SOS' Gameviews: State of the Website

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As many of my readers from the past have noticed, there has been very little - if any - activity on this website the past few years. Many of you have gently commented on it, telling me you miss my reviews, and requesting more. These comments and requests are very gratefully received, thank you - it's nice to know my words were reaching someone.

So by way of apology, I'd like to explain what happened - why the well dried up. There are a number of factors:

1. Work: I took a new job in Summer 2002 (which I changed for the better in late 2006, BTW, but it's still full time) and it's drained my energy. My previous job had a different pattern: very intense for a few weeks, then slack for a week - this actually suits my temperament better than day in, day out. During the slack week I could focus on gaming (still a major interest in my life!) and write articles. Alas, the daily grind of a regular job is just too draining on me (I'm older than most of you reading this) - I don't have the energy for that anymore, I'm sorry.
2. Health: My health was not good for a while. It's better now, thank God, but it was definitely a factor there for a year or so. It even exacerbated the problem in the previous point, as most of my vacation days were spent at the doctor's ... At any rate, this not only interfered with writing articles, it also meant my correspondence dried up as I had no energy to answer emails. I had to declare email bankruptcy when my inbox had over 300 unanswered emails - I apologize if you never received a reply from an email last year.
3. Boardgamegeek.com (BGG): It used to be I could have reviews out fairly early in a game's life, and be sure people would be interested because there wasn't much written about a given game yet. In the past few years, boardgamegeek.com has been running at full speed, and by the time I've even heard of a game, there are twenty opinions posted on it already, half of them well informed and well articulated. Don't get me wrong: I love BGG and I read it regularly, recommend it highly and even voluntarily contribute money to it as a great resource - but it just means that my pages are somewhat obsoleted by it. By the time I'm ready to write a review, it's been done well a dozen times, so I feel, "Why bother?" In the old days, many of my articles were fairly timely, and it felt like I was contributing a lot to the hobby. Now it's just another drop in the bucket.
4. Programming language: I learned html coding in 1993, and have never updated any of my knowledge. (Heck, I'm writing this page now using vi.) Over a dozen years of coding progress makes that a different epoch - while it's 20th-century programming, it almost feels like it's from the 19th century ... I don't have the time or energy to learn how to make web pages attractive, I'm sorry. My pages look old fashioned, even to me, and it's hard to write new reviews that will look so dowdy.

So, I apologize to my loyal readers of the past for having dropped the ball. I appreciate your kind words and thoughts over the years. I may indeed still write an article now and then - who knows? - but I wouldn't count on it if I were you. Instead I refer you to Boardgamegeek.com and urge you to become a member (which is free and doesn't generate any spam) - you won't regret it.

I especially apologize to those publishers who have given me review copies of games since 2002 - I gave the review copies away to other gamers and their comments appear at BGG and/or on other web pages. I no longer accept review copies.

Take care,

-Steffan

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