day' galleries, faster FTP downloads, more high-quality game media, and an advertisement-free environment. On June 22, 2006, the PLUS! service was discontinued and replaced with a partnership with [http://www.Craveonline.com Crave Online] a few days after. On August 4, 2006 ActionTrip started showing a 'Video of the day' along with the 'Babe of the Day', a feature born out of the partnership with [http://www.Craveonline.com Crave Online] .

In October 2004, a weekly newsletter was debuted, highlighting important news clips of the past week and listing new articles available at the site. The newsletter is an ad-free service which users can sign up for at no charge.

Current staff

* Uros “2Lions” Jojic
* Dejan “Dex” Grbavcic
* Ure “Vader” Paul
* Vince "Moesha" Massa
* Jackson "Smapdey" Johns
* Borivoj "Sai" Ivanovic

External links

* [http://www.ActionTrip.com ActionTrip.com]
* [http://www.atrip.net ActionTrip Forums]
* [http://www.Craveonline.com Crave Online]