I’m looking forward to GenCon in a couple of weeks, if my work responsibilities don’t require me to cancel my hotel reservation and stay home.
Hopefully you like how the site’s working now. For those who are new here, I scan the web sites of literally thousands of game-related companies for news items. When I find something that seems interesting, funny, useful, etc., I post a short blurb linking back to that item. Hopefully, the blurb is short enough that you can read it quickly and detailed enough that you can decide whether or not it interests you. I post the blurbs by general category: Game Accessories, Board Games, Card Games, Miniatures and Miniatures Games, PC and Online Games, Role-Playing Games, and Wargames. If you subscribe to my RSS feed, you can easily get the information of interest to you.
I also have a “Game Deals” category. When I find a discount or deal on a game-related item, I’ll make sure the post containing that news item gets flagged to be part of this category on the site. If you monitor that RSS feed, you’ll be aware of the latest deals I’ve seen on games on the web.
How many game related sites and pages do I monitor for news? Here’s a rough estimate (for some sites I monitor multiple pages, so the actual figures are probably a little less than quoted here):
- Game Accessories: 85
- Board Games: 825
- Card Games: 117
- Miniatures: 490
- Miniatures Games: 156
- PC and Online Games: 92
- Game Retailers: 101
- Role-Playing Games: 156
- Wargames: 151
- Game News Sites and Blogs: 34
That works out to around 2,200 sites and/or pages that I’m monitoring. I won’t list them all here, but here are a few examples from each of the above categories, to give you an idea of where I’ve placed them in the list:
- Game Accessories: Active Minds Solutions, BradyGames, Chessex, Crystal Caste, Dragon Forge Design, Dwarven Forge
- Board Games: 4th Street Software, Acorn Games, Alderac Entertainment Group, Asmodee Games, Phalanx Games, Strat-O-Matic
- Card Games: Archetype Games, Bandai, Gozer Games, Ship of Fools Games, Upper Deck Entertainment, Wizards of the Coast
- Miniatures: Acheson Creations, Bend Sinister Miniatures, Copplestone Castings, Naloomi’s Workshop, Thunderbolt Mountain
- Miniatures Games: Aberrant, Eureka Miniatures, Games Workshop, Rackham Games, Starfleet Universe, Urban Mammoth
- PC and Online Games: 2K Games, Activision, Codemasters Software, Interplay, Matrix Games, Shrapnel Games, THQ
- Game Retailers: Alternative Armies, Alliance Game Distributors, Funagain Games, Ravenstone Games, Warpath Games
- Role-Playing Games: 0One Games, Chaosium, Exile Game Studio, Goodman Games, Paizo Publishing, Studio 2 Publishing
- Wargames: Ad Astra Games, BayonetGames, Columbia Games, Multiman Publishing, Omega Games, Two Hour Wargames
- Game News Sites and Blogs: About.com Games, Board Game Central, Game Publishers Association, Wargames Illustrated, Web-Grognards
Depending on the time available to me each evening, I scan one of the above groups of sites to see who’s posted something new. Then I read each of the updated sites to build the news items for that particular group for that evening.
As I become aware of interesting new sites or find that a site I’ve been monitoring goes offline, I update the list.
When I go to game conventions, I’ll post what I’ve seen, heard, played, and enjoyed.
When I play a new game and have a particularly good or bad experience, I’ll tell you about that also. Where possible, I’ll do full reviews.
Periodically, I’ll post updates like this to let you know what I’m thinking about the site, changes I’m planning on making, etc.
Thanks for dropping by!
