Site Changes, Upcoming Articles, and Future Ambitions

The rush and thrill I have gotten from these things has made me what I am today; and I feel I owe much of who I am to anime, manga, and gaming; the skills I have picked up and the lessons I have learned have been an invaluable tool in shaping me.  Anime like Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann天元突破グレンラガン  showing me that even if the odds are impossible and improbable, sometimes you just have to kick logic to the curb and do all you can to come out victorious and believe in yourself.  Manga like Sundome すんドめ showing that no matter who you are, or how odd you are, you can find someone who loves you and to never give up on them.  Also, games like Gears of War show the pain of loss and understanding, and sometimes even a resolution of conflict does not result in an ending that is always happy.  Much of what I have learned in life is through these mediums and they drive me, and I want to share my love of those with the world.

What I mean by “Getting Back in Perspective” is to simply return to my roots and stop trying to force things out.  I mean, I liked doing my interview with desk and having it wind up on Shoryuken.com, I liked doing my interview with SherryJenix and it also getting there; in fact, those two have grossed my highest amount of views so far with desk’s article netting around 9,800 and Sherry’s about 7,800 for about 17,600 views currently, and I waned more.  I began to try and get other interviews just for trying to net more views and get more traffic to my website, even interviewing Soul Calibur player Kayane who was actually very hesitant to do the interview even though she agreed to it.  I liked the views, but I also had to realize I have 45,000 total right now.  What does this mean?  It means that those other 27,400 views came from me without any help (Though, it is possible some who have clicked on those articles may have clicked on others once they got to the site, I earned half of the views at least by myself).  My Real Steel article has 4,100 views and my King of Fighters XIII article has 2,100 views with no advertising.  Do not get me wrong, I will hold some type of promotions to get my Twitter and FaceBook accounts more active, but I do not have to rely on other communities as I can do it on my own; it may take longer, but where there is a will there is a way.

I plan on delivering content that I WANT.  Period.  One of my friends told me I should just focus on gaming and leave the other part alone, but that is not what this site was founded for.  I realize I have to stick to my principles and properties and opportunity will come knocking eventually.  I have already been a member of GamesAbyss, and even SFX-360 (which is know known as “Digital Noob” and is actually a part of Electronic Gaming Monthly’s (EGMi) partner program).  Though, I am happy for Digital Noob, it also posts all its content on EGMi’s website and has lost its own identity; I do not want to become like that.  I will do it my way with my rules and continue to seek support from game developers for review material, as well as previews into their current and future projects.  If not, well, I am a gamer and buy games my own way, I will just have to continue to build a fan-base until they recognize me as a gaming force in the community.

A very big part of running a website that makes people comeback is to make it attractive to the eye, simple to navigate, and having other articles laying around that they may want to enjoy.  A reason I did not wish to continue to posting at first and doubted my articles greatly was that my site did not look like Eventhubs or iPlayWinner; I felt like people would not come by once they visited once and it upset me.  That ideal was further backed by a review friend who put out so much material it was purely ridiculous (Even if it was not very descriptive or very long), he did not have a FaceBook, he did not advertise his site properly, nor does he make an effort to make his site look attractive (As a result, I am currently besting him in views even though he has did it longer and has way more articles than I do).  However, recently I have made changes to the original format and completely redoing everything through the help and support of my Mom as well as my friends Ryan (Raikugen) and Diego (Deg222).  If you remember the site before hand and look now you can notice the changes.

First off, the “Older, Newer” post links are now working and the blogger archive is at the bottom to let people search by the Month and Year.  I also have categories available at the top to where people can pick specifically what type of articles they are looking for; also it displays a maximum of 5 posts before you have to hit the older posts link so it does not get too crammed (Before it showed EVERY single post in that category which was a huge pain in the ass).  On the right side (The Sidebar) I have added a widget to show the most popular articles within the last 30 day period no matter what they might have been.  At the end of every single post I make there is a related post widget which shows related posts based upon the label I have assigned to that post (Which was pretty damn awesome for me since I arrange everything by label anyway).

Basically what I am trying to say is I will continue to make the site a lot better in any way I possibly can.  I still want to find a way to add page navigation by number instead of the “Older, Newer” links at the bottom but sometimes they appear on the main page and not on the categories which use labels as a filter, which is a problem.  Also, I might be able to add the Slider to display images and show different posts that can be clicked and taken to that post (I could not do it on my previous site before I completely redid the code because of some code error inconsistency that was formed while I built the site; this time it is much cleaner around and things like hosting JavaScript code on Blogger itself now works opposed to me receiving an HTML error beforehand); I actually want to do this by splitting the top header into two sections and setting the background as a separate page element and having my logo to the left and the slider to the right (Been having problems splitting the header into two separate sections though).

Though, the biggest change I am still debating about is advertisements on my website.  Having a website is good and everything, but I need to spend money on Manga, Anime, and Games for my reviews and to continue having fresh, new material on this site (Not to mention subscriptions and publications to magazines like Game Informer and NewType to scope out new presentation strategies, games, and developers that may have slipped by unnoticed by me).  An article on reviewing is nearly worthless to most readers if it is not given within the first few days of a games release (Maybe within the month if you’re lucky); and with colossal gaming giants like IGN, GiantBomb, etc. having material before anyone else and giving their own thoughts on the game, we are all fighting for an audience that wants a review from an established site (Which is why looks are important for fresh reviewers).  Advertisements would be a way for me to generate some revenue which would  make it a lot easier to get those things I desperately need… but at the same time they are ugly, unattractive, and generally very annoying and can scare away those who would come back otherwise… it is a double-edged sword.

Though, I am sure you all get my point.  As the site goes on I will continue to do the best I can; I have no money for a big fancy site and monthly hosting, so I will have to make diamonds from coal right now.

Something else I need to focus on is upcoming articles and future projects so I will always have something to write about and something to contribute to the general gaming populace while also appeasing to my own tastes.  Somethings I plan on doing is getting more involved in reviewing and from that, original content.

 Basically, I want to stay up on my reviews in order to bring in more traffic and have more things to show developers so I will be closer to getting free review materials (Xbox Live Arcade codes, Retail games, Alpha/Beta discs, etc.) which will make what I am trying to do a lot easier.  So, one of my projects is to maybe give away a 4000 Microsoft Point Card or a 1600 Microsoft Point Card for people following me on Twitter and FaceBook in order to get my prospective audience up and have a better chance of increased daily page views (Which nets more money if I choose advertisements as well as makes me more desirable for developers).  I also want to attempt to affiliate with more websites and smaller communities in order to form something along the lines of an underground reviewer network to began to combine our communities to share traffic (Kind of like Eventhubs and Shoryuken do).

As far as articles, like I said, I want to deliver a batch of reviewers, previews, and a lot of original content.  It is possible to see reviews from anywhere, I want to stand out by actively giving new articles that will make users want to continue to come back and see my thought-provoking editorials on matters related to gaming, anime, and manga in accordance to things that effect them and us.   Here’s ten of the new articles I am currently planning to write.

1. Girls In a Man’s Gaming World.
2. Game Demos: Judging a Book by Its Cover.
3. Anarchy Reigns (Max Anarchyマックス アナーキー)  Review
4. Misconceptions: Anime is Not Just For Kids.
5. The Horror of Game to Movie Adaptions.
6. New Mangaverse: The Rings of Fate Review
7. The Best Part of a New Game is the Wait.
8. Witchblade: Takeru (ウィッチブレイド丈流) Review.
9. What I Want To See in Next Gen Gaming.
10. The Effect of Good Character Customization.