US website drops off the Radar
Daily Radar and PCXL sink, all hands lost
The dot.com crash and online advertising slump has claimed another victim today, with the closure of the American branch of Daily Radar. Quite what this means for Imagine's NextGen and PC Gamer websites, both of which relied on Daily Radar for much of their regular content (not to mention their annoying array of pop-up ads) is unclear at this stage. A small number of staff are apparently being relocated within the parent company Imagine Media, but others aren't so lucky and the front page of the website currently includes an address to send job offers to, along with a list of previous contributors and (in true Daily Radar style) a twelve item "top ten" list of reasons why the site is closing down. Amusing suggestions include "John Romero made us his bitch" and "we wanted to beat the other game website employees to the unemployment lines".
They seem to have failed on this second target though, as the news of the site's closure comes hot on the heels of the apparent sacking of most of the editorial staff at Daily Radar UK (run by Future Network) last month. Other recent high profile collapses include the death of the Gameloft network and CNet's Gamecenter, not to mention the sale of Barrysworld to Electronics Boutique and the imminent dismemberment of Gameplay.com.
In related news, PCXL.com (another Imagine website) has also closed down after an abortive attempt to resurrect the defunct gaming magazine as a subscription-only website. As you might expect from PCXL, their exit from the web was rather less graceful than Daily Radar's. "Tens of thousands of people emailed us after we closed PCXL. They told us that if we brought it back in any form, they'd pay for it - pay even more for it than before. We knew it wasn't true. So, just to prove the point, we brought it back. You didn't pay for it. Now cram it."