Zophar's Domain

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For other uses of the word Zophar, see Zophar (disambiguation).

Zophar's Domain logo

Zophar's Domain is an emulation website founded on November 9, 1996 by Brad Levicoff. The site's name comes from Lunar Eternal Blue on Sega CD, Saturn and PlayStation. On September 20, 2000, the site was passed on to Sam Michaels, previously the site's CGI programmer.^[1]

Zophar's Domain was intended as an "emulation hub," a congregation of wares and enthusiasts. The site was maintained by a number of people with unique "handles" who focused on a particular area of emulation. The frequency of news updates gradually decreased after the founder was no longer associated with the site. It features news and downloads for emulators, translation patches, utilities, hacks, and video game music. Within the online video game emulation community it was often referred to as "ZD."

1 Present state
2 Attacks on the site
3 ZD Store
4 Legal troubles
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Present state

At present, Zophar's Domain is inactive. Michaels has stated that it should be considered an "archive." In its prime, it was generally regarded as an excellent news resource, reporting on every area of emulation development. It had high coverage and popularity according to Alexa.^[2]

On November 9, 2006, Zophar's Domain's 10-year anniversary, the site was voluntarily closed. Michaels promptly received an outpouring of support, proving that he has a loyal fanbase, and restored the site for the foreseeable future after approximately 12 hours.[2]

The logo was modified in late September 2006 and a cat was added sitting on the logo, on the insistence of several forumers; in contrast to rumors of it signifying the archival or stagnant state.^[3]

[edit] Attacks on the site

Between 2000 and 2002, ZD had a bitter feud with other emulation sites in the community, including one named EMU-LMAO (Emulation, Laughing My Ass Off), which was made to poke fun of other emulation websites for various reasons.^{[citation needed]}

ZD faced a well-known hacking attempt while in its earlier CGI based days. In 2002, a moderator named "InVerse", a former staff member, posted users' private messages to the public, and deleted entire boards. This caused the forums to be shut down for a few days. Many believe that InVerse hacked the boards, but his actions were done using available features in the admin panel.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] ZD Store

From one point in the year 2001 to July 2002, Sam Michaels founded and ran his ZD Store. The store was created on:

a drunken brainstorm at 4am^[4]

The store was created in order to simply receive enough revenue to maintain the site, and not have to depend solely on the prominent ad-click revenue which controlled the livelihood of many popular emulation sites at the time. The store was founded on selling videogame accessory merchandise, and was predominantly known for selling the quite popular Flash Linker Advance. Which would later get him into legal trouble with Nintendo of America.

The store was unfortunately plagued by many problems, personally and externally for Sam, including his most well known feud with another online videogame accessory store owner, that went by the online handle of Jandaman.^[5].

In July 2002 Sam ceased operation of the store, under the claim of starting another new business of his on the following month of August. All remaining orders were to be received by August 1st, and all remaining disputes were to be handled between August 2nd to August 15th. As an alternative option for his customers, Sam linked the ZTNet Store, as they provided the same merchandise that he was selling. ^[6]

[edit] Legal troubles

On February 19, 2002, Nintendo of America invoked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and sent a letter to Zophar's Domain demanding that they stop selling Game Boy Advance Flash Linkers and turn over remaining stock to Nintendo. They stopped selling the devices, but the stock was never confiscated.^[7]^[8]

Zophar's Domain does provide commercial ROMs and ISOs, up to and including the Fifth Generation of video game consoles. ^[9]