From Xbox DVR to Gamer DVR

Change Effective 2019-04-01; April Fools? Not exactly.

TL;DR - Keep scrolling to read all the details

  • Microsoft asked us nicely to stop using the Xbox trademark
  • I've been wanting to evolve the service to offer more features and support more platforms
  • The timing of April 1st to soften the "shock" of the change
  • Want to help out?
    • Keep using our new website exactly how you used the old one
    • Tell all your friends about us
    • Maybe even Go Pro or Ad Free?

So what's the long story?

It all started back in 1988 when a baby boy was birthed into this amazing universe... Ok maybe not that far back.

In November 2014, I first launched XboxDVR.com as a service that had evolved from a side project for my gaming clan. There was one main competitor at the time, but that website did not have the features I planned to build and hadn't seen any real updates in almost a year. I decided on the name "Xbox DVR" simply because it was the best sounding option for available domain names and matched closely with the Xbox feature. I assumed, in my young ignorance, that using the word Xbox in a website domain/logo was fine since so many others have done it before and it appeared Microsoft was pretty laid back when it came to enforcing these types of things.

Fast forward 4+ years: many new features, revisions, updates, 2 mobile apps, and millions of gamers having used the service. Along this time I kept wanting to expand the service to do even greater things. I wanted to no longer be directly tied to a single console for my service. Twitch, Playstation, Nintendo, PC, even mobile gamers could benefit from a great content aggregator and editor/backup service. I also wanted to improve the sharing experience by hosting a much more mobile friendly version of the videos (they are by default full 720p or 1080p, which is very hard on mobile networks with the poor Microsoft CDN hosting the files). That last one is very pricey and I've only just reached the scale in traffic, ad revenue, Pro memberships, etc. to be able to attempt it.

Just as I was making great progress on some of those changes, I received a notice from Microsoft's legal team that I am not allowed to use their Xbox trademarks. I was given 2 weeks to make the change, which they were more than kind enough to extend for 30 days. I just want to say that I hold no ill-will toward Microsoft, Xbox, or the legal team. I am still a die-hard Xbox fan and will remain one for many years. I am thankful they did not wish to sue me for any damages or want to shut down my service entirely. They just required I stop using Xbox trademarks. I realize they are 100% in their right to require me to make changes involving their trademarks. Does it still kind of suck that 4 years of establishing a specific brand/domain is being wiped out earlier than planned? Sure, but it's nothing I didn't at least subconsciously know was a possibility the entire time.

That brings us to today. April 1, 2019. I figured today of all days would be one of the best (or worst) days to make such a drastic change. As you can see, I've settled on a new domain/service name of Gamer DVR. I've got a flashy new logo and the website will be evolving the overall layout in the coming weeks to reflect the new branding. What does this mean for your Xbox content being accessible from the website? For now, nothing is changing. In the future, your Xbox content will still always be available, but I may change how the process works a bit as I integrate new platforms into the service. I'm ALMOST ready to reveal the hard work that's been done to improve the mobile and overall viewing/sharing experince! I feel I'm setup in a good spot to act on my goals of expanding to gamers on all platforms; the trademark issue was a nice little nudge to make the leap.

How can you help out?

The first and best thing you can do to help my service through this big new transition is to keep using it the same way you've been using it these last 4 years! Don't worry, all your old shared content will still work and automatically redirect to the new domain. You can also share the website with all your friends, clan-mates, gaming family, etc. The more shares, the more users, the faster it can grow and reach even greater potential with even better features.

If you are feeling exceptionally generous, you can even consider going Pro or Ad Free to help cover the inevitable short term revenue losses due to the total website rebranding. If you can't, no sweat. I appreciate the fact that you use my service and hope that I provide plenty of value to both standard and paid accounts!

Stay tuned for more udpates in the coming weeks. If you'd like to reach out with any feedback, suggestions, feature requests, or just want to play games sometime, hit me up via any option below!

-NightSurgeX2

Xbox Live: NightSurgeX2 - Email: [email protected] - Twitter: @nightsurge or @GamerDVRcom