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Ollie

Is this website idea worth my time?

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I have been toying with the idea for this website for sometime now (probably going on 2 years). I can't decide if it would be worth the time investment to make it happen. Some of you maybe familiar with http://myanimelist.net/ and the 'my games collection' listings available through IGN, my idea is similar to them both.

 

At a basic level, I want to be able to track my gaming career. By this I mean I want to have a record of all of the games I have played, and how far I have got with them. If I have any high scores, or worthwhile bragging rights etc, etc. I buy and play many games, but I often can't remember a few years later anything about them.

 

I have mocked up a VERY simple page on my domain here but you will have to imagine the design for yourself. My question is would you use a service like this? Imagine that you can first of all catalogue your whole collection, then record data like percentage complete etc, then maybe upload photos or screenshots showing high scores etc, and being able to link your friends to it.

 

To make this website worthwhile and usable will require an incredible amount of time investment by myself, so is it worth it?

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I have been toying with the idea for this website for sometime now (probably going on 2 years). I can't decide if it would be worth the time investment to make it happen. Some of you maybe familiar with http://myanimelist.net/ and the 'my games collection' listings available through IGN, my idea is similar to them both.

 

At a basic level, I want to be able to track my gaming career. By this I mean I want to have a record of all of the games I have played, and how far I have got with them. If I have any high scores, or worthwhile bragging rights etc, etc. I buy and play many games, but I often can't remember a few years later anything about them.

 

I have mocked up a VERY simple page on my domain here but you will have to imagine the design for yourself. My question is would you use a service like this? Imagine that you can first of all catalogue your whole collection, then record data like percentage complete etc, then maybe upload photos or screenshots showing high scores etc, and being able to link your friends to it.

 

To make this website worthwhile and usable will require an incredible amount of time investment by myself, so is it worth it?

It depends really, how would you make money from it?

Game sales via TradeDoubler may give a good turn over if you set it up correctly.

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I think it's an excellent idea, you could have a notepad for each game to document other achievements, maybe set up individual leaderboards such as in the High Scores board.

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I don't think people lying would be a huge problem for the website because it doesn't involve any actual money or rights of ownership. Pictures or it didn't happen could be simple enough for proof.

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How would it be monitored?

Seems hard to prevent people from lying.

Well it's not like they would win anything by lying. And with the 360 proof often lies with online leaderboards and achievements.

 

I think it's a pretty cool idea :) if you want to do it, I say hurry up, make sure nobody beats you to it. Get the basics working and a pleasing simple design and launch. Then it's just a case of word-of-mouth advertising to bring people in... eventually move on to profile pages, groups, clans, blogs etc. Could be great!

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It depends really, how would you make money from it?

Game sales via TradeDoubler may give a good turn over if you set it up correctly.

 

Well actually I wasn't really planning on making money from it, that said, read below...

 

How would it be monitored?

Seems hard to prevent people from lying.

 

I don't think people lying would be a huge problem for the website because it doesn't involve any actual money or rights of ownership. Pictures or it didn't happen could be simple enough for proof.

 

I think pics or didn't happen would work too, in it's original incarnation there wouldn't really be any point in lying about it, like my anime list, there is no advantage to 'pretending' you have watched all the episodes of Naruto for example.

 

Well it's not like they would win anything by lying. And with the 360 proof often lies with online leaderboards and achievements.

 

I think it's a pretty cool idea :) if you want to do it, I say hurry up, make sure nobody beats you to it. Get the basics working and a pleasing simple design and launch. Then it's just a case of word-of-mouth advertising to bring people in... eventually move on to profile pages, groups, clans, blogs etc. Could be great!

 

I was originally going to try and avoid another social networking type site, but with the statistics that it would be possible collect I would be able to sell advertising to games companies which would allow them to target specific groups. For example, someone who has completed 30 FPS games, would be perfect to advertise a new Halo or Half Life game to.

 

As for the 'stealing' my idea, unfortunately this isn't something I can dedicate hundreds of hours too, so if someone beats me to it, I'll just have to suck it up :shakehead

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It is a pretty cool idea. I have to warn you that there are similar things around, there WAS an application on facebook similar to this visual bookshelf where users could add games they have completed, games they've played, games they own, games they rented, et cetera, et cetera. I can't find the precise application but they earn some revenue by directing users towards amazon results for the books/movies.

 

If executed well enough, with enough social interaction required for successful sites these days, it could be very cool. Combined with the xbox360 achievement thingums that all the cool kids have in their signatures, it could be very cool!

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It is a pretty cool idea. I have to warn you that there are similar things around, there WAS an application on facebook similar to this visual bookshelf where users could add games they have completed, games they've played, games they own, games they rented, et cetera, et cetera. I can't find the precise application but they earn some revenue by directing users towards amazon results for the books/movies.

 

If executed well enough, with enough social interaction required for successful sites these days, it could be very cool. Combined with the xbox360 achievement thingums that all the cool kids have in their signatures, it could be very cool!

 

That is the kind of thing I want to create, although I have a facebook account I do actually hate it for many reasons. The primary function of my idea is to allow users to keep a record of the games they have played, a timeline of thier 'gaming career' if you like. Initially I didn't want too much 'social networking' for the site, but it would appear that is what people DO actually want.

 

That is a good question Chris, I think php is my best bet, but I need to sit and plan it all out first, I still don't know what data should be recorded etc.

 

I don't want to create a site that is monotonous and boring, entering data shouldn't be the primary use of the site.

 

The boring and long part for me will be creating the database with the games in. I think to start with I'll do it for a selection of core systems say, Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, PS2. I can add more systems later. I toyed with the idea of allowing users to enter their own games but after writing a list of pro's and con's for this decided it was a no no.

 

For some games tracking achievements will be easy, 360 games all have achievements built in which can be tracked via gamer tag, but for games like Zelda for example, I would have to decide how the best way to do it. Completing the story is one, collecting all the heart containers is another, and so on. Plus there are many games I have never played and won't be able to decide on 'progress points' by myself.

 

Perhaps a forum is required to allow requests for new systems/missed games/progress points etc?

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I would definitely use the website. It seems like a very good idea to me.

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There's actually a site already that lets you make a list of all the games you own. Basically you have a shelf and you can select the covers of the games you own/owned to put on there (so it's all very visual) and you get to rate the game (score out of five) or love/hate it.

You can also let people know what game you're currently playing or blog about games, join groups etc.

Sadly the site (http://www.weplaythis.com) hasn't been updated in a while. They're remaking it from scratch, but it's taking them ages. Also you can't join the site anymore at the moment; it was invites only (since it was still a beta) and they're currently not taking any more invites.

 

It sounds kind of the same to what you want to do, except you want to add more things like high scores. If you can make a good design for it, then I'd say go for it.

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With 360 and ps3 you could have the players lists auto updated but with wii ds and psp it would require the user to update it them selves, which might switch some users off, but that aside i think its a good idea, look at giantbomb for how they work their community, its pretty tight.

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Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that I am doing this and it is currently in 'full steam ahead' mode. I am working on it with a friend and it is coming along nicely.

 

For those of you that PM'd me I will get back to you as soon as I can!

 

I am however having a problem choosing a domain name, I was thinking of myvgc.com (which is taken) which stands for my video gaming career. There is the domain my-vgc.com which is available though.

 

Anyone have any catchy ideas for website/domain names?

 

Thanks.

 

EDIT - myvgc.net is also available......not sure if myvgc is what I really want tho :/

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How about "playedthat.com" ?

 

Do you have anyone on board for the actual template design? *points to link under gamercard*

 

edit: playedthat.com is taken, got a 404 error when i put it in the location bar so I assumed it was available. .net is available though.

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PM me some details please, and yes with regards to domains I think those without hyphens are better.

 

(I realise the irony of this statement *looks at address bar*).

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You might want to take a look at Backloggery. I don't think it has the date of completion, but plenty of other stuff.

 

Gah stuff like that really annoys me, thought I was on to a winner here.

 

Oh well, nothing like a bit of competition to keep the project rolling.

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Another update guy's and girls (if you're interested):

 

We are still working on the site everyday. I'm currently in the process of populating the games database, which is a ma-hu-sive task :shakehead

 

I am editing and correcting something like 10,000 records, I haven't even thought about PC games or a lot of retro consoles yet.

 

In terms of functionality, version 1 will release to beta soon. We have registered a domain name, and are looking for some appropriate hosting facilities. Version 1 will be released to the people that we choose to test for testing the very basic functionality of the site. Version 2 will have far more advanced functionality and will come soon after if all goes to plan.

 

I'm always amazed at how often 20-30 hours work can appear so tiny to end users, but we are hoping that it will be worth it!

 

We have come up with what we think are some pretty cool ideas, but I can't disclose anything yet. I will show you a list before the site goes live.

 

PS - I'm so sorry I haven't contact those of you that are interested in what we are doing personally. I will do this week! :smile:

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What name did you go with, and do you have a design for it? (Just out of curiosity)

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