McLeodGaming

McLeodGaming Inc., often-abbreviated MG, is an independent entertainment company dedicated to Flash games, cartoons and music, located in New Jersey. It was founded and is named after Gregory McLeod, who is mainly known by his alias Cleod9, and also leads the McLeodGaming Forums. The site is well known for the creation and showcasing of the Super Smash Flash series, fighting games based off on the Super Smash Bros. series. It is currently in the production of Super Smash Flash 2.

History
The site appeared in early 2003 as a calculator game site for the TI-83 Plus graphing calculator. Several games, all created by Greg McLeod himself, were made available for download and were released under the McLeodGaming brand. Some time later, Greg McLeod developed an admiration to Macromedia Flash and eventually he got his own. He learned how to make Flash cartoons so he started to upload the animations in place of the games; among the Flash cartoons include the parody series A Super Mario World and the anime-influenced series Animus. He also uploaded musical compositions he personally made with instruments and computer sounds.

Soon, watching his abilities with Flash, Greg McLeod started creating small interactive projects, which led to the creation of Super Smash Flash, a Flash game loosely based on Super Smash Bros. Melee with several differences in content. Development took roughly four months (with Greg McLeod handling all the making by himself, alone) and was released on Flash portal website, Newgrounds on August 21, 2006, with a downloadable version getting released seven days later on August 28, 2006.

Despite the mixed reception it received from media and fans alike, it was considered a success at the time of its original release and because a cult classic game of the early McLeodGaming era. This prompted Greg McLeod to immediately start development for a sequel appropriately titled Super Smash Flash 2, which is currently under development. As his next "big project", Greg McLeod now receives support from fellow users from the McLeodGaming Forums; those who have notable contributions towards the development of the game are called Super Smash Flash 2 Developers and have access to a private forum. Progress of the game is shown through a playable demo released to the public; the first iteration (v0.1a) was released on December 25, 2007, exactly on Christmas Day as a "present" from part of Greg McLeod.

In September 2, 2008, the website received a new and elegant gray and blue design created by Jamal Ransaw (a.k.a. Zero Insanity). This remodelation was to have under control the development of Super Smash Flash 2, the forums and other updates. However, he left behind many of the games and cartoons from the previous site, like Light Vs. Shadow and Super Gear Solid.

On June 30, 2012, after six years of no complete games being released (as SSF2 is still released as a demo version), McLeodGaming launched Yeah Jam Fury, a puzzle-platformer made in collaboration with Willy World Entertainment (now World Entertainment Studios), which features three playable characters with different abilities that all must be used in order to overcome the game's levels and obstacles.

In March 3, 2016, the website was once again revamped, this time by Sirtopeia. The site now employs a simpler, more stylized look, with a dark gray theme accented by a tinge of more vibrant colors. At the same time, the site was also updated to mesh better with search engines, giving it greater accessibility and visibility than before.

In May 29, 2017, Super Smash Flash 2 officially reached its Beta status, the first major release after 34 months (2 years and 10 months) since the release of v0.9b.

In October 25, 2017, a follow-up to Yeah Jam Fury was announced under the name, Yeah Jam Fury: U, Me, Everybody! Released exclusively for Steam on December 15, 2017, it was the first full-paid game to be released in McLeodGaming's history.

Sections
The McLeodGaming website has different sections with variable content. These are the main sections of the site as of the March 2016 revamp:

News
This section includes all the news posted in the McLeodGaming Forums and pertains all the announcements done about the site, SSF2 updates, site maintenance, etc.

Music
The largest section in the website that includes many musical compositions made by Cleod9 himself, it includes 42 compositions to listen to.

Games
This section includes all the current games developed and published in McLeodGaming. There are only four main games in this section, including the platformer-puzzle game Yeah Jam Fury: U, Me, Everybody!, the current version of the Super Smash Flash 2 Demo, the original Yeah Jam Fury, and the original Super Smash Flash. Older games were moved to the archive subsection, which can be accessed from here.

Forums
This directly links to the McLeodGaming Forums, which are actually a separate website rather than a section. The forums are hosted by phpBB boards where anyone can maturely give an idea, commentary, or suggestion for Super Smash Flash 2. The developers and staff all have respective private boards here. Cleod9 also leads the forums and is usually responsible for the site news updates. There exists another topic unrelated to SSF2 for people to discuss and comment.

Store
This section links to a separate website, namely Zazzle.com, where users can select and purchase merchandise bearing the complete logo of the site or just the "M Fist Symbol". Merchandise includes jackets, T-shirts, mugs, key chains, stickers, mousepads, etc.

MGN
This directly links to the registration page for McLeodGaming Network, where visitors can create an account or, if they already have an account, login to manage their account settings or friends list or register compatible games.

Related sites
There exist many other official sites related to McLeodGaming. Contrary to popular belief, Cleod9 does not administrate any of these sites, with the exception of the official Newgrounds account.

McLeodGaming Wiki
The McLeodGaming Wiki is a Wiki founded by the SSF2 Dev [TSON] to provide info of the actual events of McLeodGaming and the Super Smash Flash series as well. As the site updates, the wiki does too. During its first times, the McLeodGaming Wiki was considered a poor site to obtain info about McLeodGaming due the big amount of fake articles and unconfirmed features for Super Smash Flash 2 that, usually, confused new users of McLeodGaming. With the passage of time, these problems were eventually fixed and were taken under control to regulate the vandalism and spam so the Wiki could be more accurate.

McLeodGamingOfficial


The official YouTube account of McLeodGaming is known as McLeodGamingOfficial. It is used by the SSF2 Devs to showcase videos such as previews and gameplay videos pertaining to McLeodGaming media, mainly Super Smash Flash 2.

Cleod-9
Not to be confused with the person Cleod9, Cleod-9 is the official Newgrounds account of McLeodGaming. In that account, Cleod9 uploads some of the games, movies and music of McLeodGaming. As stated above, it is the only related site administrated by Cleod9 himself.

Trivia

 * In December 31, 2010, on the eve for the release of v0.7 of the SSF2 Demo, Jamal Ransaw announced another reskin for the main website, even showcasing the new buttons the site would have carried. This never came into fruition and no other word of this announcement was spoken ever again, not even after the site actually got reskinned in March 3, 2016.