No. There's little upside in creating something that there are too many of, already. It's like deciding that you want to design videogames (so does everyone else) or paint pictures for a living (so does everyone else) or be a male porn star (so does everyone else) or be a rock star (so does everyone else). It's still possible to find a successful niche of some sort, of course, but . . . it's best to avoid things that are already over-saturated.
No. There's little upside in creating something that there are too many of, already. It's like deciding that you want to design videogames (so does everyone else) or paint pictures for a living (so does everyone else) or be a male porn star (so does everyone else) or be a rock star (so does everyone else). It's still possible to find a successful niche of some sort, of course, but . . . it's best to avoid things that are already over-saturated.
I understand where you're coming from. Either way, I'd think it'd be a cool thing to do for a while, not as a serious thing but as something to pass the time. That being said however, doing that would mean that the site wouldn't be as up to date as the others and therefore no readership. Wait. I just contradicted my whole argument...
I think you're better off setting up a blog and let your readership grow slowly and maybe your blog naturally evolves into a website.
Yeah, I'm trying to think of interesting stuff I could post about to start acquiring a readership. I had a fairly decent one back in the days when I used to use Gamespot but at the moment, I'm out of ideas to try and start getting one.
No. Being a competitor of Giant Bomb sounds terrible. Unless I was working for Rival Video Game Website. Those guys have cool facial hair. And no dumbass "Cool Baby" weighing them down!
No. Being a competitor of Giant Bomb sounds terrible. Unless I was working for Rival Video Game Website. Those guys have cool facial hair. And no dumbass "Cool Baby" weighing them down!
I agree with your second sentence, why compete with the best website out there haha? I just meant it to be more of a fun thing to do if you had the spare time.
I was thinking about doing one exclusively about horror games, as there doesn't seem to be a reliable one. The thing is I'm getting out of the horror genre so I won't be doing it.
Still some great horror fans could do one akin to RPGFan, or RPGamer.
@Hargreaves93: Pretty good so far. I've got a word document of all the unique features we'll be doing and I've got a bunch of my friends very interested as well who want to sign on. A friend of mine goes to almost all of the big anime conventions and also gets pretty good interviews with famous voice-actors and people who work with that type of stuff. My other friend is a high-level video editor who completed film college recently(I think he completed it). So right there we've got some exposure and the ability to have excellent video content.
Other than that, I've recently gotten the funding figured out and a friend of mine is going to be putting in a hundred bucks, and whatever I make will go towards it as well.
Next we'll be building the website itself and putting things through the wire.
As long as things are going as smoothly as they have been, then it shouldn't take long at all for it to actually be up on the internet.
@Hargreaves93: Even though the videogame blog/website Arena seems crowded you can always cut your own niche by focusing on different aspects about gaming.
For example this site http://pleasepressstart.tumblr.com/ focuses on the art of the videogame title screen. They don't go in depth about the design of the screens but the pictures tell a lot.
Just try and merge your other interests with videogames and your writing/videos will be more organic that way.
I have some crude plans for one I want to start in the new few months. But something broad like a Giant Bomb or GameSpot? No. I’d rather do handle something super-nice within video games, like @Masha2932 mentioned.
No, way too much competition, tons of work for relatively little money, plus reviewing/playing games you don't want to and having to marathon out games occasionally isn't how I want to spend my life.
I'm just about to start doing some game stuff on my blog, which I'm putting up with its new layout and stuff soon. It won't be a big part of it, just a video every few weeks (being a full time student with a job makes blogging a little patchy), but it should be fun. All I'm really going for is a sort of hey, I'm playing this thing, I think this about it vibe, not really informative. I'd never try to compete with proper game sites, as it's not really my speciality.
I wish someone in Sweden would start a good video game website, I can only think of one person that I can stand listening to. The magazines are shit aswell.
Edit: But to answer your question, no, I don't think I have the knowledge to do it very well.
Some day when this site gets too commercial and Jeff gets fired from his own website for giving a bad review of Kane & Lynch 3 then yes, Jeff and I shall start a new and even better site.
Eh, I don't really have anything to cover. There are already sites doing the job better than I could ever do for any aspect of gaming I'd like to cover (There's Giantbomb for general news, Shoryuken for fighting games, MMO-champion for MMOs, etc.). I just don't see how I could find something to make the site unique and worth visiting.
@Branthog: it may seem futile but if everyone took this approach the world would miss out on a lot of good video games/music/...porn.
EDIT: Oh, and to the OP, no, because i have no interest in such a thing (Although I still toy with idea of writing for a pre-existing website/magazine from time to time). There are other endeavours into over-saturated markets i'd rather direct my efforts towards.
I did, back in 2002. It was kinda shitty, the design was craptacular, the writing was atrocious and the "staff" was me and 2 other guys. Of course, after about 2 weeks they found out that writing previews and reviews wasn't easy, so they resorted to just writing news articles, leaving me with all the other stuff. I think the site lasted about 2 months before I just gave up. I learned ASP though, which later resulted in learning C#, so it wasn't all bad.
Starting up a blog would take time, but in terms of budget it would be pretty low. You could write about news, events, ect., from the perspective of a consumer who isn't super involved in the industry, as well as gaming culture, and about the games you play and have played. No need to go out buying every single game and play it in order to compete with the big gaming websites. Just do it as a hobby, and it could evolve, or you might have created something to put on your resume and show off. Worse case scenario you learn a little about blogs and your writing improves. Many people have done similar things and it has grown into something big for them. Just don't count on it.
If you are posting here you probably have enough time to make it happen. You don't have to write any lengthy essays or ground breaking articles, just try to write regularly. Get at it!
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