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Back when the forbearer of this site sold games (as SR) there were lots of nice news articles about gaming.
Even though it's now we're a big part of the happy freeola family, I still think there could be a place for gaming news. It would be an ideal companion to the cheats section and encourage more traffic on this site (plus for the company, naturally).
You could even get us to contribute, I wouldn't mind writing articles for an official looking news page.
Even though it's now we're a big part of the happy freeola family, I still think there could be a place for gaming news. It would be an ideal companion to the cheats section and encourage more traffic on this site (plus for the company, naturally).
You could even get us to contribute, I wouldn't mind writing articles for an official looking news page.
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McLong wrote:
> Garin wrote:
> pb wrote:
> You could even get us to contribute, I wouldn't mind writing
> articles for an official looking news page.
>
> User generated content is the road to the promised land, the
> rest of the internet realised this 5 years ago. I suspect it
> might take Freeola another 5. :P
>
> ...Fairly sure Chat, Cheats & Walkthroughs are all
> user-generated?
Lol, Job Title: 'Cheat Submitter' :D
> Garin wrote:
> pb wrote:
> You could even get us to contribute, I wouldn't mind writing
> articles for an official looking news page.
>
> User generated content is the road to the promised land, the
> rest of the internet realised this 5 years ago. I suspect it
> might take Freeola another 5. :P
>
> ...Fairly sure Chat, Cheats & Walkthroughs are all
> user-generated?
Lol, Job Title: 'Cheat Submitter' :D
The way I see it working is this:
Have an official looking page with news for each console and general news (tabbed?).
Time allowing, Staff are assigned to finding news stories (from other sites to start with and then through contacts if things progress) and us lot send in news stories either by email or through some portal here. These are checked and added.
What wouldn't work is a News forum as the main page, it has to be official looking with pictures and layouts. The game forum could be linked to this for further chat.
Reviews would be great too, again with some of us reviewing as we do now and staff reviewing games where possible. If we're lucky this will get picked up by Metacritic and you'll be able to do a deal with games publishers to get review copies in the future.
One idea, which I'm sure you'll think is being raised for selfish reasons but is actually (IMO) a good idea anyway, is to pass on review copies to a select few forum reviewers, particularly if staff time is hard to come by (I can't see Tony watching all his staff play games all day!) so we can then review titles before they come out. In fact, it would be a great promotion and a good spin on the usual review sites (reviewed by actual gamers for gamers, or something along those lines).
News, as I stated, would at first come from other sites (with acknowledgement). There's no need of worrying about people then going off to that site as you'd make a point of selling this site as a place to gather all the other site's news in one place, far more convinient than going to tons of other sites and with a few of us helping we could gather that news pretty soon after it breaks.
Again, you'd eventually build up enough reputation to get exclusives straight from the developers themselves.
I'm sure someone will point out holes in my logic, but I still think it's a pretty good system.
Have an official looking page with news for each console and general news (tabbed?).
Time allowing, Staff are assigned to finding news stories (from other sites to start with and then through contacts if things progress) and us lot send in news stories either by email or through some portal here. These are checked and added.
What wouldn't work is a News forum as the main page, it has to be official looking with pictures and layouts. The game forum could be linked to this for further chat.
Reviews would be great too, again with some of us reviewing as we do now and staff reviewing games where possible. If we're lucky this will get picked up by Metacritic and you'll be able to do a deal with games publishers to get review copies in the future.
One idea, which I'm sure you'll think is being raised for selfish reasons but is actually (IMO) a good idea anyway, is to pass on review copies to a select few forum reviewers, particularly if staff time is hard to come by (I can't see Tony watching all his staff play games all day!) so we can then review titles before they come out. In fact, it would be a great promotion and a good spin on the usual review sites (reviewed by actual gamers for gamers, or something along those lines).
News, as I stated, would at first come from other sites (with acknowledgement). There's no need of worrying about people then going off to that site as you'd make a point of selling this site as a place to gather all the other site's news in one place, far more convinient than going to tons of other sites and with a few of us helping we could gather that news pretty soon after it breaks.
Again, you'd eventually build up enough reputation to get exclusives straight from the developers themselves.
I'm sure someone will point out holes in my logic, but I still think it's a pretty good system.
For this to work, then ideally, there will be as little Staff maintenance with this as possible.
Cheats + Walkthroughs etc works, because the public are motivated to submit cheats by potentially get something back for their contributions.
As far as news goes, there's an awful lot of it, and I heavily doubt that we could give a GAD award for every post..! Not only that, but the news has to be accurate and spell-checked etc. which takes much more time from Staff. Whereas, at the moment, the whole moderation process for newly submitted cheats/walkthroughs is pretty straight-forward and not overly time-consuming.
I have an old (now fairly dead) site (here) where the public would sign up, submit news, then I would moderate it and approve it. It only died because I didn't have time for it.
I don't see why we couldn't do something along those lines...but staff can't really spend much time (if any) looking for news... it's not practical. So it would really be down to Moderators / general public.
Cheats + Walkthroughs etc works, because the public are motivated to submit cheats by potentially get something back for their contributions.
As far as news goes, there's an awful lot of it, and I heavily doubt that we could give a GAD award for every post..! Not only that, but the news has to be accurate and spell-checked etc. which takes much more time from Staff. Whereas, at the moment, the whole moderation process for newly submitted cheats/walkthroughs is pretty straight-forward and not overly time-consuming.
I have an old (now fairly dead) site (here) where the public would sign up, submit news, then I would moderate it and approve it. It only died because I didn't have time for it.
I don't see why we couldn't do something along those lines...but staff can't really spend much time (if any) looking for news... it's not practical. So it would really be down to Moderators / general public.
My vision is really for the mods or hand picked forum contributors to write news and reviews, probably with some editing rights to the layout of the page if necessary.
It would be a group of us who you'd be able to trust with content and spellchecking our own work, rather than open to all the public. The idea being to attract people to the stories, then provide their own content on the forums linked to said story.
As for GAD, I didn't really think that GAD would count for this content, only for the forums. The only perks anyone chosen for this would likely get is if review copies of games became available and were handed out as they came in (no choice of title, just whoever has the relevant platform or skill set, FM for RPGs, Emmie for FPS online games etc).
It would be a group of us who you'd be able to trust with content and spellchecking our own work, rather than open to all the public. The idea being to attract people to the stories, then provide their own content on the forums linked to said story.
As for GAD, I didn't really think that GAD would count for this content, only for the forums. The only perks anyone chosen for this would likely get is if review copies of games became available and were handed out as they came in (no choice of title, just whoever has the relevant platform or skill set, FM for RPGs, Emmie for FPS online games etc).
heheh. Cheeky.
Oh the irony! :)
This will all need a lot of input from the moderators and the public in general for this to work, and if it doesn't, then it's a lot of time and money wasted. But yeah, thanks for this suggestion anyway pb.
I'll be 'tallying-up' the pros and cons and how this could work and get the thoughts from other staff that would be involved and I will let you know what happens. I'm not promising anything though, so don't get too excited :P
This will all need a lot of input from the moderators and the public in general for this to work, and if it doesn't, then it's a lot of time and money wasted. But yeah, thanks for this suggestion anyway pb.
I'll be 'tallying-up' the pros and cons and how this could work and get the thoughts from other staff that would be involved and I will let you know what happens. I'm not promising anything though, so don't get too excited :P
McLong wrote:
> Garin wrote:
> User generated content is the road to the promised land, the
> rest of the internet realised this 5 years ago. I suspect it
> might take Freeola another 5. :P
>
> ...Fairly sure Chat, Cheats & Walkthroughs are all
> user-generated?
Astute observation. ;)
Let me put it like this then. Many of your rivals have moved past the simple model of submit a cheat/walkthrough or post on a chat forum. They've found many more ways to utilise user content and to get them to post more of it.
> Garin wrote:
> User generated content is the road to the promised land, the
> rest of the internet realised this 5 years ago. I suspect it
> might take Freeola another 5. :P
>
> ...Fairly sure Chat, Cheats & Walkthroughs are all
> user-generated?
Astute observation. ;)
Let me put it like this then. Many of your rivals have moved past the simple model of submit a cheat/walkthrough or post on a chat forum. They've found many more ways to utilise user content and to get them to post more of it.
That's ok, thanks for bringing it up with the other guys anyway.
I'll wait until the time is right then!
I'll wait until the time is right then!
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