Geeks, Gamers and Parents - I need to pick your brains!

[MurderOfGoths]

I've been thinking recently that I'd like to put my geeky talents to use, and I've been thinking of putting a website together that does a few things. The focus I think should be on these:

a) reviews games from a parents point of view. Idea being it should help people know more about the games their kids want to play etc. Give people a bit more detailed info than just PEGI.

b) provides a space for geeky parents to meet each other. Mostly as I'd quite like to make some more friends, and if I'm looking for something like that then I can't be the only one!

But I'd also like to add in things like

• reviewing apps
• reviewing parental controls
• setting up guilds on games

Of course, the only way it'll work is if enough people want to contribute. And that I'm not sure about, what do you think?

I think it's a great idea but if it's going to work, it will take a long time to build up.

Also, I think your aims are at cross purposes with each other - they each want to attract a different kind of user - do you want to attract people who are already knowledgeable about games and interested in games, or do you want to attract people who are not interested or knowledgeable about games and simply want to know whether something is appropriate for their DC or not? This is also going to make a difference to how you pitch the reviews too.

I think you'd be best off starting a blog with the reviews (games and apps - apps are pretty much as big as any other portable game system these days) and see if you can gain a following on that - if you can get high on google results then parents are more likely to stumble across your site when researching a game. Then if/when the blog becomes more well known you could branch off with the occasional "off-topic" post reviewing parental control software and how-tos about guilds etc.

The community part I wouldn't actually try to set up, at least until the blog is very successful. The internet is saturated with discussion forums as it is and it's very difficult to get a new one off the ground unless you already have a "base" group of users, or something very unique about your discussion format. I'd focus on getting the information out there, you might find that if your blog gets a following, the comments will be a place where people discuss and get to know each other.

You'd do well to network - there are quite a few fairly well-known games blogs around, I don't know any off the top of my head, but one of my friends is really into this (he's trying to get his own games blog noticed) and he's always sending me links and things which I look at once and then forget about but I'll ask him and get back to you. Just make sure you're reading these popular blogs and commenting and getting a feel for who's who in the gamer blog world if that makes sense. Twitter is a massive help here too.

HTH :) And gives you something to think about anyway!

Escapist is the first reviews blog that I thought of off the top of my head. It's great, and entertaining!!

You're probably just best canvassing on twitter for fellow guildies etc

"Also, I think your aims are at cross purposes with each other - they each want to attract a different kind of user"

Ideally what I want to do is have a community of people who are knowledgeable and able write reviews/give advice (so they'll be the active users of the site) but their knowledge would be available for the non-knowledgeable people (who would be more passive site users)

Can you build websites? Because building a decent forum is a total bugger

mrscumberbatch Thankfully I can, and have had some experience with forums, so know that they are a pain in the arse! Though building a social network is even worse

Ahh it just melts my brain.

DP has an interactive bloggy type thing that he cross references with FB and twitter.
It's a lot of time to spend on something that won't generate any income though as nobody is interested in ad space until you have a proven clickthrough rate etc.

Ah okay. I think you'd probably have to put a lot of work in and write the initial reviews yourself to gain a following, most likely, and then you'd probably have to censor the reviews that went up to make sure they matched the quality of the original reviews, otherwise you're not going to attract much traffic.

I don't know, I just see a blog as the most accessible format for this kind of thing to work in. I'm sure it could work in other formats, but if you look at the kind of websites which allow users to submit reviews - GameSpot for example, you get a few well written, well thought out reviews and then a load of illiterate, well, crap. "Waaah this game is shit because it didn't install on my computer" kind of thing. I work in a games shop and the best thing I ever heard was some woman wanting to refund a game because "It gave my laptop a virus!" Er - no, it didn't. We let her swap it for something else anyway.

Plus a forum is hard to publicise and get off the ground. Blog all the way IMO. Then see if you can wheedle anyone into doing a guest post and see what happens from there, but get it established first. People need confidence in your site before they will trust the reviews from it and you won't get that with opening it up to anybody from the beginning, which means you won't be taken seriously and the following won't grow.

Bertie Fair point, will be a pain getting a consistent standard of reviews, and you are so right about the shite reviews on sites like GameSpot.

Right, so blog it is. Got a few friends in the gaming world who could help get the word out in that direction, and I guess sites like MN will help in the other.

I'm glad I posted here, I have a tendency to get carried away with myself instead of starting simple