avguste Posted October 25, 2009 Posted October 25, 2009 Greetings My name is Avguste and I would like to introduce you to GamesOverview. Contrary to previous attempts, this version of GamesOverview is simply a full fledge Wordpress blog where I will be reviewing games I play,have played, or games I am paid to preview/review. Launched officially at the beginning of October,I have reviewed the following games: Runes of MagicAion Earth Eternal This being really my first gaming review blog, I am obviously working on improving my writing and reviews. Upcoming reviews include Lands of Hope http://www.forlornonline.com/Legendary Voyage http://www.legendaryvoyage.com/Istaria http://www.istaria.com/ I would like to invite you to check out GamesOverview and consider hiring me for a preview/intro/review. Thank you Quote
Guest georgelink Posted October 25, 2009 Posted October 25, 2009 Well first off, you can expect someone to just say: ok, ill give this person...i duno 50 bucks to review my site this is because you didn't explain your traffic! Go to Alexa or weboutlook, get a graph of your traffic and post it! I am also disgusted by the domain, get a real domain if you want to take this seriously. Also, the template looks like someone puked on it. Like i don't mean to be rude or anything, but its a long way from success. Consider my "review" of Your website, and change it! Quote
Peter || MaxPixa Posted October 25, 2009 Posted October 25, 2009 Well first off, you can expect someone to just say: ok, ill give this person...i duno 50 bucks to review my site this is because you didn't explain your traffic! Go to Alexa or weboutlook, get a graph of your traffic and post it! I am also disgusted by the domain, get a real domain if you want to take this seriously. Also, the template looks like someone puked on it. Like i don't mean to be rude or anything, but its a long way from success. Consider my "review" of Your website, and change it! When you say your trying not to be rude.... by saying disgusted and puked... that is not really putting it in a polite way... I noticed this again on like three threads i saw you just bash right away nothing good. I think this guys got a great idea for a site. Yes the layout is not so great and he will have to put work on it, but your attitude throughout your so called "review" is "disgusting". Quote
avguste Posted October 25, 2009 Author Posted October 25, 2009 Well first off, you can expect someone to just say: ok, ill give this person...i duno 50 bucks to review my site this is because you didn't explain your traffic! Go to Alexa or weboutlook, get a graph of your traffic and post it! I am also disgusted by the domain, get a real domain if you want to take this seriously. Also, the template looks like someone puked on it. Like i don't mean to be rude or anything, but its a long way from success. Consider my "review" of Your website, and change it! Please allow me to respond georgelink. Given that I wrote when I launched the site, I dont see why I need to put any traffic data. Considering the theme,I do agree with you and your comment gave me the idea to look at other themes(just changed it). As far as domain,i will consider a domain if and when the site is successful(unless of course you want to pay for a domain...) Thank you for your post Peter. As I wrote on my original post,this is really my first gaming review/preview blog and as such I do realize that I have lots of things to improve on,including writing. Oh and by the way,I am not charging $50. The fees can be found at http://www.gamesoverview.novahost.org/previewreviews-service I welcome constructive criticism as it is the best way to improve :) And to finish,please allow me to add that with more users,more features will be added Quote
Dave Posted October 25, 2009 Posted October 25, 2009 Looks like a very nice service you are providing, If you managed to make your site incrediably active then in turn you could bump the prices of the reviews up because one review would generally mean quite a large amount of advertising and back links from your site. I like your idea but maybe to get your name out you should offer 2 or 3 free reviews for game owners on MWG? Quote
avguste Posted October 25, 2009 Author Posted October 25, 2009 Looks like a very nice service you are providing, If you managed to make your site incrediably active then in turn you could bump the prices of the reviews up because one review would generally mean quite a large amount of advertising and back links from your site. I like your idea but maybe to get your name out you should offer 2 or 3 free reviews for game owners on MWG? Thank you for the comment Dave. I completely agree with you and I have been actually considering your suggestion since launch. It is something that I would need to think about some more, such as length,type and so forth.But yea, your idea is something that I have been looking at as well. And with the goal of making my blog easy of access,I have also added the option to log in using 3rd party sites(facebook,openid,google and such) The main problem I have currently though is finding sites where to post about my blog. Quote
reek13 Posted October 25, 2009 Posted October 25, 2009 I like your idea its very good , however it looks like you could use some help to carry out your project , Im interested in helping and providing a hand in your project , feel free to contact me at [email protected] though msn messenger(prefer) or email Quote
a_bertrand Posted October 25, 2009 Posted October 25, 2009 First of all, I must say I do appreciate review websites, now if I may comment on your project, I must say that a few points come to my mind: - Why would a game owner (or yet more even a player) pay you for a review? Specially if the review could actually be a negative review. I do understand that you are offering a service, and it takes you time, but I don't directly see the advantages for a game owner to get a review with may actually put in shadow his game. Also as some others pointed out, you cannot guarantee any number of visits coming from your site. So basically you are offering a service (a good one) but without any gain for the owner. Or an hypothetical one once you get a lot of traffic. - Having your reviews put inside a blog means it will be easy to spot new one, but very hard to find older one unless we use some search or search engine. You would need instead to organize them in directories, and that would work much better. - As we (me and MDShare) are setting up (slowly) a game directory and we was thinking of having game reviews offered on it, I would be interested in some collaboration (payed of course). However 30$ per review seems a bit high right now, where 10$-20$ would be doable. We could actually give you a bunch of games to review, and pre-pay them if you allow to post them on our site. Of course you are free to post the review as well on your website. Actually if you are interested it could be a semi-fix position where you are payed monthly for a fixed number of reviews (like one or 2 per week). This position apply to any other candidate. This kind of scheme where a site pay you seems more fair for both the game owner and for you, as you may then review them in a neutral way without the fear to make people unhappy as they payed you. Quote
avguste Posted October 25, 2009 Author Posted October 25, 2009 I like your idea its very good , however it looks like you could use some help to carry out your project , Im interested in helping and providing a hand in your project , feel free to contact me at [email protected] though msn messenger(prefer) or email Thanks for the post. I did add you to MSN,although I am not exactly sure what you are referring to. Quote
avguste Posted October 25, 2009 Author Posted October 25, 2009 First of all, I must say I do appreciate review websites, now if I may comment on your project, I must say that a few points come to my mind: - Why would a game owner (or yet more even a player) pay you for a review? Specially if the review could actually be a negative review. I do understand that you are offering a service, and it takes you time, but I don't directly see the advantages for a game owner to get a review with may actually put in shadow his game. Also as some others pointed out, you cannot guarantee any number of visits coming from your site. So basically you are offering a service (a good one) but without any gain for the owner. Or an hypothetical one once you get a lot of traffic. - Having your reviews put inside a blog means it will be easy to spot new one, but very hard to find older one unless we use some search or search engine. You would need instead to organize them in directories, and that would work much better. - As we (me and MDShare) are setting up (slowly) a game directory and we was thinking of having game reviews offered on it, I would be interested in some collaboration (payed of course). However 30$ per review seems a bit high right now, where 10$-20$ would be doable. We could actually give you a bunch of games to review, and pre-pay them if you allow to post them on our site. Of course you are free to post the review as well on your website. Actually if you are interested it could be a semi-fix position where you are payed monthly for a fixed number of reviews (like one or 2 per week). This position apply to any other candidate. This kind of scheme where a site pay you seems more fair for both the game owner and for you, as you may then review them in a neutral way without the fear to make people unhappy as they payed you. Greetings bertrand and thank you for the comments. Please allow me to respond: -in any reviews, the owner of the product risks a bad review. The most known and recent example in the gaming business(as far as I recall) is the review debacle of Darkfall, which was written by EuroGamers. My point being is that in my opinion,no matter what is the product reviewed, the owner of the product is always at the mercy of the reviewer. -You are correct as far as the search engine and I have actually activated the search option on the blog. Obviously you are also correct on directories/categories. As you can see, I have currently divided the reviews in general categories. I am also looking at different options to better show the reviews and such. Also, depending on the site success, I have options to add forums and the likes. - I am very much interested in your proposition/offer and I am ready to talk with you about it. Concerning the fees, the fees I have posted are for individual game owners. Obviously given the status of MakeWebGames, if I do any business with MakeWebGames, I would be more than willing to lower those fees to fit your budget, while it is still fair to me. As I wrote above,I am ready, willing and excited to talk with you and/or your co-owner about your proposition/offer. I can be easily reached on MSN Messenger([email protected]), AIM(Avguste),YIM Messenger(loveroyals), Xfire(lovechiefs). I hope to hear from you Quote
a_bertrand Posted October 25, 2009 Posted October 25, 2009 True game owners are at the mercy of the reviews. However I doubt game owners pay the reviews. Normally reviews are payed either by a fee asked to players to get access to the journal or e-zine or by adverts inside such things. Reviews for a game owner are normally free beside maybe a copy of the game to the journalists and some materials like in game screenshots or movies premade for them. For our collaboration let me prepare something and I will send you more details tomorrow. Of course we will be fair, and you should not see much difference with what you ask now. Quote
mdshare Posted October 25, 2009 Posted October 25, 2009 One remark, why using a free host for your blog ? Using a free host usually drops the value of a site, articles etc ... not really taken serious. Quote
avguste Posted October 25, 2009 Author Posted October 25, 2009 One remark, why using a free host for your blog ? Using a free host usually drops the value of a site, articles etc ... not really taken serious. Novahost.org is a great host.It is free,reliable, with great specs.And I have been using them for a long time without any problems. Now I also do understand and I agree with your point. Please note that even though the host is free, I can modify my domain name from the current sub-domain to a full fledge domain. I do plan on making that switch in the short future,depending on the site success. Quote
Toppy Posted October 25, 2009 Posted October 25, 2009 After reading your blog a bit and of course this thread I have a few suggestions: 1) My most important suggestion: a domain name immediately. Games or not, this is a business venture. You don't build brand recognition and then change your brand. From day one you are trying to build a brand name, lure visitors and traffic. This is much like the retail motto: "Location, Location, Location". If you build up a business and move you will lose some clientel. The same goes for a domain name and site name. First off, your name is "GamesOverview" and the first domain people use with a name is a .com. So I will remember your blog and think, "hmm, it was Games Overview, right?" and will try: gamesoverview.com - but, that URL is taken by someone else. You just lost a customer/reader. This will happen to you if you build on any other domain extension other than .com and if possibly if your site name is different from your URL. The URL is used to market from day one and links to a URL are important as they build page ranking/serps in Google and other search engines. Granted you can always forward it when you get a new domain but why waste your time building something to do over? Depending on the current deals you can get .com's from $0 up. At most don't pay more than $10 USD but there is no excuse not to do it now. 2) Layout/Looks: Gamers tend to gravitate to a more gamey look. :) They seem to prefer sites that are more visual with images and color. I would suggest looking at some of the free premium word press themes. There are quite a few, nice and high quality ones out there. They also come with some great features and plugins like current video, pictures/image gallery and things like that. Many of them come with ways to change color and style easier as well. Many are also optimized for Adsense and sponsored ads which should be a big priority for your blog. Don't overlook this aspect, it is much like play a text based game versus a nice graphical interface - if the ONLY difference in the game is the look what would you choose. Yes, the nice pretty visually stimulating one. As a note, the current them you have, when I read the about pages I have to abort the load or the RSS part overwrites the content. 3) Your reviews are very detailed which is great. Also, it is excellent that you are humble and modest and are able to correct yourself and take feedback from viewers. A couple of suggestions on your writing: Watch your punctuation. There are several occasions where you use punctuation and forget to add a space with it. These no space lines can get hard on the eyes and make it difficult to read. Also, I would suggest not going off on 'tangents' (for lack of better terminology at this point), such as in the Runes of Magic review when you mentioned how you thought it was wise for Frogster to include the TOS. Considering your reviews are so in depth and there is a lot to read already try to keep the superfluous content to a minimum. 4) After the previous items are sorted, especially #1, I would strongly recommend search engine optimization of the blog. This includes page titles, keywords and article title in the URL, etc. The standard SEO stuff. Good luck on your new ventures. Quote
avguste Posted October 25, 2009 Author Posted October 25, 2009 Thanks for the comments Toppy A few responses if I may: 1. the domain name is something that I am considering in the short term. To be honest, I am having a few financial problems right now and I am scheduled to be out of town for business in one week.So the earliest i would probably take care of this would be after November 6th. 2. I am actually looking at different themes that fit the site,text and ads I have set up. Concerning ads,I will already use specific gaming ads and obviously will look to add more. Your problem probably occurred,while I was switching themes around and trying a few different ones in live.Sorry about this. 3. Thanks for the comment about the writing. I will make sure to double check on the punctuation, and as far as the "tangents", you are also correct, although I havent done so much. 2. After reading your blog a bit and of course this thread I have a few suggestions: 1) My most important suggestion: a domain name immediately. Games or not, this is a business venture. You don't build brand recognition and then change your brand. From day one you are trying to build a brand name, lure visitors and traffic. This is much like the retail motto: "Location, Location, Location". If you build up a business and move you will lose some clientel. The same goes for a domain name and site name. First off, your name is "GamesOverview" and the first domain people use with a name is a .com. So I will remember your blog and think, "hmm, it was Games Overview, right?" and will try: gamesoverview.com - but, that URL is taken by someone else. You just lost a customer/reader. This will happen to you if you build on any other domain extension other than .com and if possibly if your site name is different from your URL. The URL is used to market from day one and links to a URL are important as they build page ranking/serps in Google and other search engines. Granted you can always forward it when you get a new domain but why waste your time building something to do over? Depending on the current deals you can get .com's from $0 up. At most don't pay more than $10 USD but there is no excuse not to do it now. 2) Layout/Looks: Gamers tend to gravitate to a more gamey look. :) They seem to prefer sites that are more visual with images and color. I would suggest looking at some of the free premium word press themes. There are quite a few, nice and high quality ones out there. They also come with some great features and plugins like current video, pictures/image gallery and things like that. Many of them come with ways to change color and style easier as well. Many are also optimized for Adsense and sponsored ads which should be a big priority for your blog. Don't overlook this aspect, it is much like play a text based game versus a nice graphical interface - if the ONLY difference in the game is the look what would you choose. Yes, the nice pretty visually stimulating one. As a note, the current them you have, when I read the about pages I have to abort the load or the RSS part overwrites the content. 3) Your reviews are very detailed which is great. Also, it is excellent that you are humble and modest and are able to correct yourself and take feedback from viewers. A couple of suggestions on your writing: Watch your punctuation. There are several occasions where you use punctuation and forget to add a space with it. These no space lines can get hard on the eyes and make it difficult to read. Also, I would suggest not going off on 'tangents' (for lack of better terminology at this point), such as in the Runes of Magic review when you mentioned how you thought it was wise for Frogster to include the TOS. Considering your reviews are so in depth and there is a lot to read already try to keep the superfluous content to a minimum. 4) After the previous items are sorted, especially #1, I would strongly recommend search engine optimization of the blog. This includes page titles, keywords and article title in the URL, etc. The standard SEO stuff. Good luck on your new ventures. Quote
avguste Posted October 25, 2009 Author Posted October 25, 2009 Just a small note that I have updated the site with a new template,more suited toward gaming and also edited the ads to make the site easier to read/access Quote
avguste Posted October 29, 2009 Author Posted October 29, 2009 Check out my review of Nowhere Else and Beyond http://www.gamesoverview.novahost.org/archives/115 Quote
avguste Posted October 30, 2009 Author Posted October 30, 2009 My pleasure I would like to take this opportunity to announce two new features: Sociable=able to share reviews and articles on social sites Rating= able to rate all my reviews For more details, please go to http://www.gamesoverview.novahost.org/archives/179 Thanks Quote
avguste Posted November 1, 2009 Author Posted November 1, 2009 Introductory Review of Alien Adoption Agency posted. The introductory review can be found at http://www.gamesoverview.novahost.org/archives/174 http://www.playerscorner.org/reviews.php?ID=2 Quote
a_bertrand Posted November 2, 2009 Posted November 2, 2009 Nice review, thanks for your hard work! Quote
avguste Posted November 7, 2009 Author Posted November 7, 2009 Thanks I just got back from my business trip and I am exhausted. Will probably start on the next game sometime this coming week Quote
avguste Posted November 13, 2009 Author Posted November 13, 2009 working on review for The Kingdom of Loathing. Everything going ok so far :) Quote
avguste Posted November 16, 2009 Author Posted November 16, 2009 Kingdom of Loathing done. Should be posted tonight Quote
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