ioi said:
Hmmmm... some interesting points here.
It seems a lot of users are against the idea of site reviews, but would prefer we adopt / partner with / mimic a gamerankings style system. This sort of thing is certainly possible, and is something we could do. Would have to be heavily user-driven though, and only "trusted" users.
Personally I like the idea of users having a status, kudos, points or whatever. Based partly on number of posts but maybe also voted by other forum members. This way we can control who has access to edit and add certain features to the site - another form of self-moderation really. The more "kudos" or whatever points that a user accumulates the more freedom they have to do things on the site.
Overall I am getting the feeling that I had originally. That vgchartz in itself should avoid getting too wrapped up in becoming more like general gaming sites. What we should try to be is a complete database of games with game info, their sales figures and so on. Which we are already there in essence, just need some fine tuning.
Here's a list of things I want to do then, let's see if most agree:
- A general site makeover, more web 2.0 stuff, reorder front page slightly.
- A distinction between "news" and "sales articles". Sales articles are original vgchartz content written by people like thesource / y-koron and offer more in-depth analysis of the data, normally on a weekly basis. The news section could either be tested as a digg-style section where "trusted" users can add stories which get voted up if they are liked, we could form a partnership with other sites to share news info or we could set up a small, dedicated team to write some more general gaming news items, attend game shows etc.
- More charting and graphing options - as somebody said this is essentially some database queries as the data is all there so it can be as imaginative as I / we want it to be. I'll maybe create a thread of "I would like..." for this.
- A "kudos" / "trust" or similar system for the forum / community whereby users gain points based on number of posts, votes from other users, number of temp bans and so on. Gives other users an idea of how to trust others and gives mods an indication of previous behaviour if a dispute arises.
- Expansion of the game pages. Reintroduction of user-created reviews and faqs, maybe promotion of this feature more on the homepage to drum up some more interest. Aim to make vgchartz a complete database of all games ever released with their sales figures in each region, some key info for each, screenshots etc.
- A release date section / upcoming releases.
- Improvements to the "social network" side of the site. Full implementation of "I own this game" - more options to customise profiles, info about friend's recent activity (a la facebook) - which games they have recently bought etc - ability to form groups? Events? Lots of potential here - could be the first social network site dedicated to gamers. - Finally, a better and more integrated prediction "game". I like the idea of everybody starting with a sum of money and being able to bet however much they want on certain predictions. This would add more depth to the whole "game", and would be less restrictive and take less admin than the current system. So each week for each game the user can make a prediction as to how much it will sell in a particular region in the following week. If enough users participate we can produce weekly top 50s or whatever (predicted) and these can be compared to actuals when they are available. This would encourage users to visit the game pages more, use the comparison tools more, wouldn't limit you to having to predict 10 games each week and could be fully automated. I think by going down these routes, we manage to offer enough for you guys to hopefully want to stay here and not leave, whilst keeping the site unique and simple and concentrating on what is most important to us all - the sales figures. |
