This will be the first and only time I talk about anything related to .com version of the GameDev domain here; I'm not trying to spam so if this is against the rules please just let me know as I am taking great care not to add a link here out of respect.

I was talking to you guys before about the fact that after 14 years the .com of gamedev now has an active owner who wants to do good things with it, but our talks on how we could work together between .com and the .net just sort of trailed off. I'm unsure why , but I wanted to again reiterate the respect I have for you all and say again that I want to find a way to work together.

To further make sure that you guys know I really want to have these talks, and to prove that I am in fact who I say I am, I have posted about this topic on my own GameDev site.

Thanks you for your time,

- Duane

Disclaimer: I don't speak for the site. I'm just a regular person who was granted power to moderate out some of the spammy-spam on the site.

I think it is more a brand issue than anything. Gamedev.net already has a very strong brand. Adding a domain with .com might not be much of a business benefit.

It would be interesting to see a comparison to see how many visitors it gets, but ultimately one would simply be a redirect to the other. It would be roughly akin to registering common misspellings and redirecting them to the legitimate site.

Personally as running my own small business, I don't see much of a compelling reason for it. This kind of question is brought up occasionally on the business side of the site --- what domain names should I purchase --- and the answer is that you should purchase whatever domains help your business. If it helps to have something descriptive in your name, {BigCity}{Action}, such as LasVegasGambling, or DenverFootball, or MiamiVoting, then by all means use something like that as a secondary domain. But I don't really see how a secondary domain name would help the site.

Again, I don't speak for the site or the administrators on the issue. They may see it differently.

Yet in this case historical whois records show that the .net was actually bought over a year after the .com - and the .net team told me they had the option of buying the .com at that time but chose not to - so the analogy of redirecting a misspelled site doesn't fit here, since the .com was around first but simply was not open to the public. I think of it more as a set of twins, one is the social guy and already knows people, the other is lesser known around town but now wants to do good things.

The core issue I have is that if I start to promote or advance the .com, it could have an impact on the .net site, or worse, be seen as against them when that is not my intent. I would rather support the general premise of what the gdnet team is doing - and support game development as a team together -than I would want to compete directly with them.

I really respect what they are doing and I want to support that; But if as you suggest I should instead be looking at this as a business thing where they only care about money and are not interested in working together, I need to be told that. That said, I would much rather be friendly with the gdnet team.

Any particular reason you'd want to create a competing site to begin with? gamedev.com was never anything but a parked domain. If you want to contribute to a game development community we've had one going since 1999 and there are plenty of ways to contribute back to the community without trying to fragment it.

In fact, we are open to new ideas as well. We are a small team, but even still have invested thousands upon thousands of hours into the site. And even with all the long nights I've spent working on this site, I couldn't do a thing without all the moderators who have spent an ungodly amount of time helping people out, reporting problems and bugs, and in general being a driving force behind the site. There is an even larger group of regulars who keep showing up for some reason to help everyone out and they are just as awesome.

I read your blog and I'll be honest with you.. your fiancé would probably appreciate you being around a whole lot more. We bring in enough to keep the site going and that's about it and honestly that's fine. This isn't a gold rush here. But you really have to take a good look at *why* you want to get into this in the first place. It may be substantially easier to start a discussion here and see if we can go anywhere with your ideas.

At this point in time I just want us to be able to help people.. and there is a lot I want to do better. Hell, there is a lot I think we screwed up and need to fix. But at the end of the day I'm going to do everything I can to provide something people can use to share information. I used to think of myself as a programmer who wandered into the teaching profession.. but I've seen so many people greatly impacted by good teachers that I've come to deeply respect the value of a teacher. I'm proud of my profession and I use my own students to motivate me to keep driving forward with Gamedev.net. Sharing information, collaborating, and providing a central area to learn from are hugely important aspects to our site.

I do not want to fragment the community, that is why I started this thread. And I am glad you feel the way you do about the great people who show up to learn more about game development, because I happen to be one of them at the moment.

My story of how I got the .Com domain is pretty public knowledge, as I have made no effort to hide how it happened. I honestly had no idea gamedev.net was around when I bid on it; I'm a Sr. Software guy, but very old-school in terms of game development as I got my start with MUD's (Yes, for the few of you old enough to remember the title, I can honestly tell people I am a a Wizard with a straight face) and until recently didn't have a reason to branch out into OpenGl or DirectX very deeply unless you count some xbox dev work that was more back-end If it helps you, just consider me new enough to the games side of the software business that if it looks like i am missing something its probably because I'm ignorant (I'm not stupid, really) and just learning the ropes. It is actually kind of nice, because I have an opportunity to be a noob again, except a have a good CS foundation so I do not feel as lost as many of the poor souls who are starting out without a software programming background spanning over two decades. I *like* being a noob for DirectX, because it means I get to learn something... and i am LOVING the learning I have done so far.

But I am now stuck in a situation that admittedly makes me uncomfortable; I paid thousands of dollars for a domain name thinking at the time I would make a very epic blog/portfolio/educational site, only to find that there is in fact a group of people I respect who had a similar idea. And I have that debt now, to boot.

There are other events in my life that as of this week make this an interesting development; I'm going to get married this month and so the cost of the domain has been on my mind a lot as well. Either way, if it seems like my offer to work together seems sort of lost or without direction, that is because it is, and the only compass I have to point the way forward - such as my CS or entrepreneurial biz-dev skills - are skills that now make me feel sort of guilty that if I use them i would be going against people I respect. I'm not sure what else to do except to ask if you want help, or if we can work together somehow.

Can I at least have your blessing?

There are other events in my life that as of this week make this an interesting development; I'm going to get married this month and so the cost of the domain has been on my mind a lot as well. Either way, if it seems like my offer to work together seems sort of lost or without direction, that is because it is, and the only compass I have to point the way forward - such as my CS or entrepreneurial biz-dev skills - are skills that now make me feel sort of guilty that if I use them i would be going against people I respect. I'm not sure what else to do except to ask if you want help, or if we can work together somehow.

Can I at least have your blessing?

What exactly are you trying to make? Are you trying to do this for money? If so, don't use us as a model. ;)

Well thank you for giving me your blessing to do whatever I want with the domain, but my offer still stands as I do not personally feel like just because we can not think of a way to work together right now, that we should close that door for the future,

Please feel free to let me know if you think of something, and I will do the same.