JBlaze Posted October 1, 2009 Share Posted October 1, 2009 Hey all! Just looking for some honest critique from a different point of view. Maybe someone who has interest in a gaming site or even someone who also runs one. It has been up and running since December '08, but only has roughly 20 active members and just over 10k posts. Maybe some tips on design, fluidity and general content would be greatly appreciated! Link http://gamingbrotherhood.com Test account: UN: Test Account PW: zq9nbrwd Thanks in advance, JB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sKunKbad Posted October 1, 2009 Share Posted October 1, 2009 The forum looks nice. I wouldn't expect that the design is keeping people away. Do you advertise? How do people find you? I think you might consider making a home page. This home page would describe your site, and your goals, and would be something better indexed by Google. That might give you some natural SEO, and more people might find your site. You might even have some ads for games, gamers, game systems, etc. I'm guessing that you have some very heavy competition, so unless some promotion is done, the forum will probably grow slowly at best. I've had a forum before, and have moderated a forum, so I know it can be exciting, and know you have high hopes. Unfortunately, without promotion (which often means $$$), then the dream doesn't go very far. I closed my forum about a year after launching it. It was just too much work for what it was worth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eatfishy Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 I don't think the design is bad at all, but there are many web sites like that dedicated to gaming and offer alot more content. gamespot, gamefaqs and 1up are my favorite ones. I believe those websites are run by a team rather than 1 person. I created this website called www.blogoberry.com and I am not expecting it to be as popular as twitter, facebook or myspace. If my intention was to make it super popular with 10,000 users a month, I would hire people who specialized in certain area to help me and invest more $$$ in a better server. What is your intention anyway? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBlaze Posted October 7, 2009 Author Share Posted October 7, 2009 Thanks for the ideas and thoughts. The site originated as a homepage for a clan that I am part of, EK. Around February '09, the callofduty.com forums had a mass exodus of members because the staff there were banning any who spoke out about anything, and who didn't keep discussions strictly on topic (in other words, if you even made a slight move towards an off-topic comment, you were given a warning). Anyways, most of my member base are ex-members from there who were just looking for a place to discuss pretty much anything gaming and whatnot. My intentions originally were to just get a group of guys together who love gaming and to talk about gaming. But as we evolved, most are gamers and ex or current military. We talk about more than just gaming, and we are all good friends on and offline. We are looking however to expand to the general population, including gamers across all platforms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eatfishy Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 JBlaze, I have a few gamers on my website who likes to talk about video games including myself. We can chat about it and you can also mention about your website in there. Currently, I disabled the sign up, but will have it back up next week or so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angeleyezz Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 I work on a lot of forum boards. I love them =) 1 thing I do notice though is when you are first starting out a board, you want the board to be somewhat condensed in topics / categories. You don't want your board to be an ocean and your small group of usres on a raft looking for other rafts. You want to keep it smaller so that it looks like your small user base is swimming in a busy bay with tons of sailboats & fishing boats. Then as you gain more returning active users, you should expand a few categories here and there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBlaze Posted October 10, 2009 Author Share Posted October 10, 2009 JBlaze, I have a few gamers on my website who likes to talk about video games including myself. We can chat about it and you can also mention about your website in there. Currently, I disabled the sign up, but will have it back up next week or so. Cool. Let me know I work on a lot of forum boards. I love them =) 1 thing I do notice though is when you are first starting out a board, you want the board to be somewhat condensed in topics / categories. You don't want your board to be an ocean and your small group of usres on a raft looking for other rafts. You want to keep it smaller so that it looks like your small user base is swimming in a busy bay with tons of sailboats & fishing boats. Then as you gain more returning active users, you should expand a few categories here and there. Interesting. I agree with it, but the problem is that myself and the other admins dont always agree on what should have it's own board and what shouldnt lol. I'll definately keep this in mind. FWIW, we have a new theme and have upgraded to SMF RC2. Any more opinions are greatly appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dorky Posted October 19, 2009 Share Posted October 19, 2009 not a gamer. site rocks. theme change rocks. collapsible boxs roxs. trafic- links links links. get it out there. fliers at the loclal game shops, "oops i left that flier on the table" at coffee shops. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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