| Anfebious said: (Goes to check Nintendolife) It looks very good but the main page is too big. I like the Neogaf style because it's simple and short (a bit dated maybe but I rather have simplicty over style). Your idea is nice but I wouldn't focus on stories... Most of the gaming news are the same on every site, so in the end you depend on original content from writers. That's not VG Chartz's specialty (even though we have great articles), this site is known because of the sales dat. I would take the Neogaf template and place the HW and SW sales on the main page, a bunch of important articles titles (3 or 4) on the right with a news section button and a forum section button! No need to scroll to get to the good stuff. But that's my vision for this site. |
Well I specifically said articles instead of stories because VGC could has a major focus on sales based articles, which other gaming sites do not delve deep into. The reason why articles are important is because sales data is worthless without someone to interpret it. They are also important because, as I've mentioned, the sales can't be updated regularly enough to be interesting on its own. A website that can only update its primary form of content once a week can't stand on its own. Having articles focus on sales, in the best case scanario, will be able to justify the relevance of tracking these sales numbers regularly. It's important because it will garner far more intrest in sales numbers than the sales numbers themselves could ever garner, and that's important for site growth.
I don't think the issue is that the Gaf page is dated, but rather that it's not at all well suited for the kind of content VGC provides. It's made for forums because it is exclusively a forum, so it wouldn't make sence to have that format for sales and articles. Sales numbers can't be updated frequently enough to merit primary space on the site, and if the front page is only articles and sales anyway, that's like 40% of the screen if it's given secondary screen space. That the same as the forum tab + the VGCBuddy combined. So it's not like it wouldn't get a very noticable amount of focus. I just think that you refresh the page everyday, and the primary focus of the site isn't changing, or is confusing to garner like it is now, that's death for the site.
I think it needs to be big because if the main focus is the sales, and the sales only update once a week, the site won't get as many hits. If the article get big headers and a lot of screen space, they'll get noticed, and they'll get more clicks, and the site will hopefully get more revenue that way, and definitely more traffic.
If it were me, It'd look a bit like this
EDIT: Okay clearly I can't accurately articulate this through text art.
