The Video Game Critic

I have been checking out the NES library.

VideoGameCritic wrote:Comments? Suggestions?

First, as for adding the pay option, I think that's a great idea, in whatever form you decide to do it. I've certainly gotten my fair share of benefit from this site over the past 10+ years, so I'd be more than happy to contribute back. The Paypal option works for me. I don't mind the ads at all; I don't even notice them, but I would pay the $1 fee just to support the site. Doing it in a 6-month or 12-month format is great, because paying $1 each month would get annoying.


As for comments to reviews, I'd be against direct commenting on reviews. It's a great idea in theory, Critic, but you are giving people way too much credit for being able to use it properly. I think that comments would more often be stupid and unproductive, rather than helpful. People ranting about how you're wrong. Or going off topic. Or just some useless, throwaway comment. That's fine on the forums and I enjoy it there--but it's just unnecessary clutter on the review page. It might amateurize the appearance of your site. If each review had its own page--like, say, IGN--then comments at the bottom are fine..but since you have tons of reviews on one page, I'm concerned that it will completely clutter the site. Especially on the mobile app.

I also think that it's contradictory that people have pushed for moderator-free posting in the forums for a decade, and always been told that the benefits of moderation to prevent inappropriate comments outweighs the immediate-posting system, and yet now it would be allowed in the main pages and reviews, where it is much more visible. It think visitors to the site would expect and/or forgive inappropriate posts in the forums more than they would in the review section.

My preference would be Scotland's suggestion to provide a link to the forums under each review. Maybe you could even allow Guest posting, but just in the review forum, if you want to encourage more feedback.

Well that's my thoughts. Keep up the great work. Much appreciated.

VideoGameCritic wrote: One is the ability to leave short, Twitter-like comments under each review. There would actually be a link under each review saying "View 5 comments" or whatever, and clicking on that would display them. Sites like Slashdot have built a business around comments - they can be very interesting and add a lot more information.

I have already expressed my opinion that I would prefer more forum traffic, but came across an article from a website explaining why they removed comments completely. That over time, the ratio of offensive to substantive comments shifted to favor offensive.

Studies are showing negative comments lead readers to trust the content less and polarize opinions more. Popular Science, Bloomberg, and others shut down their comments as comments were hurting the brand. Other sites like Salon moved toward moderating comments as the only way to keep things civil and promote dialogue, not diatribes. While the topic here is just video games, short unmoderated comments below the reviews might still get nasty and personal. Since the site has moderators, may as well use them.

If you cannot link from each review to a different thread on that review, how about a more general link to Review Feedback? Another idea is to not have an open question comment below each review, but a closed poll question - something like the letter grade vote but where readers could choose from a few choices and view results.

Thank you for the thoughtful feedback guys.

I'm really glad people are receptive to the "gold membership" $1 per month option. I am working on the code for this and it's coming along well. It won't be an annoying pay-by-month thing. You'll be able to pay for up to a year in one fell swoop. I am working to make the interface as seamless as possible.

The feedback about comments is eye-opening. I can see where you are coming from. I mean, if you look at the comments on CNN or YouTube they are complete garbage. I wouldn't want to junk up the site with those.

The main problem with linking reviews is forums is that a keyword link would amount to a search, which is a resource-intensive operation that could slow down the site. A better approach might be to write a process to pull the actual thread IDs for each game and use those as direct links. It might be tough to pull off but it would result in a more efficient system.

Still working out some of the details of integrating with Paypal.

I was planning on these options
$1 = 1 month
$3 = 3 months
$6 = 6 months
$10 = 1 year

My friend Brent suggested just having the 1 year deal. Something about a rule of marketing.
What do you guys think? Which option are you more likely to pick?

1 Year to keep it simple. To me it's like a magazine subscription. I get way more value out of coming here than Forbes...

Just sayin'

One year def Critic

1 year.