The coming of age for Indie Game Sites
by XboxOZ360 & dkpatriarch
©2009 Grant Smythe - ©2009 David Hilton: 2IC
With the huge amount of social networking and blogging these days, where everyday people can reach the world, some wonder about the legitimacy of non-commercial sites based on people and people’s opinions.
After all, put one way, opinions are like arseholes….everyone has one, most of them stink, and no one wants to hear yours, right?
But are all these blog sites or even some of the more developed sites based on online hosting services like WordPress just ‘blowing foul air’, or do they really contribute to people’s interests and actually engage, entertain, and enrich?
For many gamers the answer is simple: gaming blogs and even the more developed sites based on online hosting services that aren’t commercial and don’t have to answer to anyone are not legitimate.
• They are like graffiti vandals: they deface real gaming information with what they think is art.
For many other gamers the answer is equally simple: these blogs and independent sites are a breath of fresh air in an industry where information consists primarily of PR press releases and some of the big commercial sites have a wiff of outside ‘influence’ contributing to their opinions.
Independent sites tackle any issue, analyse a variety of issues with only their own bias, and are not made up of self-important journos, but gamers like anyone else. The good ones try to get you to think about issues, not just rehash the news, and welcome polite interaction or comments from their readers.
OXCGN obviously stands with the second group, though we acknowledge that there are plenty of independent sites that don’t try to contribute anything interesting to the gaming site landscape.
Without these independents, the gaming site landscape would be pretty bare.
Some of the major sites that are blogs
TechCrunch supplies a plethora of tech and industry news daily to millions of subscribers
Venture Beat, one of the worlds greatest industry news aggregators on gaming and tech and Venture capital specialists
Wired.com’s which has p[erhaps one of the largest collection of industry news covering every aspect including gaming and tech and gadget news huge number of sites are all blogs
Engadet, the first major tech site to become noticed worldwide, and it still remains a blog and deals in gaming and industry news every day. One of the first stops for any gaming jurno on the hunt for some news.
Joystiq, part of the GaminIndutrsy syndication that covers around 7 major gaming sites - again, all blogs.
GameDaily, also part of the gameing industry syndication programs that is perhaps one of the leading news suppliers for gaming jurnolists worldwide - a blog.
Destructoid is a very well known gaming site, and while large, still choses to use blogging software to presnt its unique style of news and information.
GameSutra is also one of the top 10 gaming news portals for gaming news and jurnos, without it, many game writers would not get the detailed info they need daily.
Kotaku, both locally and in all other major regions, which are all syndicated and all blogs running on blogging software.
InsiderX, Australia's own Xbox Division's community news portal is run on WordPress software, as are a huge percentage of internal Xbox sites.
Source: Royal Pingdom
This is but a few of the hundreds of sites that supply news for the industry. None of them belong to the major corporations that most ill-informed gamers associate with "legitimate gaming news", ie, IGN, GameSpot etc.
The legitimacy of 'Independent Sites'
Those that have a vision to run a website have to start somewhere. For some that means using online software and online hosting services.
The term Weblog or 'blogging' was originally used to describe a group of people using the "web" for personal use as a form of online "log", or diary for want of a better word.
Web Log became "Weblog", and that became "blog" or "we blog" . . . simple enough and easy to understand. However, the early days of blogs being just an online diary are long gone.
Many of the gaming blogs have grown to become amateur gaming sites, and many are very popular and respected. Some blog sites specialise in vetting and rating just gaming blogs, such as Blogged.com, who have an annual Blog Awards which are highly sought after by many mainstream gaming sites/blogs.
Even major newspaper outlets now use blogging software to send their reporters gaming news out into the gaming world, such as The Guardian or the San Jose Mercury's gaming section. Not to mention all their ordinary news other sections, all of which are run off Blogging Software such as those mentioned in here. Even Microsoft its self uses WordPress.com for their staff-run community information sites such as InsiderX.
Of course many still see these sites and especially sites using online based software like WordPress as the right hand of Satan.
What IS a real site?
To them, only the real commercial game sites are the messiahs of gaming news and opinion.
This view negates the idea that information should be taken on its individual merits, even if it came from a site that uses online software or is independent. If it's a good read, provoking and interesting, or if the information comes from a source just as legitimate as a commercial website's source, then it has value.
The Prime Minister of Great Britain uses a WordPress software based blog to tell his constituents what's happening around his neck of the woods. It's secure and there's no need to 'reinvent the wheel'.
It is a known fact that 80% or more of all gaming sites, major and medium sized, are in fact "Blogs" and many run on very commonly accessible software such as WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, and many others (see graph above). Many are self hosted, using the software supplied by the site's host, or web-based hosted via the Blogging sites own servers. The software is often free and extensively feature-packed, so as to run their sites in an efficient and cost effective manner.
Major gaming & tech news sites Are Blogs!
As mentioned above, sites such as Destructoid, Gizmodo, Joystiq, Engadget, SonyFanBoy, XboxFanboy, WiiFanBoy and many many more, comimg from all sides of the fence have enriched the game information landscape that manytake for granted these days.
Many of these sites are actually syndicated to other major corporate sites, with proper staff that get paid a real wage. However, a huge number of "Indie Game Sites" are comprise mainly of hard working volunteers (like we do) who only want to make an impression, delivering a variety of interesting content and sharing their gaming interest with others, and make a difference.
OXCGN has over 700 pages of information, 580 published articles, 7 thousand images, uses 25ogig of bandwidth on its small video library (60) alone each month, and currently has around 10 active 'volunteer' members on the team.
OXCGN and many of these sites attend the same gaming events, interview the same superstars of gaming, and get the same press releases as the corporate sites. It's invited to the same press events by THQ, Ubisoft, Atari, Microsoft and Sony as well as many many others. Just like the coutless other gaming 'blogs' that make up over 20 million sites on the internet
Yet the criticism and nitpicking is still prevalent.
OXCGN covered the MS Keynote live, as did many other offical gaming sites, many of which are blogs
You can enjoy, say, IGN, a large commercial site with paid staff, but you can equally enjoy, say, OXCGN if you find a perspective that elicits an opinion. A site like OXCGN may have people still learning and practising various skills without the professional status those on commercial sites enjoy, but a gamer’s passion and ideas luckily can still attract interest.
The teams on many game sites are made up of excellent individuals, versed in many areas of life (as they are often employed in other industries), with one basic common factor that unites them all – they are “gamers”.
Our recent E3 team paid their own way to get to LA and worked tirelessly to get contacts and appointments with game companies. That’s passion.
While discussing “blogs” and “Indie Game Sites” with a major publisher here in Sydney, a representative commented that he loves the Indie Game Site Community beginning to emerge recently, as it represents the actual end-user much more than a major site does, who’s primary interest is in securing maximum views and impressions for ad revenue, at all costs.
He stated that he’s more than willing to support any viable young site (irrespective of whether it is using blogging software or public or privately hosted) so long as it has an ethical nature and will abide by the NDA’s that are required for the “press”. Note the word press he used.
Indie Gaming Sites on the rise
• We need to see Indie Game Sites for what they are, not what they are not.
True, they are not funded by million dollar companies that can have the latest tech online, staff to create the best artwork possible or have the wherefore to send staff to the four corners of the globe to cover a story.
Indie sites have to fend for themselves, often at great expense and stress if their staff also work full-time elsewhere and make sacrifices to their family and social lives as well. For those that stick at it, the rewards are there to be had.
• Unfortunately, 80% or more of all new sites will fail within several months (3-7 or so months).
Politics, personal issues, finances etc. all come into play. But those 20% that survive, will often supply you, the gamer, with more viable information than the major corporate sites combined.
Actually, most of them are now combined in one or two huge syndicates where the same news is simply reprinted in brief, then all pointing back to the parent site to gain the most traffic. Ie. $$$ from advertisers who only support high-traffic sites.
• The case for hard-working independent ‘blog’ sites ultimately rests with you, the reader.
As we pass the 1 million unique views and come off a record viewer month in our short history as a site, we are very thankful that our viewers have had an open mind and appreciate the time you have taken to read what our writers produce.
The tide has changed, and gamers need to understand that what was once a medium for daily journal keeping is no more, and the bulk of blogging is now carried out by professionals in various industries across the globe, and especially within the gaming industry.
Sure, there are dodgy sites, but you can not paint all sites based on a few that break the rules of professionalism, before tarring a site with that same brush, check it out, do some digging into it and see what it has offered its readers, see who it links to, what sites belong to it via a syndication, or who are cross linked with it from major gaming news site elsewhere on the gaming cyber-sphere.
This will give you a better indication of how reliable that gaming blog is.
©2009 Grant Smythe – OXCGN.com:
©2009 David Hilton: 2IC
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Filed under: 3rd Party Games, Editorial, Game Industry News, GameBanter, Industry News, OXCGN Affiliates, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 News Tagged: | "Indie Game Sites", blog, blogged, blogger, Destructoid, Engadet, Engadget, Game Indusrty biz, GameDaily, GameIndustry News, Gamesutra, gaming blogs, Gizmodo, InsiderX, Joystiq, kotaku, kotaku australia, OXCGN, SonyFanBoy, TechCrunch, typepad, Venture Bect, WiiFanBoy, Wordpress, XboxFanboy
I’m a journalist by trade. I started a game blog just for fun, to write about something I’m passionate about and to try to spin it off into a paid gig. Luckily enough I had some success there, getting a bi-weekly gig at a local magazine that helps me get my foot in the door with publishers.
But since getting that gig I have been trying to figure out how to incorporate my solo blog. This article has given me some good ideas on what to focus on as I approach a rebranding.
Running a gaming blog can be tough. You have to fight for credibility in a sea cynical readers. To most people you’re just another yahoo on the Net. And when you do spend hours coming up with original content you have to fight to get people to see or read it. And there you have to compete with Top 10 lists and Flame War bait articles which seem to get the most attention.
Believe me…we hear you! It takes a lot of effort but there are some top readers out there.
We have a great staff of volunteers but are always looking for more talented writers to join us too…if you can write and you have passion it isn’t always about having to have your own website but joining one that has readers and staff that would enjoy your contributions can also be rewarding.
That’s cool. Like I said, the blog was kind of a means to an end for me in the beginning.
But if you guys are always looking for more writers, why don’t you hit me up and tell me a little bit more about how you operate and what kind of stories you would be interested in.
My e-mail is available on my blog (where you’ll also see some writing of mine to judge for yourself my skills with the written word).
I must say, wow! A very good article, especially for me, a new blogger. It is very educational and informative, the article itself pointed out the whats, whys and hows of true a game blog!
funny that i read this as i just started a new video game blog! and I understand the general opinion on sites like mine, but hopefully, I’ll get somewhere and be in that 20% !!
You make a pertinent point, there are many blogs out there that only serve to re-post news that people already get from larger sites. Good independant blogs prove themselves with their original content, just like OXCGN
And like the Armchair Diplomats I believe?!
That was a really fantastic article. Bookmarked, and shared.