Algorithmize This!

[John Funk]

I've read the escapist occasionally during the pdf days (when it was the most linked-back site for Greg Constikyans's article on game design.) At the time, I figured it was occasionally bright but a little too lost in doe-eyed lefty libtarded flights of fancy, much like the now defunct Gamer's Quarter. As most free magazines and newspapers are. When I wanted meaty articles on game design and analysis for strict educational purposes, I read David Sirlin. (www.sirlin.net) Yahtzee, much like John Lennon, allowed the liberal writers of the Escapist to ascend to Hollywood mass-market status, and the most successful and (occasionally) photogenic of them went the Unskippable or Doomsday arcade route. Now the site has achieved what it probably the apex of mildly intellectual older nerd traffic and should not be fucked with without consulting Shamus or other older dudes on whether it's a good idea or not. (Just as liberals in Hollywood should not assume that the fact that they have 'arrived' means that it's a good idea for them to lend their faces to every social cause, message movie, or public policy that comes down the pike.)

Though I will add that 'fast food media' is far different from real fast food in that McDonald's wants you to keep eating at McDonalds, whereas if the Escapist had a small part of the news dedicated (stolen from other sites) to pulling in search terms, you could reach a LARGER PERCENTAGE of the intellectual audience you so appreciate. Come for the quick fix of some guide or news to look through, stay for the Yahtzee/Unskippable/SP, return for the history of videogames available in the magazine archives, or some such. Make navigating the ARCHIVES easier and more intuitive, make the front page design a smidge less chaotic (say, organized so that the news is still newsy, but the popular items (AND THEIR ARCHIVES!) are more obviously one click accessible, and in general, do what Obama promised he'd do before getting quashed by feminists-build and maintain some goddamn infrastructure.

Do NOT let the idealists stop you from making this the focus, else you will end up as America did, and the stimulus WILL be hijacked:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/659dkrod.asp

Ironically, doing such things will eventually support a larger alternative community, but you shouldn't expect much forgiveness among the staff rank and file for doing so until much later, if at all.

Way to be unnecessarily political.

You know that all the popular things and their archives ARE one click away, right? They're all on sidebars on the right - the front page is for current content.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Group hug time. I like that there is somewhere that publishes long articles about Spelunky, but algorithms can be used creatively, just ask Brian Eno.

 

[hdboomy]

Such fast food media has spread because it is economically viable. It may lack the quality, and thus viewer dedication, that more traditionally-crafted media displays, but the low cost of production for each story means that far larger amounts can be produced (and thus more ads placed).
How does a quality content producer, like the Escapist, maintain economic viability in such a market? Such a producer certainly holds the dedication of fans (that is, consistent viewers instead of one-time search engine redirects), but lacks the volume of content to place ads on the scale of a fast food content producer.
As I see it, there are two main options:

1) Quality content producers must find a way to leverage far more ad dollars in far less volume than competing fast food producers (which operate larger ad volumes with smaller budgets).
This would mean convincing advertisers that each view by a return visitor is worth far more than each view by a one-time visitor of fast food content. This argument would work well for advertisers seeking to expose viewers to an advertised product repeatedly (one strategy for advertising), specifically those wanting to precisely target the producer's audience. However, this would be unconvincing to any advertiser seeking quantity, not repetition of viewers, or any advertiser targeting an audience other than the producer's select audience.
This leaves a small pool of potential advertisers, meaning advertising may not be a valid stand-alone option in many cases.

2) Engage the loyalty and interest of return visitors to directly fund the production of content.
This can be through a store merchandising popular aspects of the content (ex. t-shirts, dvds, figurines, etc) or by directly charging viewers a fee to see all or part of the content. Many sites (especially webcomics), rely heavily on merchandising. It's a good relationship between producer and fans: the producer is financially supported and the fans get products they enjoy. However, some quality content producers, such as news services, may be unable to leverage merchandising in this way.

How do you think quality content providers will survive in an evolving internet? What is the best way of converting fan interest into financial support? Viewers may value a Yahtzee over silly videos on youtube, but how do you collect the funds to fund the hours of work each ZP video requires?

 

[DrR0Ck]

Thank you. The quality of the content and the writing is the reason I frequent this site. Keep it coming.

 

[thenamelessloser]

I have mixed feelings about this. If I enjoy the end results then the process doesn't matter. But usually, handcrafting and individual creativity seem to be much better than "assembly line" information work. But there are exceptions.

For instance, Penny Arcade helped sparked this creative wiki about a fantasy franchise that doesn't exist. (I'm not sure if the wiki is still around) This wiki has (or at least had) some really funny and creative content. But I think the main difference between this and something like Demand Media, is that what built that wiki wasn't people doing it for money but people doing it for FUN.

Wikipedia is also another example of some good work done by massive amount of people (with no clear creative unanimous individuals doing the work) On that same Edge website mentioned by Archon, Richard Dawkins says,

"I am repeatedly astounded by how good Wikipedia can be. I calibrate Wikipedia by looking up the few things I really do know about (and may indeed have written the entry for in traditional encyclopaedias) say 'Evolution' or 'Natural Selection'. I am so impressed by these calibratory forays that I go, with some confidence, to other entries where I lack first-hand knowledge (which was why I felt able to quote Wikipedia's definition of the Web, above). No doubt mistakes creep in, or are even maliciously inserted, but the half-life of a mistake, before the natural correction mechanism kills it, is encouragingly short. Nevertheless, the fact that the Wiki concept works, even if only in some areas such as science, flies so flagrantly in the face of all my prior pessimism, that I am tempted to see it as a metaphor for all that deserves optimism about the World Wide Web."

I guess you could consider this an argument from authority but I think the fact that Richard Dawkins is impressed with the quality of info of things that he is known to be an expert in isn't too unfair to mention.

So, I think a massive on line product done by massive amounts of unanimous people such as wikipedia or others can work well if it isn't being done by people for money but for the fact they doing it for fun or generally just want to communicate information to others.

I also think this factor of fun applies even to sites like the Escapist that have individuals making handcrafted "intellectual or creative work" for money. One of things that are impressive about this site is the amount of fun and humor displayed in a lot of the articles.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I think that, in the same way fast food and personalized food service have sort of balanced each other out, so too will this issue balance itself out. Oversaturating an already-oversaturated Internet with quick, meaningless clips and articles is only going to eventually alienate information-seekers, not to mention this multitude of near-useless, shotgun-spread data will eventually crowd each other out. Demand Media will become the "burger and fries" while sites like the Escapist will become the "five-course meal".

Now, if only reality would, just this once, actually go along with me.

 

[allieinsa]

Great article! Im a big fan of your works and if it werent for youre innovation and creativity I would be here 10 times a day every day.

The Escapist is the best! Inspiration to us who want to do what we love and want to do!

 

[Archon]

Thanks everyone for the kind words and insightful thoughts.

Anyone else think Macris reads Ayn Rand? ^^
Seemed like the article had some inspiration from her work. Like how individuals are the "fountainhead" of creativity or how the fast food created by the talentless masses is "parasitic".

Tere's no question on that front - I like Ayn Rand. I occasionally use some of the language as little hints to fellow fans.

I see it this way: there's a certain *kind* of low-brow content that people who love high-brow content enjoy. Like you mentioned Tori and Trent in the article, Tori fans who would not go near anything even vaguely 'metal' as far as music would get into Nine Inch Nails. I sort of see stuff like ZP that way: (at the risk of sounding ridiculously elitist here), sure it's funny to the least common intellectual denominator, but there's also something about it that appeals specifically to the high end too. It's not just the content itself: it's the feeling one gets that Yahtzee has read the same books and seen the same movies and laughed at the same comedians you have. The jokes are funny to everyone, but as a 'high brow' kind of person, there's an extra layer there of knowing *where* the jokes are coming from.

Yes, exactly! Well said. We want to have low-brow content, because it gaisn an audience, but we want it to be low brow content that will entertain our high-brow audience even more.

1) Quality content producers must find a way to leverage far more ad dollars in far less volume than competing fast food producers (which operate larger ad volumes with smaller budgets).
This would mean convincing advertisers that each view by a return visitor is worth far more than each view by a one-time visitor of fast food content.
2) Engage the loyalty and interest of return visitors to directly fund the production of content. This can be through a store merchandising popular aspects of the content (ex. t-shirts, dvds, figurines, etc) or by directly charging viewers a fee to see all or part of the content.

That's a very astute analysis. At The Escapist, we've been able to demonstrate engagement (time on site, pages per visitor) that is 2-3 times higher than most of our competitors, as well as very high repeat usage, and that's been a key advantage for our sales team.

We are actively working to expand our direct revenue options. We grew merchandising from 0 to 6 figures in sales last year, which was really great - the Split Reason partnership has been wonderful. This year we're also going to add some premium membership options we hope you will like.

Of course if deep engagement, quality content, merchandise, and memberships fails, we can always fall back on traffic-building news like "LESBIAN SEX SECRETS OF BAYONETTA!!" with some Google Ads. ZOMG.

 

[zacobar]

This level of sensitivity and insight is much appreciated in your audience and is the reason why I see use this site after discovering ZP.

Shine on you crazy Diamond!

 

[Fearzone]

You gotta suffer for art.

 

[peachadelic]

With the internet slowly replacing television, it's not so surprising that contents like these are popular.
As far as TV goes, stations seemingly decided that they would send things that appeal to the masses almost exclusively, just because it's more profitable. They're companies after all, not a group of people who do it all for fun.
However the internet is still something that anyone can put their content in.

If you really want to sort the wheat from the chaff, you still can. If you're not willing to put the extra effort into looking for the right website then you might as well read some of this "answer factory" stuff, because it's most likely a topic you don't even really care about.

To get back to the comparison to fast food: The existance of fast food is not a bad thing. It can be tasty and useful if you don't have the time, and it's not even really unhealthy AS LONG as you don't eat it exclusively. Everyone has to find their own balance there, and it's the same with mass produced internet content I think.

 

[Fenixius]

Nor has our pursuit of hand-crafted excellence led to us becoming the largest game-related site on the internet. There are others that are much bigger, fueled by search-optimized blog posts with all the right key words. But we are the best - the best game-related website, according to the Webby Awards, and the best online magazine, according to Mashable. And we aim to stay the best. Which is why we haven't replaced our editors with a Google Trend analysis, nor replaced our content creators - among the highest-paid in the game media - with $15 per feature freelancers.

You -are- the best. And it's my pleasure to have helped keep your traffic levels up, and you guys in motion. And you know what still amazes me? That you guys actually respond to comments on your articles. Alexander, John, Susan, you guys are the BEST! To actually have a discussion with the creators of interesting content is even more engaging than just that interesting content.

I think what SikOseph said before is very likely accurate; there's a greater diversity of content now on The Escapist than before. So what appealed to me in days gone by is indeed still here, as well as some other stuff that I'm less interested in. Which is absolutely not a problem, as long as "the good stuff" (so to speak) is still freely available. Which is to say: As long as The Escapist holds true to itself, and Mr Macris keeps his word (which I don't doubt he will), then I will still come to read from you.


...also, I just noticed. Why does the CEO choose his avatar, the one way I can possibly visualise him, to be the Eye of Sauron? Slightly... disturbing. And John is now 00 Gundam. You're awesome, too.

 

[Fists]

I'm a self confessed elitist, I listen to prog rock, I drive a rwd manual car, I source music from Jamendo and I love the escapist. If you remain like I shall keep visiting although I'm a little more cynical and would point out that nothing is really new or original, I believe the human braing to be incappable of pure creation, just slightly modified, or indeed missrepeated (new word? point made?), versions of old things. These kinds of "creativity is dead, all articles are the same" articles are at-least older than I am (18yo), a few of my recent posts have been very short and simply calling forums or media echo boxes.

The escapist has posted so many articles lately about censorship, particularly in Australia, save for the event that occurred triggering it the articles and the comments in the forum are the same, some short version some long versions but you can get the same message from pretty much any other article on the subject.

I still believe this to be the best news site around and will continue to visit and enjoy the articles, particularly those of John Funk. Maybe because my lack of MMO experience makes what he has to say quite fresh, or maybe I just really like starwars (his articles of late are about SW:TOR)

 

[Graham_LRR]

Great article, Alex. Much respect.

I feel your pain too. During our 7 years of making weekly videos, our most widely seen, most profitable and most successful single video is one that we made as a joke in an attempt to make "the kind of crap that gets big on YouTube".
We did it very well, I guess.

Luckily, it's both depressing and hilarious! So we err on hilarious and try not to think about it.

I'm so thankful to be involved with a website that values good original content, and actually pays well for it.
A model that rest of the internet seems to fail at.