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I’ve been asked by readers why this site is so heavily laden with articles about RPGs and miniatures. I’m sure some of you have wondered if those are my gaming interests and if that’s why the coverage of other areas, such as wargames, is relatively light. The truth, sadly, isn’t even as interesting as that.

To get the news I publish here, I rely on two sources: Google Alerts and manufacturers’ web sites. Google Alerts sends me an email any time it detects news about wargames or board games. I also use another tool to scan about 400-500 game-related sites to find anything new, then filter manually through all that “potential news” to find what might be of interest to you. Because this is a hobby and not a full-time job, I can’t spend lots of time each day scouring other offline sources, making calls, etc. Maybe someday the site will take off to a point where I can, but so far it hasn’t.

I personally enjoy most facets of gaming. I like a good wargame. I like a good miniatures game. I like board games, card games, PC strategy games, and RPGs. Bottom line, I like a good game and I’m not too particular what “kind” of game it is. This site’s “shotgun” coverage is a reflection of that wide-ranging interest. I don’t intentionally sleight any facet of gaming here. Nor do I intentionally leave off any particular manufacturer. I try to treat the little “one-person shop” as well as the industry leaders in terms of coverage. Actually, I’ll probably bend over backwards for the little guy, to help them make it big if I can.

But the sad truth, from my perspective on this side of the computer screen, is that the most active parts of the hobby gaming industry right now seem to be RPGs and miniatures. If I scan the Internet every day, I am almost always guaranteed to find that some foundry has released a new miniature, and some RPG publisher has put out a new supplement or title. It’s rare, by comparison, that the wargame publishers put out anything new. But if they do, and I find out about it, I definitely cover it. I’m not saying that I think other parts of the industry are dying, or anything of the sort. I think it’s simply that the amount of work required to produce a totally new tabletop wargame (with maps, counters, rules, etc.) is probably substantially more than to produce (for example) an RPG map in PDF form or a new miniature. I also think there are many more businesses actively producing miniatures and RPG items right now than wargames. As a result, we should expect to see (and do) more RPG and miniature releases than new wargame releases. Since I cover a sort of “survey” of the industry, you should expect to see (and do) more RPG and miniatures coverage here than wargame coverage… not because of any bias on my part.