Happy 10th Birthday, KHInsider!

[Sign]

December is a very special time of the year. For many, it welcomes the pure joy and festivities of the winter holidays, with bright lights twinkling on newly chopped forest pines and the soothing warmth of hot steamy beverages. For others, it's the long awaited renewal of life as the new year is greeted with open arms and new years resolutions are finally acknowledged. But December 17th specifically is a special day for us here at Kingdom Hearts Insider, because it was on this day that we were first introduced into the world.

Exactly 10 years ago, Kingdom Hearts Insider was born as KingdomHearts2.net, a website that offered naught but a simple service where members could register to receive new information and updates through their email. Due to the circumstances of the time and age, to be able to boast that you could deliver anything for a series that had only been welcomed into the world a year ago was quite a feat, especially considering that the extent of progress in development was a completely mystery.

The original Kingdom Hearts concluded vaguely, to leave the story open to interpretation should the title truely stand alone, or to allow possibilities to roam if opportunities to expand were granted. Despite this, the game received critical acclaim and by April 2003, the game had reached one million sales in North America alone, with over three million worldwide. [1] It seemed only natural that the series be allowed to flourish, and when both Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts II were officially announced at Tokyo Game Show 2003, it seemed the time had come to make a move. [2] Within months, the forums were born and a small team of dedicated fans had gathered, ready to tackle the world head on under the proud banner of KingdomHearts2.net, at least for the time being.

We say that because on July 20, 2005, roughly a year and a half after the site launched, the site’s received a new identity.[3] It was actually somewhat of a big deal, considering the circumstances of the change, and no doubt many still remember the cause to this day. Apparently the folks over at the Walt Disney Company weren’t too pleased that this particular URL had been claimed by fans, and kindly requested that it be dropped via lawsuit. With this and the steady realization that the site would need a new adapt to the rapidly evolving series, KingdomHearts2.net evolved into KHInsider.com.[4]

The site evolved over the years just as much as the series it's dedicated itself to. The two became strongly connected and deeply interwoven. As we reach our highs and lows together and pull through to face the new days ahead, slowly but steadily, not only were we the world's first dedicated Kingdom Hearts fansite, but we also work our best to be able to continue honoring the title of being the absolute #1 news source for the franchise with the largest fan community on the web. [5]

Credit to Kazuma

Just look at how far we've come. The series has expanded to include 16 titles altogether, remakes, remasters and Final Mixes included, and KHInsider now boasts a grand total of 119,661 members and counting.[6] Kingdom Hearts has branched out to multiple mediums and inspires us to reach out to ensure that we will be able to offer every member and visitor exactly what they're looking for, so long as its within our reach. We believe that what we do, we do extremely well, and we will never promise what we cannot deliver.

None of this would never have been made possible without the continued support of our wonderful community, and all those who support us from near or far! Our hats are off to you, who give us a reason to continue this work to make KHInsider the best there is.

Happy 10th birthday KHInsider! May the next decade bring as much joy and success as the first, and much more!

Credit to Zephyr and Narukami

[1] GamePro/PCWorld - Kingdom Hearts sold how many?! - December 27 2002
[2] Gamespot - TGS 2003: Kingdom Hearts sequels announced - September 23 2003
[3] KHInsider Forums - KingdomHearts2.net Changes Its Name - July 20 2005
[4] KHInsider - About Us - 2009
[5] KHInsider Home Page
[6] KHInsider Forums

 

[ShardofTruth]

Wow, congratulations and my best wishes for the next ten years.:biggrin:

 

[Gexus]

Happy 10th birthday, KHInsider! This is by far the best KH community out there.

Huh ... it's like it was yesterday when I was lurking on the newly renamed KHInsider all those years ago.

Well, I'm old.

 

[raycat27_2003]

Happy birthday, y'all!! *throws confetti* *toots horn* *throws more confetti*

 

[Solo]

Happy birthday! Props to the admins, site staff, and mods and super mods for keeping KHI a great community to be involved in.

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

Happy birthday KHInsider! I remember when I used to make fun of this website with some online friends of mine back when Xaldin worked on KHVids because it sucked. I vaguely remember Xaldin saying I should check out KHI because it was pretty chill, and I made an account and never used it.

Came back in 2009/2010, started posting, then left for a few months because Monkey pissed me of over something I don't even remember anymore (probably about a video game)? Anyways, I ended up really loving this site and lol you can never really leave once you join

I hope we can keep delivering KH news to all of you for another ten years!

 

[Zeke_Aileron]

Happy Birthday KHinsider, even though i'm a semi-new member and still haven't looked through all the Threads, but i can say 1 thing, i'm enjoying my time on here, Thank you KHinsider and hope for another 10 great years to come.

 

[Raz]

Ten years already. Wow I feel old. Happy Birthday KHi.

 

[Cyborg009]

its been 10 ten years already? my how time flies. anyway. happy birthday KHI!

 

[Nazo]

I LOVE YOU ALL!

Happy birthday, KHInsider. So many great memories here, and friendships I made with members years ago that continue to this day.

 

[Taochan]

Happy birthday KHInsider! I signed up because I had a simple question about Birth by Sleep. I never intended to stay here once it was answered but here I am, three years later! I can't wait to see how the site will continue to grow.

 

[Urbane]

I wasn't even here back then and this still makes me feel old.

Welp, good times on here nonetheless. Happy 10th, KHI. Keep on shinin' and all that jazz.

 

[Chaser]

Happy birthday KHInsider!
Soon you will be old enough to party with us.

 

[Lea]

Glad I was able to be part of the website for the first decade! Glad I get the chance to experience the whole second decade in full! Congrats!

 

[Gram]

Wow this place has been trapping souls for 10yrs already. The memories, the feels! ;A;

 

[limit]

Happy 10th birthday!!

I actually joined a long time ago when I was a kid, because I was OBSESSED with the series (implying I'm still not?). This is actually the site where I discovered you could make sea salt ice cream, and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. My first attempt was an utter failure, because I had no blue food coloring and I tried substituting blue frosting. I also didn't have any ice-cream things, so I had to put it in a container, which kind of ruined it. Another recipe I got from here was paopu cookies, where I used the same blue frosting instead of green. The shape came out huge and deformed but I showed it to my friends anyway and they tasted pretty good.

This is also where I discovered Action Replay - I saw a video of Final Form Sora fighting Axel in Twilight Town (slight possibility it could have been KH-Vids...). That's what lead me to getting Codebreaker (GameStop had run out of Action Replay) and eventually modding my PS2, mainly for KH2FM.

Funny story, I actually started a thread where you could spam to get rep power, and I got pretty mad when I got banned for it . I still did follow the site, though, until I kinda forgot the series... It was when a friend of mine told me about KH3D around 2011 that I really got back into the series. I had played BBS before, but I only knew about it because of some guy on YouTube I was subscribed to who also happened to be a fan of Kingdom Hearts. He posted a video on how to get a translated BBS FM on a hacked PSP. Other than that I didn't pay much attention at all. That message from my friend motivated me to start following the site again, and all the interviews, all the news, it was so fun being a part of the site again. Since then I've only grown further on this site. I love the forums and how active it is, and everybody I've talked to is really cool.

I remember bugging my friends about how excited I was for KH3D, and I actually spoiled so much for myself D: (like the "My Friends Are My Power Scene," one of my biggest regrets). That doesn't change the fact that I was still incredibly confused, as for some reason I couldn't figure out how to find certain episodes of the let's play videos... probably because I was looking at multiple uploaders and saw different videos titled "Ending" starting from different scenes, haha.

At this time I was teaching myself programming, and I decided to screw around with my dad's website as a joke (not the main scripts, but the HTML that doesn't permanently affect it). He was actually impressed and asked if I knew how to program websites, because his current programmers weren't really doing much. It was here we struck a deal: if I finished the site for him, he'd buy me a 3DS and pre-order KH3D for me. Of course, I was very naive and thought I could easily finish the site, and to this day I'm still working on it (mainly laziness, but I've still done a lot more than his other programmers, xD). I was really mad when I saw they announced a collector's edition, especially about not having all the AR cards and postcards. I really love the postcards and stuff.

KH3D has actually motivated me to really think, and it's even my favorite game because what they did right was so amazing. Even though I constantly bash my head trying to figure out this mess, looking back I love all of it. It's what brought me back into this community that I so love, and I've really thought about everything in the series a lot more, which further increases my love for it. Especially the music, which I actually bothered to pay attention to - I was actually pretty nervous that Yoko Shimomura had lost her touch from all the track previews I heard, but playing through the actual game it became one of my favorite soundtracks and I was VERY pleasantly surprised! I learned to appreciate music a lot more from this and figured out that it's one of the main things that attracts me to anything in general.

So, that's basically my story - my experience here has been amazing. Again, happy 10th anniversary, and cheers to the next decade and the future of Kingdom Hearts!

 

[Aurum-Femina]

Happy 10th Birthday, KHInsider! I mostly lurk, but I lurk a lot on the main page. The main page has definitely given me a great place for finding out spoiler-free news on Kingdom Hearts.

 

[XIII RoXaS XIII]

Happy 10th anniversary, KHI! Only been around for 2 years though I can somehow gather how successfully this community has grown. I don't think there has been a week where i haven't checked the news here since December 2011. Considering of how much of a lurker i am on this site the bond's with other members seem to be fairly weak though I assume that our bond will grow tighter as time moves ahead. I can only start to grasp everyone elses relationship... Here's to the future!

 

[Rydgea]

Some nice history! I'm impressed this place has been around since 2003. I does make me feel a bit old, because I remember back in those days shrine sites were really popular, and I visited a couple for SKR just looking for any scraps related to the series I could find.

I think KHI was coincidentally the last site I stumbled upon (out of KHU, KH13, and KHVIDS), and it wasn't until after some time that Birth By Sleep localization was taking place I became Re:Obsessed with the series and had to learn everything about the localization process. KHI quickly became the most reliable KH news source for me during that time - summer 2010, though it wasn't until late 2011 I decided to stop lurking and actually join.

So glad I did. Happy birthday, KHI. <3

 

[Noir]

oh great khi overshadows my birthday again
k happy bday man