DEATH RATTLE OF THE NET, PART 47,322 [Author: Lum the Mad]

Today’s daily deathwatch infobits:

• Fatbabies is repeating a rumor that layoffs are coming to Gamespy and their affiliate program is being axed. That would reduce the number of successful web networks to, um, are we in negative numbers now?

• Evil Avatar joined the For the love of God, please send me money so I don’t have to find a real job bandwagon. Evil Avatar used to write like BitchX of Gaming Insider. Then again, so did I. He turned into Blue, I turned into… well, anyway, it was a nice metaphor while it lasted.

• Yahoo went kabloom. Ad banners blamed.

• Long interesting thread on Planetcrap which started discussing sCary’s cry for help and ended with George Broussard of 3DRealms giving Chet of OMM permission to pirate Duke Nukem Forever. As always, I can’t make this stuff up.
• Derek Smart posted that selling games is really hard. The answer? Marketing your games by destroying Usenet newsgroups singlehandedly.

  Again, let me point that this is Derek Smart we’re talking about. I’ve been the whipping boy for the media, back when my first game flopped and to this day, the odd jab comes and goes. As such, I never have cut them slack. Ever. But, my games do get coverage in ALL the mainstream media. And that was even when I didn’t have a game to speak of. It boils down to this: If the media do not determine that the game and or the premise thereof is news worthy, its not getting covered. Period. Whats so wrong about that? Where does it say that the media has to cover EVERY game every released? The statements Brad makes above are insulting at best, to the media. I have NEVER sent a boxed product to the media for review. Ever. In fact, all those BCM previews you see all over the Internet and in the print media, are single CD-ROMs, hand written by me. In fact, some of them have a PostIt note with some basic directives. I personally burn the CD-ROM, stick it in a padded envelope and shove it in the mail.

  Expect Bill Huffman’s Combat Mission any day now.

• I’m told there will be a “major announcement made to affiliates (that would be me, campers) regarding Crossroads’ future tonight”. Peril-sensitive sunglasses ON.