The Guardian Unlimited talkboards have finally dropped off the perch. GUT was an idiosyncratic and antique (decade-old!) forum, a quirky backwater of the Internet invisible to search engines, with a lively community and its own savage pet troll. The Guardian had long since deprecated GUT, and though I mourn, I'm surprised it lasted this long. The survivors of the wreck are washing up elsewhere, but that ugly, peculiar, unreliable, delightful place is gone.

Why do I mourn? Because Failbetter Games wouldn't exist without the Film section of the talkboards. Paul, Yasmeen, Richard and I - that's about 75% of the company - all met through Film Unlimited.

We've heard again and again from EBZ players that they've formed real friendships through the game, and it always cheers us. It's nice when 'social game' turns out to mean that, not just 'game played through social networks'. I was about to say something sappy and general about, oh you know, the power of the Internet to bring people together: I'm not going to sink that low, but I will ask you to join me in raising a glass of something spored and roiling to the memory of Film Unlimited. May Echo Bazaar last the same ten years that GUT did, and more.