Describe your dream gaming home page...

Hey guys -

For it to be something I'd check every hour/day it would have to offer something along the lines of Google Reader for gaming, so:

I was going to promote my own idea about a tracked secion being added to the top, but that is actually a stupid thing to do. But I would like to see more community-based features on the homepage, perhaps links to some of the top blogs? (which could be rated on by the staff and/or user base).

I would like it to look more professional. I know that is an incredibly vague statement, but hopefully you "know what I mean." I'd like to see something with a little more shine, something a little more modern, something...awesome. Get on it, fella's!

"Hey guys -

What would make you check that one page every hour, or every day? What would make you want to check it on Sunday when we don't necessarily have a lot of content up."

Some things:

-A webcam feed (lol)
-Rotating the 'top story' banner between 3-5 stories
-New releases calendar would be nice
-Some videos and trailers don't get a blog post, so I don't see them until I click on the 'Videos' section. Is there a way to show some of them?

Maybe  lin into the user held "Tournaments" that get put up quite regularly - when creating a tournament the user doing it should be able to forward the details top one of the site staff members, and just have like a small box on the front page , a calender or something showing all the gaming goings on on Giantbomb at that particular time - or a results page as such.

The only way you are going to get a large amount of people to check it several times a day (outside of the small, core group here) is to add gaming news on the fly, and exponentially increase the number of reviews and editorials for the site. In essence, to offer what "the other guys" offer, and to do it better (while making enough money to stay afloat in the process).

A community events calendar would be nice, for Bombing Runs and tournaments. Definitely top blogs and popular threads, too.

I would like to see more:

- User related content on the homepage.
- News displayed which rotated on the top banner.

Basically MORE news, i think its nice the way it is though.

I like user customizable homepages on sites. Something along the lines of igoogle or bbc.co.uk, but with the focus being on sections of the GB site. And the abilty to change the size of sections too, so you're not stuck with that 3 columns design like on igoogle. And possibly the ability to add RSS feeds from other sites too. That would be cool. I would imagine different people visit giant bomb for different things, so let them put what they want on their homepage. You could have sections for trivia, forums (both latest and your own forum posts), news, video's, reviews, bombcast, guides, new releases, the top pages, and all sorts of stuff from profile pages, all arangable how the individual user wants.

I understand all of this might be on the verge of impossibility, and probably won't ever happen, but that would be my ideal homepage, something I could add what I want too, and arrange how I want. Failing that, any sort of addition of community features to the homepage would be a step forward. The community is the main reason I visit the site, and I would love to see community stuff on the homepage. Maybe staff picks of community stuff (blogs, forum posts etc.) would be appropriate.

-Community Spotlight Thingy

-The ability to reskin it to your liking

-A big-ass picture of a random game/company/developer

I check Kotaku a few times every day. That's about all I can really say.

• featured blogs/newest blogs area (user blogs)
• more content obviously would make me visit more, but that's more the editors than the design
• video playable directly from the homepage without having to load over to the videos section
• Some sort of community header/text containing countdowns or info about upcoming Bombing Runs or tournaments, giveaways, or whatever

More VIDEO reviews.

Something similar to Gametab's RSS news/reviews feed to compliment the stories the GB crew post, integrated with a Gamespot styled tracking system. Basically I'd like to see a feature that allowed me to add X number of games to a tracking list that would update daily with information specific to all titles on that list from around the web. In other words, I'd like to have my daily gaming dose handed to me by GB.

"Maybe  lin into the user held "Tournaments" that get put up quite regularly - when creating a tournament the user doing it should be able to forward the details top one of the site staff members, and just have like a small box on the front page , a calender or something showing all the gaming goings on on Giantbomb at that particular time - or a results page as such.

I already check GB every day multiple times for game info and news, so the only real 'improvement' i can really think of woud be to make it easier for us Bombers to arrange, play and view the results?

"

"A community events calendar would be nice, for Bombing Runs and tournaments. Definitely top blogs and popular threads, too."

• More Video Reviews
• Giant Bomb Community Tournaments
• Release Schedule for your region this week (US/UK etc.)
• A user-hub showing information pertaining to you such as messages etc.

Oh and a little Luchadeer drawing that says a different quote from the staff every time you press him.
No it has no use.

• List of games released this week / month for all platforms.
• Reviews, Previews, Interviews and News on the industry from across the web getting centre stage on the homepage is a must. Thats the big draw to any website, not just gaming ones, and what keeps users returning to a homepage to see whats been updated.
• Podcast and Videos / trailers getting some more of the limelight aswell. Like the above this sort of stuff is some, if not the most, important aspect of a gaming website. Its what defines the website itself as a podcast is really very personal and what keeps people coming back for more each week.
• Links to Staff and Moderator profile pages so its easier to figure out who to contact with whatever problem or question. Nothing worse than having to make a topic on the forums or randomly search through them to find out who to contact with a question or problem. Would be more simple to hit the homepage and find the list from there.
• Site update information needs to be on the homepage aswell. If something happens on the site such as a bug fix or a new feature being added then it should be made as easy to find out information on as possible. Not everyone looks on a sites forums for updates to the site itself, so it would be great to see that information on the homepage when it occurs.
• Keep information up to date, as in if something just happened or was announced, try and get it up on the front page ASAP. We don't want to see the latest news story is a few days old, we want to see its a few minutes old!
• Community Spotlight section listing the most popular Forum or Blog topic on the site. This would be a nice addition I think in keeping the community constantly striving to perfect their blogging and posting habits for the hope of being popped onto the homepage.

Definitely would like to see a community spotlight feature, which has already been stated by several people. Perhaps a "user of the day/week/month" or something to highlight users that contribute to the community.

Also, pretty much everything that Hamz said! +1

Guys this is very helpful. Please keep giving us your ideas.

Also, i know those weekly 'bomb drops' may take a while to do - but if one of those was knocked up weekly, and left on the front page as a 'highlights of last week' kinda thing, if i went away for a few days, i would be ab le to return and see all the improtant reviews/vids/community stuff i had missed - all in one location 

More videos would be a great addition. More shoutouts to the users. For example that thing where you show some recent reviews, I love that.

Also like people have said maybe a top 5 blog section?

Or a user soapbox section? cough sweep cough

I may just be rehashing what's already been said, but...

• A list of games coming out on that day/week/month etc.
• Featured user reviews on games that the staff won't review themselves (picked by the staff or users).
• Having a section for trivia questions.
• Besides the user reviews...A section devoted to popular blogs, threads, and other similar things.
• It would also be nice to see a little panel with the staff and their profile pics/status.

I think that having featured community blogs/forum posts on the front page would be a HUGE boost to the community side of the site. Seeing blogs pimped on the front page gives blog writers the motivation they need to keep writing cool blogs and forum posts. Anything we can do to build a strong community of blog writers and blog comment writers is going to keep this community growing and prospering.

Maybe a Wikipedia-styled random wiki page button could direct users to some random concept/game/franchise/character/console page? That might be a fun way to just see all the community content, and learn something along the way!

Also, more advertising! Anything you can do so we can be sure that the money is rolling in!

And more Luchadeer! That's a MUST, especially so people know the character when it comes time to make Giant Bomb Merch dolls. I'll be buying the Bomb, the Luchadeer, and the Ryan dolls!

Like Karmum says, more community features, or just this:

"I may just be rehashing what's already been said, but...

• A list of games coming out on that day/week/month etc.
• Featured user reviews on games that the staff won't review themselves (picked by the staff or users).
• Having a section for trivia questions.
• Besides the user reviews...A section devoted to popular blogs, threads, and other similar things.
• It would also be nice to see a little panel with the staff and their profile pics/status.

...I'm sure there's more, but this is what I've got so far. It's also difficult to think while recording a podcast. :P"

It may be nice to have a "Featured User" each day as well. Highlight one specific user who may have contributed a great guide/blog/wiki-edits the previous day. I think giving recognition to the community will definitely keep people interested in the homepage. Also maybe show the "Question of the Day" on the homepage as well, maybe a daily/weekly poll to keep people coming back to check the results etc.

A shameful bump to try and get some more ideas...and I also have another horrible idea (that is pretty much only cool to me). That whole "Don't Press the Red Button" thing...I just think it would be funny/cool/stupid to have a "Don't Touch the Giant Bomb" thingermajig somehow implemented on the homepage.

• A 'Game of the Day,' and that featured game will reward any edits made with 1.5x the normal points. could have chracter, concept, etc. of the day as well, and possibly do one for each every day.

"Guys this is very helpful. Please keep giving us your ideas."

"I'm not going to lie -- I made this post about 5 minutes ago in the Suggestions Topic. But I think this can be a really nifty idea. Here is how it works, you track a game and when new articles are posted up, you get a number to indicate how much new articles are up. Click the link and you are brought to your tracked games page and you can pick what article you want to read. Don't get it? Let the pictures talk for me. Very crude, and there are many mistakes. Sorry!

"

I think a web cam feed of the office or what games they are currently playing would be awesome, some reviews compared to there recently reviews games, maybe some more shine to the design like what bigger bomb said, I would love to see someone review old school games on a weekly basis for a special.

"BoG said:

• A 'Game of the Day,' and that featured game will reward any edits made with 1.5x the normal points. could have chracter, concept, etc. of the day as well, and possibly do one for each every day.

Not to sure about that one, i am afraid that multiple users will start editing it at the same time and that we will have to deny all except one of the submissions since they will probably all say the same. If the game shown would be a different one for every user then it would be fine though."

"Endogene said:

"BoG said:

• A 'Game of the Day,' and that featured game will reward any edits made with 1.5x the normal points. could have chracter, concept, etc. of the day as well, and possibly do one for each every day.

Not to sure about that one, i am afraid that multiple users will start editing it at the same time and that we will have to deny all except one of the submissions since they will probably all say the same. If the game shown would be a different one for every user then it would be fine though."

Yeah, that seems like it could get out of hand with sub-1000-point users submitting. And even if it was just people with live edit ability, there's still a chance that someone could end up overwriting another person's edits that were submitted before them."

On our profile pages right?

If so:

• The ablility to spotlight one of your lists, so it's easily viewable on the profile page, wish some sort of scrolling option, like you can do with the images.
• A place to fill in various User ID's for different platforms, (Gamertag, PSN ID, Steam name, etc.).
• Game releases of the day, again with the image scrolling thing.

I didn't read any other suggestions so I'm not sure if this has been mentioned:

• Have the RSS feed a lot more organized
• Have a more iPhone friendly version of the site available
• End of the week video podcast which summarizes the week's news.

"

• News tidbits that I can flick through (My Google Reader games section lists 20+ gaming sites and blogs, Kotaku, Joystiq, Eurogamer, etc.)

"

It would be coloured a black, and dark gray, have plenty of fun trivia, user content, active forums, and a smiling bomb at the top left corner. ^^

• A Tournament page would be awesome. What better way to bond with a community than to fight hordes of Zombies or Locust?!

• A place where people can easily see new releases and reviews. (Staff and User) Sometimes I come on thinking of a new game I wanna get but it becomes a pain searching for indivual games. And the release calender isnt the easiest place to get too.

• Star ratings. Alot of people dont want to sit around writing long reviews for people to read. Perhaps a feature where users can go to a game page and rate that game with a star rating, without writing a review. Then have pages with top rated games and users could have there profile home page with a section to there own personal favourites.

• Something to make the wishlists a little more useable/useful. Dont see many people adding things to these areas in there profile. Maybe something can be built that suggests games for the user going on the type of games that they have put in there wishlist

My ideal gaming home page?