2023 In Review

Hello, and Happy New Year everyone!

2023 was quite the year for Strategy and Wargaming, and I couldn’t have done it without you! We tripled the number of unique visitors, going over 150,000. Never in my wildest dreams, I would have imagined this to be possible when I first started. I remember being happy by reaching 10 thousand a couple of years ago.

The number of page views grew 107% in comparison to 2022. Even more amazing is the fact that the growth has been organic, has it came mostly from Search Engines, instead of social media. In fact, Facebook currently represents less than 6% of the site’s traffic.

Surprisingly, due to the incredible amount of competition from large outlets, Strategy and Wargaming are now ranking on the first page of Google for “Strategy Games” and “Strategy Games 2024“. Now, this might not sound impressive on its own, but remember this is a one-man show working an average of 5 hours a week. 

Almost 20% of Strategy and Wargaming visitors check the Steam or Store Page of a game, which indirectly shows me that I’m targeting the right audience and that you guys are truly curious about the games I write about.

This year I also launched a Buy Me a Coffee Page (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/strategyandwargaming) to help me pay for the website’s upkeep, and it almost reached that goal. Fortunately, the website’s ad revenue managed to cover up the rest. 

What To Expect? – Reader

Now, geared with enough numbers and information to start adapting the kind of content I create, these will be the permanent features of the website in 2024:

Lists – Yes, as cliché as this might sound, lists were the most-read articles on the website by a mile! From Steam Sales Recommendations, The Best Games of 2023 and the 50 Best Strategy Games For 2024, lists comprised six of the 10 most-read articles this year. It’s a great format I enjoy reading a lot from other websites. It’s a nice, digestible way of getting to know new games and keeping up to date with what’s going on. 

Reviews – It means a whole lot that people enjoy reading my reviews, and these comprise 3 of my top 10 most-read articles of 2023, with Second Front and The Troop reviews being my most read. I’ll keep my philosophy when it comes to reviewing games, and this means I’ll only review games I consider to be good and worthy of your time and money. Being the sole writer of the site, I don’t have the luxury of playing games I don’t enjoy, or having people play them for me. So, if a game shows up on the website, you know that it’s good, and that’s something I would love to become a staple of Strategy and Wargaming. If you see a game reviewed here, you know that it’s good. It might not be for you, but at least you know that’s a good game. 

News Rounds-Up – These are always hit or miss, and they might have thousands of views, or a couple hundred, depending on the subject at hand, but other than Tim’s Stone monthly A to Z there are no other options online to read Strategy and Wargaming related news.

This focus doesn’t mean that other prominent things like developer interviews and amateur academic takes will be going away, as they are a great format to highlight new and lesser-known titles.

Finally, I keep getting some really nice comments on how Strategy and Wargaming is one of the nicest places to visit on the Wild West that is the Internet, and that’s something I would love to keep that way. If you want shitty, terminally online takes you can visit the Wargamer, Kotaku or Polygon.

What To Expect? – Publishers and Developers

If you’re a developer or part of a publisher, this is for you. Strategy and Wargaming is a passion project (I have a full-time job as a Communications Manager), and I have no intent of ever making this a legitimate business, but it’s nice being able to get free and early access to titles. So if you want your games featured in Strategy and Wargaming, feel free to let me know here – https://strategyandwargaming.com/contact/.

Now, real talk, my next step is to have Strategy and Wargaming ad-free, to offer readers an even better reading experience. I always refused guest posts here, because I don’t want the website to become an SEO dumpster for a couple hundred bucks.

If you’re a legitimate publisher or a developer in the genre, with a couple of bucks on your marketing budget and would like to advertise your games on Strategy and Wargaming, contact me and we can reach an agreement for below-market values, like 50 dollars garnering you a permanent spot for a month on my featured spots here linking to your website:

Just keep in mind that I don’t intend on selling out Strategy and Wargaming, so only one spot will be available every month.

If you want something more elaborate, like custom sponsored articles we can discuss those on an article by article basis, but expect to pay no more than 25-30 dollars for sponsored article. Why am I doing this in a transparent way? Well, because I believe that is the best way of doing business.

Hopefully, you’ll reach out to me and we might be business partners, adding value together to both our products.

Follow Strategy and Wargaming Socials

If you enjoy Strategy and Wargaming, then you need to follow its socials. Are we the best strategy gaming website around? I would say so. Heck, what other options do you have? The Wargamer? Please.

So why not give us a follow on the cesspool that is Twitter, or join the 1000 other geriatric patients on Facebook? Or subscribe down below? Or maybe do everything? I don’t care, I’m not your grandmother.

If you enjoyed the article you can help by buying me a coffee

I’ve been running Strategy and Wargaming at my own expense since 2017, with only the ad-revenue to cover for the hosting, with everything else being done by me. It’s thanks to the goodwill of video game publishers like Slitherine, Hooded Horse, and others that I’m ab