Hey,

Lately, I've been thinking of starting a website to post game review articles, but I'm not sure if this would really be "worth it".

I plan on writing reviews for games when I play them, just for game design purposes (learning and practicing), but do you think putting them on a website would be a good idea? Do people really even care about game reviews that much? Is the competition from other, well-known websites too fierce?

Also, to add to my pile of questions, would it be considered "lazy" to use a website creating service, like Wordpress, instead of making the website myself?

People definitely care about reviews, and there are plenty of people who read at least a couple of reviews before they'll settle on a purchase. Depending on the content of the reviews they can also sometimes be useful for would-be designers or academics looking to study the field...

...but...

There are already a lot of different websites -- not to mentioned print-publications, radio and TV shows, etc. -- providing game reviews in many different styles and from many different perspectives. To compete with all of these existing, established reviewers you would need to bring something to the table that isn't already on offer; this could be a different perspective on the games, the style in which your reviews are presented, or the level of detail offered. You might also be able to carve out a good niche if you reviewed games that don't get as much coverage from existing mainstream reviewers.

If you're just interested in the learning exercise for your own personal benefit I think that's definitely worth while, but whether or not it would be worth sharing them publicly would really depend on your goals: you're probably unlikely to build a large following without a lot of work and at least a little luck, but it's also very low-cost (or even free if you're willing to live with some limitations) to run a small website, and if you're happy to just put the information out there and perhaps get some feedback or maybe develop a small following of regular readers that would absolutely be achievable. It certainly couldn't hurt you to publish a free blog with WordPress.com.

It's smart to take advantage of existing services and platforms, not lazy -- and WordPress is great! Don't develop from scratch unless you have some good reason for doing so. This is especially true if you're not a web-developer.

Hope that helps!

Hope that helps!

It does. Thank you!

There are already a lot of different websites -- not to mentioned print-publications, radio and TV shows, etc. -- providing game reviews in many different styles and from many different perspectives. To compete with all of these existing, established reviewers you would need to bring something to the table that isn't already on offer; this could be a different perspective on the games, the style in which your reviews are presented, or the level of detail offered. You might also be able to carve out a good niche if you reviewed games that don't get as much coverage from existing mainstream reviewers.

I was planning on doing a pretty in-depth review, and using a template for each post with a lot of ratings on certain individual things, such as graphical quality, interface, originality, polish, balance (for online games, mostly), learning curve, and so on, then an overall rating based on those.

I'd probably focus on F2P games and maybe some Flash/browser games. If I get really into it, I might start buying games to review them.

It certainly couldn't hurt you to publish a free blog with WordPress.com.

True...though I might injure my mind trying to think of a name for it

Does anyone have any tips on things they wouldn't want to see in a game reviewing website?

I thought about this idea once in a while, but never really dived into it due to time constraint.

There would certainly be competitions. Sites like IGN and the likes have an army of gamers and reviewers reviewing games daily -- not to mention that they might get requests to review games from indie developers who wants publicity. Don't worry too much about it thought. Review the games that you like, and post it online.

Is it a good idea? Absolutely (hey I thought of the same idea).

Would people care reading your reviews? Maybe, maybe not, but who cares. Just keep posting content. Eventually some people might like your writing style.

Thanks for the advice, alnite.

Review the games that you like

This stuck out to me.

Do you think it's a bad idea to critique games that I don't like, as long as it stays constructive (and isn't focused entirely on critiquing)?