Topic: Ideas for the site.

I'm not sure how I feel about site reviews having a short headline in the title. I've noticed the last few months you guys have changed the format a bit and I think it makes it look a bit messier now.

I think I preferred it before when it was just a simple "Review - Red Dead Redemption 2", rather than "Review - Red Dead Redemption 2 - Rockstar's Best Game", particularly given that you have subheaders underneath where you can add a few comments too.

Just my 2p.

you know what i would like added, a Video upload system after all they wont let us share videos from our youtube pages because they say it's "self advertising" but a video can be a great way to show off our games or to help other gamers or even just to share something funny that happened while we was playing

@FullbringIchigo The problem with a video upload systems is spammers will use it to spam their junk. And besides you can use your signature and put a link there.

@roe Yeah fair feedback. We wanted to make them a bit grabbier. To be brutally honest with you, reviews are the worst performing aspect of the site, which is unfortunate considering they're the most time consuming.

@Tasuki I agree about Video's - I think that people can access video's on youtube or share video's with friends on their consoles so don't need to have video uploads.

@get2sammyb There is a LOT of competition as far as reviews go - not just from the traditional gaming sites but also a lot of more general media too. A lot of the big sites have 'video' reviews too so you can watch (or even just listen) to a review rather than read which is not always the easiest to do on mobiles. I know reviews take a LOT of work - not just the writing and editing - but also the time spent playing objectively too - not always fun... Its much easier to right an article on a news story, a twitter comment etc...

Then of course you have the 'interest' factor - whether a game is of interest and therefore someone will read it. I must admit, I won't bother looking at a review of a game I have little/no interest in. The reviews I am most likely to read are for those games I am on the fence about - but in fairness, I tend to watch/read multiple reviews to get a more general verdict so timing of PushSquares reviews is a factor. By that I mean if they are one of the first reviews up, I am more likely to read but if others have convinced me to buy, wait or leave, then I may not need yet another review. I don't always bother reading reviews on games I have pre-ordered/bought because I have already had enough information to decide whether I want to part money.

That being said, I do at least look at the summary and score PushSquare gives on a lot of their reviews but I can understand why review traffic isn't that high - certainly not proportional to the effort that goes into writing them. Its not that PushSquare reviews don't align with my opinions or that they aren't well written or fair. I just think that the competition is much greater, there are 'easier' options - like video reviews - often with game-play in the background which makes it more 'entertaining', and that people aren't going to read a review on a game they have little/no interest in. VR games, for example may only appeal to a very small group of people - those with (or interested in) a VR headset.

I would suggest making video reviews to generate more interest as they are 'easy' viewing on any device and could generate more youtube views too but I appreciate that they take a LOT more work, time and effort that may not pay off. I am sure you are aware of the reasons why reviews may not be as 'high traffic' as you would like or as much as they deserve - given the time and effort but I still enjoy reading them in general - at least the ones I do read...

@FullbringIchigo As long as you aren't a new user spamming your own Let's Play videos, it should be fine I think. If you're an established member, and as long as you don't have a huge YouTube channel, it's hardly advertising, isn't it? Sharing a video is acceptable I think, provided it's done in a constructive manner, and not purely for the benefit of your own. You should ask @Antdickens about that one! I think it would be great to have a Dreams sharing thread for example, where we can share ideas, concepts, tutorials to help others, etc.

@BAMozzy Yeah we've done videos too but it's a similar sort of problem. I'd be interested to see how reviews perform industry-wide because I imagine we're not the only site where they're underperforming.

I do wonder whether people actually even want reviews anymore. Like you say, there's so much information out there these days, you can kinda make up your own mind about a game.

I would personally like to see gaming tournaments.

@get2sammyb I know you recently initiated the conversation around assigning numerical values to your reviews, which was a great thing to discuss, but by putting a number at the bottom of those pages you basically just become an easy statistic on Metacritic. Folks will see your score there, as well as a paragraph summary, and not feel the need to read the whole thing because they're looking for an overall snapshot on a game, rather than a specific individual's opinion.

Us regulars who have gotten to know you guys through your writing and community engagement care about your thoughts, feelings and emotions towards the latest releases, but I can imagine general traffic taking a hit because of PushSquare being part of the "crowd noise" on the day review embargoes are lifted. Especially with so many gaming sites vying for people's attention, alongside the huge wealth of other gaming content being created on the internet every single day now.

I wonder if you know any fellow journalists from sites which don't put a score on their reviews, who you could ask about their policy and what effect it had on review page traffic. Could just be interesting fact-finding and something to keep in mind for the business side of things.

@get2sammyb Personally, I still want reviews but like I said, there are so many reviews out, that you aren't going to read every one - especially not if you can watch/listen to a couple easily on mobiles. Generally, the reviews I am most interested in are for the games that I am undecided on. Games like God of War, Spider-Man or H:ZD were pre-ordered months before release so not necessarily looking for reviews to reaffirm my decision to pre-order. A game like Just Cause 4 would be something I would check out - mainly to see if certain words/phrases cropped up relating to performance or the game-play loop - or even if they were noticeably absent after JC3 - looking to see if they had improved enough to drop money on it or leave it entirely. Again though, that's something I would also wait for DF analysis on for actual performance metrics - no disrespect but it seems some don't notice/feel frame rate drops, frame pacing issues etc as much as others do and so I would rather see a breakdown as I have read a game reviews that say they hadn't noticed issues yet the game barely runs at its top performance - intermittent and rare frame drops I can accept but not 25-28/50-56 avg (or worse) I will wait for patched improvements - if I am interested in the game of course.

Anyway, that's getting off topic. I do still look at some reviews - even if its just the summary and score - but only the games I am interested in. I am not likely to bother with the majority of 'indie' games - mostly because I rarely play these and would prefer to spend £15 on an 'older' AAA game in a sale - one of the ones that I was sat on the fence with or wait until it comes to PS+/GwG. I don't have a VR headset so not likely to read reviews on VR games and Sony - so I don't tend to read every review. News articles, opinion pieces etc are often of interest and therefore I do read most, if not all of these. However, this is me and I am sure that others will get a lot of benefit from the reviews I don't read as we all like different things.

Like you said, by the time a game is released, there has been a LOT of information and I think a lot have made up their minds. The 'big' games are reviewed by so many different media, a lot of video reviews too, so there is far more competition and there is only so many reviews you can watch/read/listen to. I still think reviews are 'important' though - certainly for the advertising and profile of the site. I have seen PushSquare reviews mentioned in big game adverts which may well bring more people to the site and drive up traffic in the other areas - like news articles for example. Pro's and Con's I guess and you have the figures. Having written reviews, news articles etc for a gaming website in the past, I know these are far more work. They can also be points of contention as people have differing opinions and often can't be objective which can lead to insulting the reviewer. Sometimes seems more hassle than they are worth but I still think they are important. Even if I don't read everyone, I still appreciate the ones I do. The ones I tend to always read are the 're-issues' for PS+ PS4 games - especially the ones for games I don't own...

I rather appreciate a well-written review, even if I’ve already decided to buy a game. I’ve been known to read a few reviews of games I already pre-ordered or already own, just to feed my own hype. Usually the comments are interesting to engage in as well where I get a community gestalt of a game. It’s why I like forum discussions about games as well, where we bounce ideas around or I get to read someone’s experience with a game and it might excite me to play it (or to avoid it). So I appreciate Push Square having reviews, if nothing else to add to the wide perception of a game. And the PS’s reviews are much more interactive than other site’s reviews because the author is always open to question and discussion, which I really appreciate. If there was a way to promote that aspect of the review being an interactive Q&A rather than just another report on the game, maybe the traffic would increase to those articles. The ability to read a person’s written impressions, then ask him or her “What about [such and such] aspect of the game?” Or “How are the trophies in the game?” Etc, etc. is what makes for a superior experience, in my opinion.

@Octane It can still be advertising though. I can't let an establish member create a post showing off their YouTube channel and then in the same token shut down a new accounts post for the exact same thing. As I said before that's what the signature space is for.

@Tasuki Context matters I think. I don't know of any other video hosting site to use to make it easy to share videos with other PushSquare members.

@Octane Again you can put a link to your video and such in your signature to share with others. I don't understand why that's so difficult.

@Tasuki so can you (or whoever does this kind of thing) modify the signature section so it provides an actual highlighted clickable link because the signatures are quite, what's the word "dim" and hard to see

yes we can post a URL in our signature BUT you can't interact with it in any way and because it's in there most people wont see it and no one can click it anyway and it's not like we can put a proper description of what it is because of the character limit

now i do understand about the advertising issue on the forums and how it can't be one rule for one and one for another so i get it's not an easy thing but as i said before videos can be a great way to share our love of games and i think we need a option where we can freely share and still keep within the community guidelines

Any vids which have advertising of any form get taken down. Any which are of just stuff such as clips of one of us playing a game are ok. Or it that too hard to do? I don't see how different that is from when someone posts a dodgy link or something like that. The post is either edited so the link is removed or the post is deleted completely.

@FullbringIchigo I understand that it can be a great way to share your love of games but then again others will just take advantage of that and next thing I know I am getting a bunch of alerts and people creating threads to tell me that spammers are spamming and honestly I can do without that.

And yes you can interact with the signatures, I just clicked on my backlog and it went to that.

@Tasuki really last time i tried youtube links didn't work

is there a special way your meant to do it or something

I do like some of the retro reviews that occasionally pop up on here. Like the Jumping Flash one that got re-upped recently.

One of the original MediEvil for instance would be good with the remake coming up but I get the impression that it’s people doing those articles for fun more than anything.

It would be cool if pushsquare ran gaming tournaments between it's readers. Surely it wouldn't be too hard to organise or run and would be fun from a social aspect. The prizes wouldn't need to be spectacular either just a story and the kudos on the site