What Zines???

The OGL is one of the coolest concepts ever in the field of role-playing games in my humble opinion. The fact that WotC is now messing with it blows my mind. I guess the corporate mindset finally made it to Renton, WA. Most likely, they got a shipment from Redmond, WA.

When d20 first came out, there was a ton of buzz and rightly so - it was one of the neatest things to happen to RPGs. Everyone and their brother put up a Zine with free content. Even Steve Jackson Games, one of my favs, got in on the act. They started a subscription based zine called d20 Weekly.

Don't go looking for it, it's just a holder page out there in the ether. (I could buy the domain if I wanted it. Tempting!) d20 Weekly was ended at SJG after a rather short run. They cited at the time that the zine was losing money. At the time I remember reading (can't find the reference) that it was losing money due to the fact that there were so many d20 zines offering free content, d20 Weekly just couldn't compete.

Today I decided to write an article on various free gaming zines. I figured a stroll through Google would deliver me hundreds and I could pick out a few to showcase.

I was shocked. Repeated Google searches brought me very few results. Frankly, there were no zines I wanted to point to directly.

It's amazing to me how this hobby has struggled. There are more games available now than there has ever been. There are dozens of FREE games. The hobby has died and come back more times than a Marvel super-villain. First, the religious right tried to kill it. It came back. Then, it just wasn't cool. It came back. Now, at a time when every person under the age of 25 owns a game system and millions of people play WoW - we're seeing the hobby again retreat.

I'm tempted to start my own gaming zine, with paid writers and artists, struggle for the next few years and then ride the next wave or two of popularity. It would probably make me rich, then poor, then rich then utterly broke - but it might be a fun ride!