About

About

Site History

On June 26, 1998 this website came into existence, originally titled Zelda 64. At first it was a pretty bad site, with a terrible layout, and since it was just starting, very little information. Shortly later, I learned how to do frames, and the layout of this site drastically improved. In the meantime, the site was also getting more and more content as I had the time to work on it, but still received very few visitors. In January, 1999 this site began to receive many visitors as a result of being linked on numerous other Zelda sites and being listed on a few search engines.

By May of 1999, I had nearly reached the limits of what I could do with a site on a fortunecity server (which limited the site to 20 megs), so I signed up for a site with xoom (which offered unlimited space). With the xoom site I was able to add a key thing that was missing from this site in the past, downloads. Previously only small downloads, such as a few Warcraft II levels were available, but with the larger space, larger downloads, such as movies, music, and Windows Themes became available.

On September 26, 1999 I finally decided that it was time to change the name of this site from Zelda 64 to something else because this site is about all of the Zelda games, not just Zelda 64 (Ocarina of Time). The name I decided on is Ganon's Tower, mostly because it was a different name from most Zelda sites. In early October of 1999, I felt it was time for a major redesign to this site, since I had been using the previous design for over a year, and was starting to get tired of it. On October 10, 1999 the redesign was complete. The site grew a little from the redesign, but still didn't get a ton of hits. This would change when Zeldagames.com offered to host Ganon's Tower.

On February 19, 2000, Ganon's Tower officially became hosted by Zeldagames.com. Since the server move, Ganon's Tower continued to grow, and as the release of Majora's Mask approached, it began to become a fairly popular site. The hits continued to increase until I decided in early 2001 to redesign the site again. The old design was very outdated, and I felt that if the site was to grow any further, it would need a new design. The new design was completed on February 27, 2001, and the site's popularity surged shortly thereafter. The site continued to grow to the point where I thought it would be necessary to buy a domain name in order to continue the site's growth. On April 3, 2001 I bought the domain name, www.ganonstower.com for the site. Matt from N-Gaming also offered to make a nice, professional new layout for me, which was ready on April 10, 2001. The re-launch with a domain name proved successful as the site's popularity continued to soar. On May 21, 2001, Victor Godinez, a writer for the Dallas Morning News asked to interview me for a Game Boy Advance article that was published on June 7th (scans can be seen by clicking here and here). 2001 has been the best year yet for the site, and with the upcoming Game Boy Advance and Gamecube systems, the future looks bright indeed. I will continue to bring you the best coverage of any Zelda games for those two systems, and any important Nintendo news as well.

In March, 2001 after being inspired by the message boards at Hyrule.com.ar I started my own EzBoard message board. It started out pretty bad with not very many users or posts, but in the Fall we upgraded to an iKonboard which is much more professional looking and has no annoying pop-up ads. After a few problems with the iKonboards, we upgraded to a vBulletin in February, 2002. The vBulletin board became very popular and is continuing to grow very quickly.

On June 23, 2002 two of the best and largest Zelda sites on the internet, Hyrule.com.ar and Great Deku Tree shut down. Both sites were a big help in the growth of Ganon's Tower and they will be missed. With the closing of these two outstanding sites, more visitors have begun to visit Ganon's Tower. I have some nice things planned that will hopefully allow the site to continue growing, such as a new layout and the re-vamping of a few other sections of the site. Hopefully the site's 5th year will be its best!

With the anticipation of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Ganon's Tower had it's most successful year to date leading up to the site's 5th birthday. The site not only continued to grow in terms of number of visitors, but also received a facelift in the form of a new layout for the site's 5th birthday. Finally, on August 17, 2003 the site reached the total of 1,000,000 unique visitors. With another Zelda game on the way and a good fan base, the future is still bright for Ganon's Tower.

About the Staff

Dan -- Webmaster

Name: Dan

Hobbies: Videogames, Movies, Listening to Music, Playing Baseball, Watching Sports on TV, Souping up my car.

Favorite Sport: Baseball

Favorite Baseball Team: Texas Rangers

Favorite Football Team: Dallas Cowboys

Favorite Hockey Team: Dallas Stars

Favorite Athlete: Nolan Ryan

Favorite Food: Pizza

Favorite Drink: Dr. Pepper

Favorite Videogames: Any Legend of Zelda game (Nintendo), Any Wing Commander Game (PC), Any Mario Game (Nintendo), Goldeneye 007 (N64), Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (N64), Quake 2 (PC), Warcraft 2 (PC), Starcraft (PC), Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2 (PC), Unreal (PC), Descent 3 (PC), Final Fantasy VII (PC), Perfect Dark (N64).

Favorite Movies: Any Star Wars, Any Lethal Weapon, Air Force One, Independence Day, Major Payne, Saving Private Ryan, Terminator 1 & 2, James Bond - Goldeneye, James Bond - Tomorrow Never Dies, James Bond - The World is Not Enough, Varsity Blues, Payback, The Matrix, Wing Commander, Mission Impossible 2, Die Hard series, The Rock, The Waterboy.

Favorite Band: Metallica

Favorite Song: One (by Metallica)

My Car: 2005 Ford Mustang