I'm curious, what is it about some sites you really like and make you go back, but makes you run away from others?
I'm the ee eye see of the nuke-double-zilla
What do you like and what do you hate about other gaming sites?
(14 posts) (8 voices)-
Posted 3 months ago #
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1. A fair amount of advertising, nothing too large or unskippable videos.
2. At least 5 new articles a day or as many that take up 15 min of reading time.
3. Exclusive content or breaking news, or humorous opinions because copy pasting from other sites is pointless.
4. A podcast every week.
5. Pancakes.Posted 3 months ago # -
I like:
1. A sense of personality from each of the individual staff members. (Giant Bomb)
2. Lengthy, detailed reviews from a personal perspective. (Destructoid)
3. High quality video content. (Giant Bomb)I dislike:
1. Irrelevant tripe passing for news stories. (Kotaku)
2. Background ads, that fade to black as you scroll so that clicking on a seemingly blank section of the page takes you elsewhere (PC Gamer, which I still read, to be fair)
3. It's largely an issue of the past now, but softcore porn passed off as "girl gamer" material. (IGN)I picked one example of each, but there are obviously multiple for all of them.
Posted 3 months ago # -
For me, a site must:
- Have writers who have an interesting point to make, can get it across in an entertaining way (note: 'entertaining' is not simply limited to humorous) and have as near-flawless a grasp of English as possible. I only want to read the work of writers who have been hired because they actually produce a good product, not ones that are on staff just because they are the EIC's best mate or they have a big rack.
- Expand on the basic headline. Far too may sites write up a piece of news but add so little in their post that you might as well only read the headline. I don't ask for 3,000-word opinion pieces on every little event, but there needs to be some expansion.
- Not exploit misleading or vague headlines. Not much explanation needed on this one; don't lie to me.
- Have a simple, reader-friendly design. Drop-down menus, flash, rollover and so on does not impress me. Give me static text links, a colour scheme that doesn't induce a headache upon every visit and header images that aren't larger than the body of the post.
- Not patronise or otherwise insult me. Posts about a YouTube video that's already been posted everywhere else on the internet, galleries of scantily-clad women and writing that treats the reader like an idiot all fall under this.
- Pride and a good sense of what it wants to be. "Fuck it, let's just copy & paste news until something sticks" doesn't cut it for me. I need sites to be able to say they are [X], they want to do [X] and they are going to do [X] this way. Even if I don't like whatever [X] they've chosen, at least I can respect a good sense of direction and I may still visit the site occasionally to see what they're up to.
- Think it is above its readers or that the readers do not matter. When I see a site moderator ban someone simply because they don't like the same games, that turns me off a site entirely immediately. When a site starts writing about a recently deceased celebrity to cash in on the masses' Googling, that makes me leave and never return. Have some respect for your regulars.Things I like and appreciate but aren't particularly necessary include:
- Staff with strong personalities and chrisma. If this can bleed over into an entertaining podcast or video feature then that's a double bonus.
- Interaction between the front page and the community. Get your readers more involved, make them feel like they're more than just a hit counter.
- Guts. I appreciate that gaming sites, especially smaller ones, can find themselves in unpleasant situations where a publisher may be breathing down their neck or someone said something controversial or whatever. I understand that sometimes a site is not going to be in a position where they can really tell a PR rep to fuck off. But I also appreciate it when a site [i]does[/i] stand up to a publisher, a developer, another site, whinging fans, etc. I'm not saying I like it when people start picking fights and I don't think a site should do everything in its power to burn as many bridges as it can, but y'know. Take a stand now and then.To sum up: personality, dignity, respect. Every site is going to stumble now and then and the occasional fuck up is acceptable, but on the whole a site has to have these three things for me to keep visiting. As such, the only sites I've really stuck with (other than Nukezilla) are Giant Bomb, Destructoid and Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Conversely, it shall be a cold day in hell before I read anything on Kotaku, The Escapist or Joystiq.
Posted 3 months ago # -
Really interesting list. Though, Adu, is that stuff you like or hate?
Posted 3 months ago # -
You dafty! How could anyone hate pancakes? Of course it's a list of things I like!
One day you have to start Nomzilla, because the food we love could be a bit better...usually by adding syrup, melted cheese, ketchup or chocolate sauce...mmmm food...
Anyway the thing I like about videogames websites are that they comment on each other. How does an article start? Who knows! Oh you crazy industry!
Posted 3 months ago # -
I like it when a site has an editorial voice, something NukeZilla and Giant Bomb have in common. Jim Sterling was one of my favourite bloggers for a time, although I've left his style behind me now, it's a bit sensationalist and childish for me now, but he gave all of his articles a little spin. You can still tell a Sterling article from a mile off. Alex Navarro of Giant Bomb fills that cynical hole now, although I much prefer Patrick Klepek's writing. His long form approach and hard stance on how selective he is with news means that while his posts aren't necessarily frequent, they're a good read. His recent experiments in alternative sources for inspiration, his long email thread with a developer and some of his work with the Playstation Home community are both examples I point out to people as "this is what game journalism is."
I've lost interest in keeping on top of gaming news but Destructoid's daily recaps are a good resource too. Their proficiency at having no content past the title means that in a glance I can learn everything important that happened the previous day in games. Copy Pasta is rarely commended but there's something to be said for a site that literally posts everything and anything without some of the heinous, shite image galleries Kotaku like to post. (disclaimer; Kotaku might not do that anymore, but I haven't been back there in four years to find out.)
Unrelated perhaps, but Giant Bomb has a bunch of other cool features which make it something I regularly recommend, mostly it's video content collation, wiki and Quick Looks, which I pass on to parents who're concerned about what their kids are playing. Along with the ESRB website it give them information on content and context if they can be bothered to do the legwork. Fun tangent, a lady with a child with cerebral palsy asked about suitable Kinect games her daughter her daughter could play. Despite its occasionally mocking tone she thanked me profusely for giving her the link as their content was amazing in seeing what you need to do.Chronicly depressed writer, lover and thinking gamer.Posted 3 months ago # -
I dislike adverts done badly. I understand the need for advertisements on a free site, and I have no problem with that. However, they shouldn't be intrusive and interfere with reading the site.
I dislike:
-Full screen ads.
-Ads that take over the entire background.
-Clicking on link to be taken to an ad before I can see the content.
-Links in a post that are really ads in disguise.Posted 3 months ago # -
Ugh. I feel everyone should try to write something in this thread, part of the reason I'm doing so is to bump it back to the top, but I find myself struggling to write anything constructive.
Concerning the larger game sites, I'm convinced they believe their consumers matter little, which is understandable as they are not the customers. The people paying the bills are. One has to have strong principles and be willing to stick to them to serve people who aren't helping with the bills.
The smaller sites, the ones that have a hobbyist feel about them are much less offensive but lack manpower so their news and reviews (this is what I'm most interested in) is bound to be hit and miss.
I don't want to dwell on the many details I hate about games sites as I can all too easily allow negativity get the best me and then the terrorists (read gaemz jounlists) win.
So, Nukezilla huh? It's small, getting somewhere, but where that is, hmm?
Blimey this post makes me sound like such a negative gamer.
Posted 3 months ago # -
No need to worry about being too negative. I'm more curious what people hate and like. I know I hate a lot of stuff
Seriously, just have a rant if you feel like ranting.
Posted 3 months ago # -
What I think Nukezilla is missing is the Super-troll. Someone to tell others to eat the dick they so richly deserve. Where's the Yahtzee or Sterling? Someone whose opinions fire up the hatred and anger in us all so that people join the site just to tell them to blow balls....oh wait, John's articles do that! Every time you write an opinion piece you upset the populace. Without fail! You hit whore. Just wanna insult the lovely companies for hits. I didn't even know companies have fanboys!
Never change, John.
Posted 3 months ago # -
You just compared me to... *vomits* WHAT HAVE I BECOME... EVERYTHING I HATE!?
Posted 3 months ago # -
@Adushan
With the Jimquisition, Jim's actually starting to clean up his arguments, filling the void that RevRants used to occupy. Maybe it took getting away from the culture of "Also, Cocks" for Jim to use his platform to make a more reasonable stance.@John when you double your weight and start making homophobic, racist and juvenile comments on twitter as a daily occurance, that's when you need to worry about being like sterling. As it is, your weight is fine XD
Posted 3 months ago # -
Like:
-We designed and easily navigable sites.
-Minimal use of "dynamic" bullshit
-Original content
-Regular content
-Podcasts with good sound qualityDislike:
-Slow loading sites
-Review scores
-Photos of "cosplay"
-Too much content, more than 5 a day and I can't be bothered.Posted 3 months ago #
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