12:40 PM -- From the company's Website:

Have another look at Craig's profile of GameRail from a year ago to get a sense of how they thought the market would develop. Perhaps it wasn't the wrong business, but it was the wrong business model.

GameRail's not the only recent story of a service provider of sorts backing off the hardcore gamer market. Verizon did, too, when it stopped rebranding a gaming server service, and it no longer makes a big marketing push for FiOS at gaming industry events. (See Verizon's Got Game).

Verizon, however, did make a nice business for itself in delivering casual games at a low price, via flat-fee rentals.

But given what hardcore gamers spend on hardware and soda, other service providers will undoubtedly try to appeal to their need for speed (or their want for differentiation, in the absence of skills). What kinds of services do you see cropping up next for the gaming gods?

— Phil Harvey, Editor, Light Reading