| THE LONGER STORY
... This web site has a long and varied history. Originally
started on Yahoo in 1999, it was used primarily as a photo hosting site
for my game and other selling activity on eBay, Amazon and other sites.
When I officially decided to combine all my game and other selling activity
under a single name (smorgasboardofgames) in late 2000, I set it up as
smorgasboardofgames.com on January 1, 2001 ... but I still primarily used
it for photo hosting for my game and other selling activity on other sites.
Sometime late in 2002 I decided to sell games directly from here in combination
with my selling on other sites. Sometime in 2004 this was my primary game
selling site and the other sites (like eBay & Amazon) became secondary
sites.
As 2006 was coming to
a close and I was approaching my own (self-imposed) retirement, I decided
to exit the game selling business. By this time I had sold over 100,000
items since 1999 ... of which almost 75,000 were game or game related.
Although I was leaving the selling end, I did still want to keep my hand
in games ... hence, this database was started. It was a natural extension,
especially considering the thousands and thousands of pages of information
I possess regarding games. It was started as a database under my own terms
and conditions ... part-time but with a lot of research and information
made available.
Although I am obviously
prejudice, I am very proud of the website. From its small beginnings it
has grown to be one of the top board game information sites on the internet.
From many of the eMails I have received, it has supplied information which
is not readily available elsewhere and, especially concerning the rules
available, has helped many of you replay games which you thought were lost
to you. The site itself has had a steady growth of an average of 3% increase
in visitors / unique visitors per month over its lifetime ... plus almost
86% have revisited the site each year.
The sale of the contents
is not anything special, per se, but the access to yet unpublished material
in my possession was the factor in my selling. I have some 15,000 documents
(rules, advertisements, etc) and pages of information I was slowly going
through. Some of this ... like rules for over 2,000 wargames ... you will
undoubtedly see starting to pop up on the internet. But, quite frankly,
how the new owners will publish or handle the information is out of my
hands.
Going forward, I will
wind down this web site. I still retain the domain name (smorgasboardofgames.com)
and will do so for at least the next 3 years. Will I start another web
site? Probably not, but hey, who knows?
Finally, I would like
to thank everyone who has visited the site or eMailed me. I hope everyone
finds their gaming good! |
