Gamegrene Third Edition

 

Gamegrene.com launched back in August 2000 with the release of Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition. In 2004, it became "Gamegrene Second Edition" alongside the releases of the new GURPS, Paranoia, and World of Darkness - about six months after D&D 3.5. As we write this, it's May of 2008, and D&D 4th Edition is on the way. It seems only appropriate that we try and keep up, even if we are a version behind.

your kids are going to confuse d20s with marbles

When we started, we had declared war. Traditional gaming was dead, we said. In 1997, the non-electronic gaming market was worth just over $1 billion, and electronic gaming lagged far behind. By the year 2000 e-gaming had reached $1.6 billion in revenues. And what of 2008? A few weeks ago, Grand Theft Auto IV did a half billion in sales. In one week. As of this past January, the game it knocked off the top of the charts, Halo 3, had sold over 8 million copies.

We don't know how well D&D 4th Edition is going to sell, but we're pretty sure it ain't gonna touch those numbers, not even by wholesale steal-- I mean, borrowing concepts from World of Warcraft, the best-selling MMORPG in the entire history of all mankind, which apparently it is now against the law not to play. Yes, D&D influenced WoW, which influenced D&D. One can only imagine what we'll be saying about that in another eight years.

And so it seems that traditional, old school, pen-and-paper, face-to-face gaming is dead. Deader than it was eight years ago. So dead that your kids are going to confuse d20s with marbles, and are likely to find them out in the back yard, forgotten with the army men and the Stretch Armstrong.

Our games were always kept in the basement, but now it seems the door's been shut tight.

And so we ask again, as we did eight years ago: is the industry doomed? Has it all, for lack of a better term, gone to shit? Has our little niche turned into a ditch, a grave, a hole in the ground where pen-and-paper games lie buried under shovelfuls of WoW trial CDs, where polyhedrons lie scattered amongst the spent shells of GTA IV players?

Probably.

For the gamer who's still sick of the typical.

But as we said back then: Role-playing is dead. Long live role-playing.

Gamegrene is not a typical gaming website. We're not pro-anything, nor are we rabid indie gaming fanatics; we like our D&D too, and we're here to promote independent and alternative ideas that can be applied to any sort of gaming. Likewise, we're not necessarily anti-anything - sure, we rag on WoW and GTA and whatnot, but that doesn't mean we're going to ignore them entirely. It's all part of the big gaming food chain. Indie games, and 4th Edition, and WoW, and Halo, and LARPing, and ARGs, and Gygax-help-us even Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! too. We recognize that. And we welcome that sort of discussion here. Like the dung beetle, we need this stuff to survive.

We are, in the end, not too far off philosophically from those two crazy old guys in Wisconsin who, some 35 years ago, slapped together a little book that changed the face of gaming. But as with anything, change continues.

And so do we.

Welcome to the third edition of Gamegrene. For the gamer who's still sick of the typical.

Why yet another gaming site?

Gamegrene strives to become a major source for open, honest discussion about gaming, providing unbiased coverage of major events and releases while maintaining a healthy dose of original material, honest interviews and reviews. The indie RPG movement is strong, and there are a lot of people doing really cool things, both in RPGs and in peripheral fields. In short, there are a lot of things that bear a closer look, a little deconstruction, and some criticism. That's why we're here. We hope that's why you're here too.

Contacting Gamegrene

Most inquiries should be sent to info@gamegrene.com or through our contact form.

If you'd like to write for Gamegrene, read our writer's guidelines... it contains a bunch of tips to start you off as well as some questions we'd like answered. We're always looking for columnists, one shots, or just regular bi-weekly and monthly contributors - if you're interested, reach us at info@gamegrene.com or through our contact form.

If you'd like to send us review material, deliver to:

Gamegrene
c/o Kevin Hemenway
36 Kimball St.
Concord, NH 03301
info@gamegrene.com

Who's responsible for this travesty?

Gamegrene was created by Disobey, a New Hampshire business whose primary insanity is the aptly named Disobey.com. Restless that he had grown away from gaming, Kevin Hemenway (aka "Morbus Iff"), launched Gamegrene in an attempt to bring the same sort of uniqueness to the gaming world that he has accomplished with Disobey. Disobey was honored as being one of the "most popular news and media magazines" by Yahoo!, and has been mentioned in Playboy, Time, Slashdot, Wired and far more.

Joining Disobey in supporting Gamegrene is the Seattle-based aethereal FORGE, a creative services collective bringing together artists, writers, designers and other creatives from across the country and around the world to work on creative projects together for mutual benefit. Michael Fiegel (aka "Aeon(ite)") brings to the Gamegrene table a unique, honest perspective on gaming, a love of the fantastic tempered with the gritty cynicism brought on by reading one too many Cyberpunk stories. aethereal FORGE's content has been praised by fans and critics around the world, and lauded by those from The Onion and Wired, among others. aethereal FORGE has been mentioned in forums as disparate as the TechTV, The Food Network, and magazines such as Forbes FYI and Yahoo! Internet Life.