The Video Game Critic

Here I go again - coming up with more "great ideas" for the site. Humor me!

I often peruse sites like Slashdot and Ars Technica to read the latest in tech, often related to video games. These basically post short synopsis of linked articles and let people leave comments.

I was thinking about doing something similar. In addition to reviews on the front page, I could occasionally post a link to an informative article related to stuff we tend to be interested in. The new Nintendo system is a prime example:
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2016/0 ... h_30_games

Like Slashdot, under the article would be a link that says "20 comments" or something like that. You would click on that to take you to a thread on this message board where the discussion is taking place.

What does this add? Well, it makes the main page look more interesting by incorporating forum-related discussions. Instead of checking every three days for new reviews, you could have a reason to check each day. Maybe we would post two or three articles per week to see how things go.

At first I would post these, but I could also add a mechanism to allow moderators to add them as well.

Thoughts?

That would be a cool feature Critic and I like the idea. However when new ideas have been implemented, they sometimes slow the site to a crawl. If it's possible to do this without slowing the site down I say go for it. If it will effect the speed of loading pages I'd pass as it is cool, but it's a minor feature and not worth this site having tech issues. Just my two cents.....

I like it. I really don't check out other sites for video game news because so little of it applies to me. The only thing I'd prefer is if on the desktop site the news was to the side(where News is currently), and the reviews stay where they are.

I like it!

I'd like to hear the moderators chime in on this idea.

Shapur wrote:I like it. I really don't check out other sites for video game news because so little of it applies to me.

First, Happy 1 year anniversary to Shapur on the site.

I have a similar take to Shapur about most gaming sites. I would like some curated articles of interest to retrogamers. Except for the work in finding and curating, I don't see much of a downside, so I like it. However, beyond new products, what would be of interest? Controversies, interesting videos, someone makes another list of top X games for system Y?

In a similar vein, how about also promoting existing and unique content already on the site. Perhaps the community is having a good discussion on all the many driving controllers or history of Golf video games or if Castlevania II is good or crap, or why the Intellivision is underrated - promote the conversation on the main page and give it a tweet.

There does not seem to be much of a downside in broadening from an occassional article to more frequent. It still keeps the sites focus on gaming, and if it doesn't work out, then you just quietly stop doing it.

I think I figured out how this could work in a completely automated way. Someone recommended NOT mixing the articles in with the reviews, instead placing them in an area on the right side. I think that might be a good idea.

What I could do is have a new section called "Latest Chatter" or "Forum Talk" or something like that (help me guys!).
Under that would be the titles to the three most recent posts under the General/Classic/Modern forums. Under each would be a link that says "20 Comments" or something like that which takes you directly to the post.

This new feature would expose the threads on the main page and possible spark more interest. The fact that they would dynamically change is not a bad thing.

What do you think??

All for it now!

Well, I went ahead and implemented this. Check it out on the front page.
It shows the top 5 recent topics that have at least 5 posts.
Let me know what you think.

It seems to work. Its not on the mobile site, just the full site.

The subject titles are now more important - as one thread has a title like the scientific name of an obscure protein. It also is going to favor bumping an older thread over starting new ones unless you look for more than 1 post in the last day or so. To favor new topics, maybe drop the 5 post minimum? Perhaps you want to remove threads from 'Other Media' from the list too.

Hope it helps drive some review readers to the forums.