Sunday, July 23, 2006

Console Gold/GamingTrend Wikipedia Article

Yeah, it's been a long time since my last blog. I really haven't felt like writing anything or I find myself too busy to find time to sit down and type out my thoughts on things. So, my first post back is going to be about the site I used to work for.

Before I begin, I'm saddened to say that someone picked up the CG domain and turned it into a porn link site. I had been regularily checking to see if the domain was becoming available, but the day it was switched I was out of town. I think it happened on a Saturday because I know I checked the status on Friday. It does kind of piss me off to know the site I helped work a lot on has been changed into this, but I guess that's the way the ball bounces.

I don't think I've made it a secret that I still lurk around the GamingTrend board, but I refuse to contribute in any way to it. I noticed that one of the users set up a Wikipedia article on GamingTrend. This is all fine and dandy, but it seems the article is up for deletion (but may yet survive). My problem with the article is that it is skin and bones. There is a vast history on CG/GT that is not even touched on in the article. The main reason this was probably written is because of Ron's stance on the Starforce copy protection software and that he will take 10 points off of the final rating if a game contains Starforce because one of the games destroyed his computer.

To me I think this whole idea comes by as too little, too late. If GT wanted to strike its own path it would have done this a long time ago when Starforce was at its high point. Nowadays most publishers have eliminated using Starforce (UbiSoft and CDV being the big ones), but this was brought up because of the last game CDV sent out to GT had Starforce in it (along with a game from Midway, who really doesn't release that many PC games). This is akin to jumping onto the Titanic after it started to sink. GT wants to make this big news (Ron posted it in Starforce's board and on Evil Avatars board from what I've seen), but it's just too little, too late in my estimation.

I personally would have put the idea that someone was thinking of putting an article up on the forum and then have everyone contribute to it, including the staff. There isn't a whole lot of staff left that can comment on things before around 2001 outside of Ron, but a more broad history could have been made. I personally would delete the article simply because there isn't a whole lot of information on it. Of course, maybe that is a problem with Wikipedia in itself because many of the articles don't contain enough information. Then again there are many comprehensive gaming related articles as well, such as Penny Arcade or 8-Bit Theater (which, granted, are both webcomics). For a gaming website perspective there is a site younger than CG/GT, Gamers With Jobs, that has a larger article.

Bottom line is I would be more happy if there was more information, but as it is now the article really doesn't add anything to the information superhighway.