Need opinion of CAG'ers - site idea

apollo610

apollo610

CAG Veteran
I've trolled these forums for awhile and you guys are a pretty solid forum group. That said, I would like to solicite some opinions on a website I've recently put together.

The site is rasterreport.com (rasters being the cluster of pixels that make up a bitmap, which was how video games got their name). Anyhow, the premise of the site is to consolidate all of the information available on hundreds of video-game related websites, and bringing them into one centralized website. We don't want to be flashy, we want to be strictly content-based. Updates are made nearly real-time, so breaking news is posted almost immediately as it hits the wires (for instance, we had the LBP recall up 3 minutes after the initial report). Lean, mean, and quick is the name of the game for us. We also add our little twists on headlines, and pull in sources that many people may not know of.

This site is NOT designed to replace other content providers, like Joystiq, Kotaku, Gamespot, IGN, etc etc. Nor is it designed to be a blog, we have no original content at this time (though that may change in the future). Rather, as I said earlier, we aim to be an aggregator of information to remove a lot of the redundency out there and save video game enthusiasts a lot of time from searching dozens of VG sites.

A) Would any of you guys use something like this? Is there anything out there like this, because I don't know of any and I've been on the web for awhile. :)
B) Are there any sites you guys would like us to consider adding? We are adding sources all the time, however it's our discretion what content gets posted, so no promises.

Thanks in advance for your feedback!
 
Normally I would agree with you, except with my experience RSS doesn't work for gaming ... not with the pure number of sites that are available to us, many of them with their unique and worthwhile take on things. On the flip side of that, I spent more time wading through all the garbage information of RSS feeds and my favorite sites than it was worth.

Which is what this site is supposed to prevent. :lol:

Plus, if you don't have time to wade through all your RSS feeds, we have easily accessible archives that you can peruse for any given day.

Again, not trying to replace RSS. Besides, if RSS killed news sites, than sites like DrudgeReport wouldn't be online still. I think it has potential, I'll put you in the "Negative" column. ;)
 
The idea in it of itself is original and I find it has a lot of potential but your execution of it is lacking. I'm sorry but your site layout just isn't very navigable and breaks a lot of 'good design' rules. I'm not talking about fancy graphics or logos as much as I'm talking about finding information I'm looking for or info that would be interesting to me.
 
Thanks Cochese - appreciate the feedback. Anything specific you have in mind? Search will be non-existant until the indexing starts to kick in, I recently added the Google searchbar but takes awhile.

Otherwise, the thought to my design method was that noone really knows what they're looking for until they see something that interests them... that said, I try to leverage the bylines to pique people's interests.

I'll look into toying with various design methods. The site was built up in a day last week, literally, and I've been working on it here and there since - more on content than design at this point.

I know the font annoys the ish out of people, I just tell them they don't have an appreciation for the historic, oldschool PC and NES font types. ;)

Thanks again -
 
I think it would be useful to tag the stories and then be able to show/hide different categories. For example, show only stories tagged with "JRPG" or "Capcom" or whatever.
 
I agree with Cochese. I like your idea too .. because I'd love to get the pertinent info from Joystiq, Kotaku, Destructoid etc without having to wade through their bullshit posts. But, the site design is atrocious. My two major complaints are:

1. When you open the page you're greeted with a full screen of just ads.

2. When you scroll down to actual content, its grouped to look a lot like those webpages that are similiarly titled to popular sites but are just there to spew ads at people who mistyped the address.
 
First off, there are too many ads in too many awkward places. The blue text on white background has got to go. The front page should only be the latest headlines with the option for the user to filter results as he or she sees fit.
 
Got it guys, thanks for the feedback. I'm looking to incorporate tagging, and making the look more "streamlined" (including removing the blue background - I've already updated my CSS files... and adjusting the ad structure, I just wanted to get them up there since I'm doing this all free at this point).

I'll keep taking any suggestions you have and see what I can add in... If you guys have any sites you'd like for me to add to my RSS feeds let me know, I'm up to about 50 now... and counting.

In the meantime, the content is still valid (and real, no spam links or anything like that... not even any referral links at this point). So feel free to keep an eye on the site, the content is updated throughout the day.

Thanks again -
 
Guys - the site is back online as a beta (www.rasterreport.com).

It's been completely redeveloped, and I'm adding functionalities on a daily basis while also juggling content management.

Please feel free to toss back some feedback and suggestions you may have. Thanks!
 
Thank you gentlemen, much appreciated... yeah, the logo needs work, I have 0 artistic bones in my body though, so I'll need to call in help there. :)

I'm going to add a date range-filter for the historical stuff, even though I'm filtering out a lot of the garbage content, there's still TONS of content that gets accumulated. I also think I'm going to add a "priority" flag that people can sort by, so that they can more easily see what we consider to be higher importance posts (like LBP being delayed 2 weeks ago, etc) vs the other posts.

Thanks again for the feedback.
 
Why not see if you can hire that WhipSmartBankey fella you see a few posts up. He's money in the bank. He did the artwork for this site.
 
Alright folks, been working on this a bit in my spare time, traffic is slowly picking up, and I've added a number of tweaks to the site... from adding a ranking system (obviously a judgement call on our side), pagination off the main page (so you can easily access the last 60 posts instead of 20), to plugging in sorting off the tables and historical retrieval and a bunch of other stuff.

Since the foundation's almost set, I wanted to bounce an idea out there. What do you think of adding a comments area that links back to each headline? For instance, I find that as a user I'd want to comment on some of these articles (Such as "WTF were they thinking?!" to the pink guitar hero guitar that looks like male genitalia). I was thinking of using a quick-entry comment area, no login required (but would need a CAPTCHA hook to prevent spammers). Originally I was toying with the idea of a message board but there's so many out there, many of them do a great job as it is, and just the comment section is going a little out of the scope of what I originally intended to do, which was being a central portal for quality VG news.

Oh, and the artwork is being worked on to help give the site a bit more personality... :)

Thanks to everyone for all your feedback so far -
 
[quote name='WhipSmartBanky']Cheap Ass Gamers, not Cheap Ass Gamer'ers.[/quote]


WhipSmartBanky is wise.

"CAG'ers" has become a peeve. Sorry.

---

As for the idea, it sounds like an RSS feed fed into a website. I prefer commenting at websites, like Joystiq. Over time, you begin to dig certain writing styles, and you want to contribute comments to those personality's posts.
 
CAG'ers? Seriously? It's the title of the thread, I'm not understanding the big deal...

Besides "Opinion of CAG" is technically not correct, since "Opinion of Cheap Ass Gamer" doesn't make sense. CAG by default isn't meant to be plural (thus the site name, it's not "Cheap Ass Gamers"), not to mention CAG doubles as the site name and the people who frequent the site. Thus, I used the term CAG'ers to differentiate between those who use the site and the site itself. But I digress, the title wasn't meant to be nitpicked - it's only a thread title for pete's sake and drawing me off topic. But thanks guys for the grammar lesson. ;)

Regarding the site concept, it's kinda sorta like an RSS feed, if you could create a "Best of All My Videogame Sites" feed. Personally, I don't have the time to go through dozens of sites finding the little nuggests of content worth reading, and RSS just spits out whatever's on the site, so this is a "best of" compliation. I mean, how many "Top 10" lists can one take?

And having dozens of RSS feeds to get the best content from each site isn't really practical for a lot of people - especially since most of the sites cover the same exact stuff. Talk about a time waster.

Joystiq, Destructoid, et al are mostly the same thing, RSS feeds formatted to their personality/style with a "Web 2.0" social wrapper around them that lets people communicate. That said, this site isn't trying to replace them (personally I'm a big fan of some of their unique humor) - it's designed to compliment them and bring traffic their way. I'm posting information as it hits the web, so if Gamasutra picks up something first, I'm linking to the original content, not when Joystiq or whoever picks it up 6 hours later... and all of these boards have comment areas. So comments on Raster would most likely just be redundant anyhow.

I'm thinking I'll leave the comments off for now. If enough people use the site and want comments, then I'll reconsider. But for now I don't want to get in the way of fanboy wars, which would inevitably start since gamers are a passionate 'lil group, and I'm not digging the thought of having to moderate it all. :)

Thanks for the streaming thought post your response gave me. ;)
 
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