Earlier today, gaming site Shacknews was acquired by Gamefly and the site’s founder is departing the site. It seems like a pretty random occurrence but, hopefully, it doesn’t negatively impact the site. Shacknews is, to my knowledge, one of the biggest independently-ran gaming sites on the Internet which seems to allow its editors a very generous level of editorial freedom and that was always one of the biggest draws for me. The other notable feature of Shacknews is its superb threaded comment system that encourages ease-of-navigation, reading, and posting. I’m not a big fan of the traditional take on Internet forums, but the setup at the Shack is absolutely superb. I’ve probably submitted above ten-to-twelve thousand comments since I’ve been a user there (registered back in 2004) compared to the paltry-by-comparison three-thousand some posts at GameDev.net — a site I’ve been an active member of since 2000.

In fact, next to GameDev.net, I’d say that the Shack is one of my two more beloved websites.

So there’s that. Here’s hoping it works out for the best for employees and community members of the site. And, most importantly, that the site can continue being the kind of gaming news site that has both quality content and whose writers have the freedom to write, more or less, what they feel is appropriate.