How did gamedev.net get it's name? Well, we had devgames.com, sweetoblivion.com, and gameprog.com all available since those were our pre-existing sites.. and I guess we were too proud to settle on one of those names. So gamedev.net was available, but not gamedev.com (and still no gamedev.com to this day). So the line of thinking was to always call the site "gamedev.net" *everywhere* so:

• You remember the url
  
• You don't put in gamedev.com.. because if you remember the site name, you remember the url
  

So there you have it.. the ".net" will never leave. =) (plus "Gamedev" would probably sound a little awkward)