Here is a slightly modified version of something I posted in my forums about a similar topic. I hope some get to read it before I am banned and deleted.
I've never denied that QJ.NET is a commercial venture. This is obviously very controvercial to many people who have been in the homebrew scene for a long time, as a site that covers homebrew has never really done what we are doing before. I can understand how it would feel like an intrusion. Kinda like when I was young and punk rock became popular, and commercialized, I hated it, I wanted it to remain underground. So yeah, I can understand the way a lot of people feel.
My side of it is this:
1) What is wrong with me paying my staff? We are doing what we love for a living. By your logic, Smiths, you should hate IGN, Gamespot, Joystiq, Kotaku, and any other big gaming site. They ALL pay their staff. Hell, Wraggster has ads and affiliates too. He is making money off of reporting news and there is nothing wrong with it.
We pay our staff so that they can report cutting edge news, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week (we were even here on Christmas). This canot be done without ads and paid staff.
Also, we also have thousands of dollars invested in Research and Development (new CMS, site designs, download site, hosting, technology, revolutionary new blog comments system, etc). These are the quality of features that QJ.net will offer. There is no way to bring the kind of quality we want to bring without advertising and paid staff.
2) We don't just cover homebrew, we cover everything. And soon we won't just cover gaming, we'll cover cars, gadgets, cellphones, gardening, cooking, etc. Granted, a substantial part of our traffic is here because of homebrew news, but that doesn't mean that we are "profiting off of homebrew". That argument that is hogwash in my opinion.
I hope you guys who disagree with me might, at least, be able to understand our goal better now, and perhaps not feel like we're the Nazis we're made out to be in some circles.
One last note. About the Sourcing thing. I've maintained for months that if he agrees to start sourcing us. I'm glad he's finally taken us up on that, my hat is off to you Wragg. I truly hope this is a first step towards a more civil and pleasent online enviornment for all of us.
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