The Plan

[JskieXL]

Back to Basics

There is no point in trying to be everything to everyone. The facts are simple: a small site with few staff and an almost non-existent budget is not going to compete with Gamespot or IGN. We have to pick a relatively small area to focus on and cover it well.

The decision, then, is to focus on portables again. Specifically, that means the DS, PSP and Game Boy Advance. We do not have the resources to cover obscure systems and don't see much value in it, either. If we state our goal as building a large (i.e. DS or GBA Central-sized) reader base and keeping it, GP32 coverage probably isn't going to help much.

Likewise, we need to focus the type of content we produce, because we know we don't have the staff base to do everything. In the future, perhaps we can do more, but right now we can only make use of the resources we have available. That said, here are some things that are not worth bothering with:

Previews

Previews are kind of like news, except they're not up to date. In fact, the information they contain is often months out of date and they need to be constanly updated (or rewritten) as more becomes available. Previews are also kind of like reviews, except not one single person will ever read one after the game has come out. Wasted effort? I certainly think so. I'll also go out on a limb and state that there is not a single person on the planet who enjoys writing them.

Screenshots

A couple to accompany a review? Fine. Collecting together ten or more from some free "gaming media" outlet in the vain hope that someone will visit our site, instead of one of the thousands upon thousands of others with the EXACT SAME SCREENS

Feature Articles

Ultimately, in my opinion, the reason why RJS fell flat on its face is that our goal was realistic. The rather naive idea was that, rather than trying to compete on the basic news/reviews front, we'd aim for original and unique content. Now, how easy is it to create original and unique content?

Fact: 99% of feature articles are either boring "all about/the history of" articles which regurgitate often commonly known knowledge nicked from elsewhere (Wikipedia, anyone? First page of Google?) or they're equally boring and utterly useless "top 10" lists.

Mailbag

Sure, it's fun, it increases user interactivity and it gives the site a more friendly feel... BUT, this is one thing that really, really needs a decent sized readerbase in order to get off the ground. Put it in the "later" pile.

Handheld Gaming News & Reviews

So that leaves us with news, reviews and maybe the occasional humour/opinion piece. Good. That's all we need to begin with.

Fact is, news and reviews are the bread and butter of any decent gaming site. They draw in the visitors and they (along with part three of the equation: forums) keep them coming back. Anything else is just icing on the cake.

News probably needs some explaining. Now, I realise we can't be the first to report anything[/i[, but we can be the first to collect it all together in one place. This is how GBA Central worked. This is how it gained almost all of its popularity.

The Problem With ByteSized Gaming

At this point, some of you might, quite understandably, be experiencing a sense of deja vu. Didn't we create virtually the same site before and wasn't it called ByteSized Gaming? Yes... and no.

I always felt that ByteSized Gaming had some rather serious problems. By far the largest was that the admin centre sucked.

Posting news can be repetitive, but the problem is made a thousand times worse when you have to put in a ridiculously huge amount of effort just to get the article formatted properly. Images were (and still are, with Run Jump Shoot) an even bigger problem. What we need to do is ensure that our next admin centre is designed well. It should require the absolute minimum amount of effort to post a news story and very little extra to post a review.

Everything is an Article

For simplicity's sake.

- Each and every article posted will appear on the front page, either in its entirety (if it's short) or displaying the first couple of paragraphs together with a link to the rest.
- Articles will originally come in two types: news and reviews. We can add more later as necessary.
- News stories are your basic articles with an optional link to a source story or other web page.
- Reviews are articles which also contain information about the game plus a score, which is a necessity for sites like GameRankings and is also good for stirring controversy (= publicity).
- All articles will be searchable.
- A navigation link will take the reader to a sortable list of reviews, as seen on virtually every site ever.

No Silly Formatting

Things like images floated to the left and right really complicate things. They also tend to make it necessary to preview everything before posting it, just to make sure it isn't a huge mess. We don't need these things. We need a heading tag and basic text formatting (bold, italic, etc.), and centre aligned images never hurt anyone.

A Sensible Way to Store Images

So how about giving people what's effectively FTP access to the images directory, via their browser? A user customisable directory structure would provide an extremely simple and convenient way of sorting and categorising images.

Critique? Comments?

There are a few more things I'll post about later. Meanwhile, I'd like to hear some thoughts. Hopefully we can start to hammer these ideas into a workable shape.

[sim]

I think importance of being first to put together news (or at lesat be competitive with other sites like this; how many are left btw?) cannot be underestimated. A dedicated news editor is the biggest part in the system imo!

[John]

What do we call this site?

What sort of design are we looking for (I personally prefer what we achieved with BSG than RJS, though obviously a lot of the complexity can and should be stripped away if we went for something like BSG again).

My most important comment would be that reviews need to have scores again. I propose using the BSG/5 Star system, as that's the best we've ever had IMO.

[Rensch]

I agree with going back to a handheld-focused site. This is what kept me coming back since GBAcentral. I understand the idea behind RJS but it turned out to be a failure. I actually liked how BSG was an update of DScentral like that site was to GBAcentral.

BTW: If the site goes back to a handheld focused site, will the old reviews from GBAcentral, DScentral and BSG return like on BSG?

[John]

BTW: If the site goes back to a handheld focused site, will the old reviews from GBAcentral, DScentral and BSG return like on BSG?

I hope so, it would be great to one day resurrect all the (half decent) content that was active on the GBAC/DSC sites - we never got a chance to complete that on BSG.

[sim]

would be fucking horrendous having to put that all into some new admin centre

[Kris]

I'm off school for four months now, so I could do a lot of shitty grunt work such as that if you need volunteers.

- Kris

[sim]

and we have our news editor.

[Kris]

Nice try Sim. But I'm no good at finding news.

- Kris

[Rabid_Weasle]

Doesn't matter to me, I'm not going anywhere.

[JskieXL]

What do we call this site?

Well, we have two options, really. I'm in favour of ByteSized Gaming, personally, considering the focus is switching back to portables.

What sort of design are we looking for (I personally prefer what we achieved with BSG than RJS, though obviously a lot of the complexity can and should be stripped away if we went for something like BSG again).

Looks like we're thinking somewhat along the same lines. I'm in favour of something very simple and "slick"-looking: navigation along the top ("News", "Reviews", "Forums") and a two-column layout for the rest of the page, with the right column being a typical sidebar which may or may not change depending on context. I'd also like to go fixed-width because this makes the CSS stuff far, far easier.

Colour scheme-wise, blue and white, like classic GBA Central?

My most important comment would be that reviews need to have scores again. I propose using the BSG/5 Star system, as that's the best we've ever had IMO.

Agreed.

I'm off school for four months now, so I could do a lot of shitty grunt work such as that if you need volunteers.

How's your Ruby?

[Rensch]

Yeah, the star system should be used. I'm not sure about the name and the design, though. GBA's, DS's and PSP's are available in different colors so you can't really base your design on them.

[Kris]

How's your Ruby?

It's been derailed.

Anyone who gets that is a nerd.

- Kris

[JskieXL]

What if I got it but cringed at how horrible and unfunny it was? Does that redeem me?

[Kris]

I'd say it redeems you, as that was its main intention.

- Kris