R.I.P. Game, Set, Watch

Game, Set, Watch, the alternate game news blog founded by Simon Carless has gone on permanent hiatus today. Simon Carless wrote a lengthy and final post to the site, along with key current and past editors. Carless talks about the people that help put the site on the map some six years ago including current IGF chairman Brandon Boyer, former Kotaku/ now GameTrailers stalwart Michael McWhertor, Gamasutra news director Frank Cifaldi, Alice Taylor, and Game Developer Magazine Editor-in-Chief Brandon Sheffield.

Below is the most important part of this final post at GSW - The reason for closing down the blog:

"So, why are we stopping? Well mainly, we're seeing an increasing overlap with sister site IndieGames.com, just in terms of some of the best material out there being indie-related. So Danny is going to go and blog over there, while Eric comes back to help us a bit more on mothership site Gamasutra.

But we also think that mainstream game blogs are doing a much better job nowadays of including the weirder and alt.links in amongst their gaming news. So it's not like GSW is _irrelevant_ as such. But it's never really been that relevant to start with - it's always been an entertaining fripperie.

But I'd like to thank _everyone_ who contributed to GSW over the years - you guys rock. It's obviously something I care about, and y'know, as much as there's more to life than blogging about weird video game stuff, there's a lot of love and passion around this subculture. I know we published a whole lot of stories that wouldn't have got picked up like they did, and I think that made some people happy. And making people happy is important."

You can read the entire post here. It features some additional commentary from current editors Eric Caoili and Danny Cowan. We wish everyone associated with GSW past and present the best of luck. Despite many web sites covering the weirdness of gaming, GSW did it best and will be sorely missed by its regular readers.