I'm Seth, I was seventeen when i first joined. I've been a member here for almost seven years (as old as the site). I first found out about this site when i was following its "origin thread" on Cheap Ass Gamer.
Before my introduction to that thread and this site I used to cut pictures out of game magazines and make my own PS1 & Dreamcast covers for DVD Cases. This took between 3-10 hours to make each cover. My source for the magazines was a locally owned game shop a few blocks from my house growing up and they sold older game magazines for $0.50 to $1 a peice. I was obsessed once I finished one cover that I had to make more. I was introduced to Photoshop shortly after joining here, bought a new computer that could handle Photoshop and the rest is history.
I became a CoverAdmin exactly one year after joining this community and it is without a doubt the best most welcoming online community i have ever been a part of. I have made hundreds of covers here and the majority of Templates that we use on the site. I'm assuming a lot of people here who have been on the site for less than a few years know me as the guy who made the all the vertical covers and templates. Which is ok but i assure you i have done and continue to do more than that
. I used to crank out covers about every other day for a few years but high school and college are over. Its definitely a quality over quantity bases for the covers i make now. Lots of attention to every finite detail!
I have a lot less free time on my hands now that the real world has been taking a hold of me.
I visit the site at least 3 times a day regardless of my schedule and I don't really take on a whole lot of requests anymore but luckily our community is so full of talented artists I don't need to fill that role anymore.
Like Larry said the "project" will never be finished as there are always more and more systems coming out. Not only the mass quanitity of new game releases but we have a large custom variation following too. Either completely making custom covers from the ground up or making slight alterations. Members sometimes make adjustments so they all are in the same style as one another. Genesis covers come straight to mind because there are so many different variations to how geneses cases/boxes were orignially released there is hardly any uniformity at all.
As far as game manuals go, we actually already host manuals. Problem is hardly anyone makes manuals for games. Its expensive to print and VERY VERY time consuming. Even a basic 10 page manual would take 5 times longer than your average cover because each page is basically a cover being restored in itself (I say 5 times longer instead of 10 because the pages are usually split down the middle).
In short, i love this site. I along with others are very dedicated to it and as long as Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony don't decide to shut us down one day we will always be here. There is definitely a strong interest from gamers & artists to make covers and we most certainly have the community to support it.
EDIT: Apparently i use a lot of smiley faces when I post too, haha
