GameCenter is no more. If you believe Slashdot, it’s because after ZDNet acquired CNET, the good folks at Ziff Davis decided to nuke GameCenter in favor of their own GameSpot. Perhaps Ziff-Davis didn’t want two game sites confusing people, but on the other hand GameCenter was like a poor cousin to GameSpot even before the acquisition. GameCenter was on the short list of sites I visited daily, but it always seemed rather generic and its reviews of games were much spottier than GameSpot (i.e. it never reviewed a lot of games that GameSpot did).
But GameCenter did go out with a bang by posting a story claiming that the Interactive Digital Software Association is preparing to cave in to politicians by proposing voluntary restrictions on how they market games rated “M” for mature.
Specifically ads for games rated “M” would not be placed in magazines that have 45 percent or more readers under age 17 (I guess that means no more ads telling us “John Romero’s About to Make You His Bitch.” Hmmm…give Romero a few ad free years and maybe, just maybe, he can get all the bugs out of Daikatana!)
Web sites will supposedly have the same standard with Media Metrix being used to measure the age of the audience. I guess the theory is to completely forget all of the small fan sites that will never show up on Media Metrix but whose presence is a key factor in the success of a lot of games these days.
I hope this turns out to be a hoax or a mistake.