The future of Zelaron, Game Reviewing?
 

I am writing this to expose an exciting idea that Chruser and I were talking about this morning. Here we go:

"Tired of hearing only hearing established game reviewers get the reviews all wrong? Ever wanted to get your own voice heard? Zelaron is a game review site where you, the reader, can become the reviewer. We do not have staff reviewers, we have you. Be heard, join Zelaron." That's the very brief, general idea.

We'd like, in the future, for Zelaron to be a game reviewing site. There are a few big hurdles:

1. How do you guys think we should do the grading system? Should it be done by members only, or just as exclusive as unique i.p. addresses? What do you all think?

2. What are some incentives besides posterity do you think will help game reviewers come to zelaron? At least initially, these need to be non-financial incentives (as the community grew there would be more resources for thinks like game consoles, etc.) But what would make you want to review games?

3. Where do you think we could advertise? The Something Awful forum has already been brought up by Chruser. But where else? Where do you think there are a lot of people that just want to be heard?

4. What features would you like included with the reviews? Of course links to public profiles of the reviewers would be included, and links to personal websites could be put there. However, what other neat ideas do you guys have for features that would make Zelaron a step above others?

What are the benefits if this were a success?

1. You (possibly), establishing yourself as a popular game reviewer.

2. Beta key giveaways if we grew large enough.

3. Game giveaways, again, if we grew large enough.

4. If enough traffic were to come through, ad revenue would be able to support good, substantive prizes.

What are you guys' thoughts?

Personally I prefer a 1-5 grading system (like what xplay uses) 1 Bring something someone shouldnt bother with (diehard fans excluded) and 5 being just such an amazing game. Voting could be on a poll. Would they be rating the reviewer or the game?

You could try just asking them ;). If you dont offer them any reward or such then you probably wont be getting them any other way then asking. The only way I could see it is if you were to inform them that in the future the best reviews will be sent directly to a magazine. 'Gameinformer' perhaps?

Go where they are, advertise at Gamespot, IGN. Advertise where the people who want to review are reviewing. Somehow manage to make zelaron look more appealing then there current place.

Perhaps, pictures or movie evidence of the bad things that happen. They should be a reliable unbiased source that gives every game its fair chance

My idea's might be entirely what your looking for, im not sure. I answered them to the best of my personal knowledge and feel like im missing the point :D. Will be good to see what other people think.

I think it's a pretty good idea.

Like Kaz, I also prefer the 1-5 grading system. The only other place I can think of advertisements are sites like gamefaqs.com.

Outside of that, I really don't have any other input I could give...

The 1-5 would be a rating of the specific review, if implemented. I also think that we could have a revolutionary strategy where the reviewers have yet another incentive. How about advertising revenue sharing? Not a lot of it, of course, but a small percentage of the amount of advertising revenue the specific article generates (if this is possible?) Not only would they get notoriety, free advertisement, and a community, but also they'd have a financial stake in the website succeeding.

I'd be more inclined to use a grading system rather than 1 to 5, or even nothing at all - a good review should put across both the good and bad points, and sum things up in the conclusion. Adding a mark makes things more complicated, for one persons 3/C may be anothers 5/A.

If members only rate the reviews, then it severly inhibits any rating system. We've got, what, 30 active members at a stretch? Maybe 10 would read the reviews and rate them. Open ratings to the public, however, and we move from an shot glass of raters to a sea. If poossible, ratings should be done with Unique IPs, and we should be able to categorise reviews by: Rating, Views, Date with each the first two categories being further split into Today, This Week, This Mont, This Year, All Time.

Every review should be submitted to places like Digg, Del.Icio.Us and StumbleUpon.

I'll have a think about incentives and features.

The only way this will work is with a gimmick. Come up with something interesting nobody else does that would make people want to at least check a review here.

Like what? ;) We're up for any suggestions here. It's brainstorming time :P.

Well, what about grading different parts of the game? Storyline, Gameplay, Battle System, Music, Graphics, etc?

Again, what you love in a story may be something that I find make me snap the disc in two.

Thinking about it, the best way to 'grade' games may be for every user who reviews the games to have a favourites line onto which they place the games they review in order from most hated to Holy Grail (I'll make a mock up of one when I've got the time). That way, the game is still rated, but as a comparison with other games, rather than a simple number - any ratings are thus made more meaningful.

Yeah, I can see that, and I think it's a good idea too. Personal preferrence would still be a variable, however.

I think the gimmick would have to be a kind of unique rating, such as a dollar value you place on the game, or a ranked comparison to a smash hit like Ocarina of Time (though a system like that would likely be too subjective).

Actually, if properly (and not frivolously) executed, a rating based on dollar values could allow for other additions, such as an "average value of PS3 software". Of course, that would kind of be a pipedream idea because you would need both a multitude of realistic reviews as well as an exclusion of terrible titles that skew the average.

Anyways, just brainstorming.

what is the actual point of a review? many reviews might be able to sway judgement on a game, however Too Human is proving that wrong. Many many people are down talking TH for its glitches, dupes, lack there of and other things that shouldnt be released in todays generation. Would we be looking at reviews that are so good they sway your decision on the game? Even Zero Puncutation's reviews though being very thorough, humorus, and fun to watch dont exactly tell us what we want to know. They simply show us his views on the game. I can't think of anyone that I know that could write up a bad review and cause me not to buy it, id like to try it out for myself. Experience something they might not understand...

For instance, say you have Kazilla (me) reviewing someones political speech... Im going to tell you dont bother, it was boring and is the same exact thing the canidates have said over and over, because its a bias. I personally have something against politics and could care less about the speech im looking at. The perfect review would require someone who is completely unbiased, with a renown history of gaming in all aspects. If he lacks history in RPG's he shouldnt be allowed to review them.

As for a rating system, thinking upon it now... what are we rating? The persons ability to write a review or the game itself. I think that rating a game is really hard to do... so many aspects to look at. The easiest way I can think about it is kinda what Xenn said, about comparing it to other great games. Find a game with great graphics, sound, story, voice overs, everything. Make that your holy grail game. Base your other ratings off of that Perfect Game. It is just so hard to rate something like this.



i just thought of something while reading one of my other posts. Reviews can be nice to look at and read, but as i stated here it isn't always what your looking for. What i suggest is a FAQ on a game, built by the community.

ie.

Initial Post
Soul Calibur IV
[insert reviewers review here]

Next Post
[reserved for quick FAQ reference]

Next Post
What do you think about the multiplayer feature?

Next Post
How long would it take for someone to understand what they are doing?

Next Post
Is this a button masher?

Reviewers Post
[insert answers here]

Someone who is incapable of answering questions about the game really has no right to be playing the game. They dont need to know the answer exactly when they read it because perhaps they didnt see something the reader did. Instead they should be able to aquire an answer in a fairly short amount of time.

I think it would be a good idea to show what other games the developer has done. Something like:

DEVELOPER: Bungie
KNOWN FOR: Halo Series, Marathon

Or something probably like:

DEVELOPER: Midway
HISTORY: PacMan(1980), Mortal Kombat(1987), NFL Blitz(1997)... and show some important games from their past.

Just a thought... but I think it's interesting to see other games a company has made, sometimes to see if I have played any of their previous stuff, that I may have liked...