In a post today, it was revealed that Nintendo DPad, probably one of the best independently operated blogs covering Nintendo news will be shutting down. In what I can imagine is the final post, there was a definite feeling of fond farewell, but not without a bit of complaining:

"Most sites are doing what they do for hits, which in turn bring up your Alexa rank, and in turn collect more money from ad firms. It is easy to write or publish flame bait whether that be a sales age article, review scores, or trying to make 50 stories out of every sentence an employee at Nintendo says.

Not only are gaming blogs corrupt though, the actual industry is as well. When I first started posting stories, I subscribed to gaming magazines, bought all the biggest games to talk about, and did all these things without any ad money. I did this so the reader could benefit. Funny thing though, outside of WiiWare devs, which are great to talk to, none of the bigger companies will respond to you. This industry used to be about gamers, but now it is about money, and releasing tactical info about a game at exact dates to increase hype. And unless your a bigger site, they don’t hear your voice, or even respond."