Back when I first really got into gaming a few years back, Slivers had turned me on to VoodooExtreme, as well as a number of websites. Run at the time by Billy Wilson, the site was updated continuously, and Billy’s wry sense of humor had me going back for more.

Well, there was a huge shake-up 2 years ago, and Billy left, and one of his news posters, Apache, who has extensive experience in the gaming website industry, took over. Apparently Billy didn’t have 100% ownership of the site and was forced out (some nasty rumors that I won’t repeat here). Apache had joined the staff about a year earlier, and is an excellent news poster, and very knowledgeable about the industry. Still enjoyed the site, but missed the humor. Their was some kind of squabble over the name, and it went from Voodoo Extreme to VE3D. They had even tried 3dgamingnews.com, but that never caught on. Then Apache even slowly started to fade from VE3D, with occasional posts, and I started to visit less often. (The main guy for the last 6 months sucks – late posts, and way too Euro-focused).

Fast forward to today: This morning VE3D announced they’re now part of the IGN network. Apache’s back, posted this mornings update promising to fix the look of the site, and pushing readers to pay for the IGN insider subscription to not see the obtrusive ads. I understand the business of being on the web is very different today than it was back in the high-flying days of the Internet boom, but IGN? IGN is a watered down, money grabbing internet “news” site that is a jack of all trades, master of none. Their sites cover all the genres, PC games, Console games, movies, and a “For Men” site. I just don’t think hard-core gamers respect IGN, though they can have a few good write-ups every now and then.

It’s really too bad for VE3D, in my opionion, it just shows how the mighty have fallen. I used to visit now only once a week, but I don’t even see that happening. BluesNews and Evil Avatar will continue to be where I get most of news.