Gonzalo and I started WCG back in the fall of 2003. We knew that a website covering the new genres of games outside entertainment, what we call "videogames with an agenda," had great potential. We've been overwhelmed with the success of the site.

But I'd never been entirely happy with the way it was designed. Blogs had certainly been around for a number of years, but they were still much more nascent two years ago than they are today. We use standard blog software and we hadn't done much modification to the standard templates. I've always felt that blogs in general have horrible design. They privilege temporal organization over any other form, and thus readers can only ever see what's new, not necessarily what's interesting or what's best or what's most applicable to their interests. Blogs risk becoming self-absorbed, egomaniacal. And worse, they often seem to demand constant attention. Newsreaders too; they even mark unread posts like a hungry, demonic email client piling unread message after unread message. This is no way to consume news, whether from a mass-market or micro-market publisher.

We've tried to remedy this problem in the redesign. The category listing is up on the top nav for easy access, and we've put a lot more content on every page, both recent content and our favorite posts. We're hopeful that this will improve organization and usability of the site. On a technical note, we've tested the new design on Safari, Firefox, and IE, but it really prefers Safari or Firefox. If you're still using IE you're a wanker anyway ;). But let us know if you spot any bugs.

As part of the redesign, we've also taken on some sponsorships and advertising. These are still being put in place (thus the weird generic debt consolidation ads) and they'll be changing and updating in in the coming week or so. We've also become part of a blog network called Project DU. The main reason we decided to take the plunge in this direction is that we want to reach new readers. Our readership has been great and we thank all of you for your ongoing support, but we think it's vital to get our core message out to a broader audience: videogames don't have to be about entertainment. They can take on serious topics like politics, education, advertising, healthcare, and social issues. And they should take those topics on.

So welcome, or welcome back!