Jump to content

[Critique] GamingBrotherhood.com


JBlaze

Recommended Posts

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
This thread is more than a year old. Please don't revive it unless you have something important to add.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.