It is a strange question to the community, to ask for a method to the madness, when so many people gravitate towards people that respect them and make them feel important. So why really did I join this site? To be blunt it was the staff, the writing, the cool site features and the ability to be at ground zero (so to speak) of a huge movement in gaming culture.
Lovable Sack Boy, or menice?Game journalists who parrot the words of the marketing devotees would say that Web 2.0 is the future. The social networking aspects and user generated content is what will drive future site loyalty; no longer will sites depend on great coverage but they will also rely on fostering excellent community. The problem with this outlook is that the user of the site becomes the creator of the content for other humans. Most internet communities can be rude, obnoxious and just plain aggressive. Web 2.0 doesn't just need to be network enabled but it also needs to be a community of understanding, moderation and respect; GiantBomb has those qualities.
For a while I stood on the sidelines at major sites, none that I will mention here. Their community podcasts and emailed questions usually consisted of content that was marketing focused or within the certain tastes. There were very few sites out there that took the words and thoughts of its user base to heart and partitioned their media to reflect those views. GiantBomb, to me, is the embodiment of the views of its viewership. Game reviews are written by the staff but mostly the rest of the content is provided by the community. The flexibility of the tools to write blogs and news stories transforms a gaming nerd sitting on his couch, reading slanted news, go from "dude, whatever..." to "dude, whatever....I'm updating this article!" The power is within the grasp of the people to drastically change their environment.
Knowledge...more powerful than you think.GiantBomb.com is empowering and makes me feel that I'm shaping the content of the site while at the same time receiving respect for doing so. The thoughts and ideas of an individual are not dismissed out-right without forethought. Each thought is usually paired with intelligent responses and counter arguments. A personal example, I rated LittleBigPlanet unfavorably and was met with intelligent counter arguments, and perhaps some telling realizations, that the game met some expectation that I obviously overlooked. I was glad to not see "noob" and "you sucxors" plastered all over the comments section. This spoke volumes of the community and how much of a discussion we all could have together.
Honest discussion, excellent site tools and respectable community is why I came to GiantBomb, what's your reason?
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