GSM rocks simply because it's not like the other blogs. There are a million places to find mainstream and pop culture gaming news, but very few have "fringe" gaming items. The closest I can think of is Insert Credit.

Continue to go for quality over quantity. It's refreshing to read.

GameSetWatch and those other blogs are two entirely different animals. I personally like to think of GSW as the equivalent of Time Magazine, while a lot of the others are like the National Enquirer or other tabloids with more accurate content. I enjoy reading Kotaku as well, but the type of content, as well as level of writing and audience are entirely different.

I much prefer GSW to both Kotaku and Joystiq, primarily because the posts aren't just links to news bits somewhere else.

This is a daily read. The other two are daily headline scans.

I've been a lurker on the site for many months now, and can definitely appreciate how GSW has colonized a specific niche of game-related blogging. I agree with Troy and Chris very strongly--GSW is not an imitator of Kotaku and Joystiq, and that's a very good thing.

The things I like most about GSW is the "insider's view" we get with so many of these posts. I tend to put more stock in what I read here than on other blogs. It's more professional. There's also a nice balance between humor and quirkiness on the one hand, and seriousness and thoughtfulness on the other.

Indeed, I've often thought about offering to contribute a post, something I would never think of doing on Joystiq or Kotaku (though I do admire their writers' witty style).

Over at my site, we're constantly debating among ourselves and our readers about the issues you raise here. Should we try to openly compete with these other sites, or focus more on the aspects that make us unique? I hope that GSW will choose the latter. In my experience, a smaller but more dedicated readership is best.

At any rate, I hope that GSW doesn't change too drastically!

GSW is still the best. Can anyone tell a dif between Joystiq and Kotaku anymore?

The question is on Destructoid: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=destructoid.com

holy moly, talk about growth.

and qj.net, where did this site come from?
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=qj.net

as for yellow journalism, anyone know anything on gamebrink and how they happen to review games before any other outlets? i mean everything gets a 91% but still, something smells reekfishy

GSW is great for exactly the reasons mentioned. Plus you guys actually, you know, think before typing, unlike Joystiq and Kotaku. But I have to disagree on one point - there's no way in hell the word "worthy" should be used in any capacity to describe that shithole Destructoid, unless the "worthy" is followed by "of deletion."

Quality over quantity sounds like the way to go. Instead of racing to hit the post button there's going to be original content on GSW. I'm all for that.

Destructoid has grown quite a bit, but they aren't a "gaming blog" they're more like college humor for geeks. As for Gamebrink they have a history of making stuff up and just stealing what everyone else writes as their own. They said Kojima wanted to make a spanking game for the DS. Another time they made up a story about a real Wii playing Gamecube games. Anything to get traffic....

Yes, GSW is awesome. And I'm not just saying that as a columnist, heh.

It'd be nice to see more posts, but not at the expense of posting every bit of game news that exists each day. Most of the stuff on Joystiq and Kotaku I don't read, but GSW does a much better chance of presenting things that are at least somewhat interesting, and often very much so.

I'm amazed you were able to keep it up this long. Simon, you're a machine! I look forward to anything that comes out of Gama/GSW. Hell, I subscribe to Game Developer just to be able to read thoughtful gaming journalism!

At VC&G, I've always focused on quality over quantity, and it has served me very well so far. It means my site has completely unique content that can't be found anywhere else. I think that's the best way to go for "indie" blogs these days since there are much bigger fish with much bigger budgets out there. And hey, who knew that I could ever call a particular blog "indie" -- aren't they _all_ supposed to be indie? With the incredible recent growth of these blog conglomerate companies, the big blogs are starting to look more like "big media" all the time.

Anyway, keep up the great work, Simon. I don't know how you've managed to juggle so many projects so far, but I envy your time management skills!