This week video game file distribution hub GameFront announced plans to shut down permanently by April 30th, nearly two decades after its inaugural launch as FileLeech.

In that time the website shifted names (and owners) multiple times; it was perhaps best known to the modern game industry as FileFront, an outpost where the game modding community (which gave rise to many game development careers) could gather to share and discuss their work.

It was nearly shut down in 2009 after being acquired by Ziff Davis Media in 2005, but Ars Technica notes that it was saved at the last minute when owner Derek Labian and others scraped together enough money to buy it from Ziff Davis. It was later acquired by Defy Media, which shut down video game broadcasting hub GameTrailers earlier this year.

GameFront's database of files will be available for download until the end of the month, while staffer Dany King noted yesterday that he is trying to migrate the long-running FileFront/GameFront forums over to a new home at FilesNation. 

Meanwhile, the wizards over at the Internet Archive have been pulling and archiving data from GameFront for some time, and currently host a comprehensive, searchable archive of the site and its files.