Why is devmaster.net owned by garage games?

[pippilina]

Hmm this strikes me as odd. Although the devmaster website says "sponsored by garage games", this suggests advertising. However, if you look here, it appears that garage games -owns- devmaster.net. What makes it furthermore weird is how they go through it indirectly via "markmonitor" which is also owned by gg.

Registrant:
Domain Admin
GarageGames
245 W. 5th ave
Eugene OR 97401
US
+1.5413453040 Fax:

Domain Name: devmaster.net

Registrar Name: Markmonitor.com
Registrar Whois: whois.markmonitor.com
Registrar Homepage: http://www.markmonitor.com

Administrative Contact:
Domain Admin
GarageGames
245 W. 5th ave
Eugene OR 97401
US
+1.5413453040 Fax:
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Domain Admin
GarageGames
245 W. 5th ave
Eugene OR 97401
US
+1.5413453040 Fax:

Created on..............: 2003-03-06.
Expires on..............: 2012-03-06.
Record last updated on..: 2009-09-01.

Domain servers in listed order:

ns2.networkredux.net
ns1.networkredux.net
ns3.networkredux.net

[pippilina]

Additionally, garagegames.com and devmaster.net are not only registered by the same registrar, but also share the same nameserver

[SyntaxError]

I wasn't really aware of this but then I'm not sure it matters. At least in the forums I haven't noticed any huge push towards Torque. In fact it seems the mods here are fairly even handed; immensely better than the mods on gamedev.net (who in my view are often rude a-holes). If they can run a decent game dev site more power to them.

[Reedbeta]

It's not really a secret. DevMaster was originally an independent site but was acquired by GG some time ago. However the mods are not GG employees, just volunteers.

[alphadog]

If anti-GG posterchild "Hardly" (http://www.devmaster.net/forums/member.php?u=12560) (see his posts) can live unbanned while on crusade, I don't think anyone' s expression is being curtailed! :) Actually, up until that guy came around and made a lot of noise, mention of Torque was pretty low frequency and usually in the context of many other viable, good engines.

As long as you not abusive of the forums and its visitors, you can push any pet engine you want!

If anything, having the silent, hands-off backing of a large-ish company is good for a forum. It's less likely to vanish without explanation.

[fireside]

There may be a slight conflict of interest, but I think Garage games sponsors some amateur contests and things like that. They seem pretty all right. I'm just glad there's a site like this to keep up on engines, news, etc. They also don't seem to over advertise their products or anything. It's really news to me because I never would have thought it.

[gillvane]

That's news to me.

I think the fact that there's no way to tell says that these forums are unbiased.

however, the best policy would probably be a disclosure somewhere stating the forums are owned by GG.

But I'm not complaining, these are good forums with knowledgeable members and I haven't seen any bias towards Torque or any other engine.

I will say the new T3D engine looks great and I look forward to seeing the MMOKit ported over to the T3D engine.

[vrnunes]

News to me as well, but until now I never noticed anything favoring the owners, I just hope the forums stay neutral...

[SamuraiCrow]

The only pro-GG bias in this website is in the 3d Engines database. If you look at the most reviewed commercial engines, TGE is pegged at the #1 positions despite lackluster reviews actually contained in it. If you ignore that, then the rest is unbiased.

[JarkkoL]

It's not biased, because TGE is the most reviewed engine in the database. If you want to get engines sorted by the best overall rating, you need to select that from the sorting options.

[Reedbeta]

Yeah, "most reviewed" means with the greatest number of reviews. Actually, the highest rated engine with a reasonable number of reviews is currently the Esenthel Engine.

[roel]

It's not really a secret. DevMaster was originally an independent site but was acquired by GG some time ago. However the mods are not GG employees, just volunteers.
The true secret is ofcourse that all ordinary members - including me - are paid to post here. <play x-files tune now> :lol: