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"Save Our SIFTD"

G

Gigarator

Member
It seems SIFTD Games is in trouble again, financially this time and Shane has put out a plea for people to help. Sounds like the site won't survive much longer without a big bump in subscribers.

Personally I can't say I'm surprised, I never ever hear anything about SIFTD unless it's something Pachter related, they need to work on advertising their product because to me they seem almost completely invisible in the gaming scene.

Here's the article in question: http://siftd.net/#!/content/42725/save-our-siftd
 
F

Flarin

Member
You make a good point. This is the first time I've heard about SIFTD for the first time since they got robbed. They have good content, but they don't push it anywhere. There's not even a community thread here on GAF as far as I know.

Also, as other people mentioned in the article, they should just do what EZA does and do it out of someone's home. Wold save a ton of money and hopefully allow Shane to actually make some money.

I like Shane a lot and he was super nice to me when I met him at GDC once. All the best for the team and site.
 
M

mishakoz

Member
Just stopping by because I used to work with Shane at gametrailers. Great guy, spoke to him again at E3 this year. I wish him the best, I think he deserves success but I'll admit I don't subscribe, I just don't have an interest in consuming so much media Id need a content aggregator.

Hope this works out for him.
 
R

rochellepaws

Member
Los Angeles must be one of the worst places in the world to run a business like that, especially since it could be run somewhere else at a fraction of the cost and with no real detriment to the product. It seems such a waste of money for so much subscriber investment to endlessly funnel into rental costs like that.
 
A

Aztechnology

Member
rochellepaws said:
Los Angeles must be one of the worst places in the world to run a business like that, especially since it could be run somewhere else at a fraction of the cost and with no real detriment to the product. It seems such a waste of money for so much subscriber investment to endlessly funnel into rental costs like that.
Click to expand...

I'd assume because of access to sources etc. Seems like they do Podcasts with guests? But yea nowadays, there's really no reason, can all be done via telecommunications.

I'd never heard of Sifted before. I'll bookmark it and check it out. But I don't really subscribe to things, I'm fine helping out through a websites use of affiliate marketing or advertisements. But I really don't do paid subscriptions.
 
D

dex3108

Member
Many journalists/personalities from bigger outlets resigned/got laid off and managed to do ok after by them self. Why? Because they were modest at first and people wanted to consume content they produce. SIFTD is ok site but it looks like that people don't want to use it. And they really don't need studio for content they produce.
 
E

El-Suave

Member
I wish him the best, but "all we need is a couple thousand subscribers" points to the futility of that effort. That's a super challenging goal that's impossible to achieve with a relatively unknown website in my opinion.
 
B

Bulby

Member
I like Shane despite vehemently disagreeing with him on a lot of things, and I hope he succeeds.

Ultimately I think Siftd is a great idea 8 or 10 years too late with an outdated business model. Shane seems to be have been left behind with the old guard of games media.

As someone said he needs to take cues from the likes of EZA and Kinda Funny (when it began). Work from home, make lots of content and ultimately the audience will decide. And use Patreon FFS.
 
B

Budi

Member
Yeah I mean, I have no use for Siftd. I've watched Pachter very occasionally from Youtube but that's it. If they are producing any other interesting or fun self-created content let me know and I'll check it out and go from there.
 
A

AAMARMO

Banned
They should do the Gaint Bomb route. Everything is free with ads except premium videos and Premium gets no ads and have premium videos.
 
T

Taker34

Banned
Q8D3vil said:
The name itself is baaaaaad, it doesnt scream VG at all.
Click to expand...

Neither does Easy Allies and that doesn't matter. The whole business model of SIFTD is outdated as many have pointed out. Restructuring to a free, Patreon and personality based community would tremendously help Shane.
 
A

Axass

Member
The name makes me think of STDs... and it's nearly unpronounceable anyway.

The all black and white style they chose is super-serious and boring.

I heard of them only when their equipment was stolen and only from EZA or the occasional Pachter thread.

Also, it's an aggregator? I see little original stuff and mostly reposts from other sites, with the original stuff being almost completely gated with a paid subscription.

They're using an outdated business model, especially with so little Youtube subs, people don't even know what content they're going to subscribe for before paying.
 
K

Karu

Member
When I hear of your side only when the apocalypse hits you, you've done something wrong or your service is not in demand at all.
 
C

cw_sasuke

If all DLC came tied to $13 figurines, I'd consider all DLC to be free
Karu said:
When I hear of your side only when the apocalypse hits you, you've done something wrong or your service is not in demand at all.
Click to expand...

Yeah...thats the issue - im every day on GAF and only hear about SIFTD when something bad has happened or financial woes. Wish them the best...but unless you are a Youtuber or Twitch streamer with already big audience you probably wanna produce something that would be interesting enough to be posted on something like GAF.

Not saying that GAF is the center of the universe...but you have to start somewhere.
 
U

UrbanRats

Member
Wish him the best, but i just don't see the point (never did) of this.
I don't think there's that much gaming content coming in, that you need it parsed for you.
I go on AllGamesDelta once or twice a day, and i'm set.

But that's just me.
 
C

ClosingADoor

Member
It is very unclear what the site is actually offering. And I feel for most people just following a few social media channels or having their Feedly setup is good enough if they want an overview of gaming content.
 
Manac0r

Manac0r

Member
I subscribe to SIFTD - mainly for GameFace which is a 3 hour long weekly video podcast with Shane and Matt (sometimes others). The videos are well edited with footage from games and not just two people shouting their heads off on a couch or fake news room.

SIFTD has tried to use a range of models - currently you can subscribe for $4 a month - considering you would get 4 quality podcasts plus the extra premium content for a$1 a week.
 
N

Novel Mike

Member
As others have said, he should set up a Pateron and work out of his home. EZA does it and is massively successful. I don't know if SIFTD could actually be successful even then as I just don't see the point of the site, maybe he should focus on making his own content and keep doing things like Pachter's show and just rebrand the site and drop the 'idea' behind it.
 
J

JakR

Member
You can sign up for free without access to premium content.
And the catch for siftd is that you can search for platform, content, genre or topic specific.
It is a powerful tool and someone can save a lot of time instead of trekking the internet.

In the general marketing and promotion department I think Shane made a lot of mistakes to elevate siftd.net to a visible state.

But it would be great if more people check out the side and looking into it.
 
R

RPGam3r

Member
Ok so I have a couple quick immediate design/usability questions.

1. What is that logo supposed to represent?
2. If I am not logged in you should be greeting me with something that educates me on why I should give a damn about your site. Instead my hand gets slapped when I start looking around, which leaves me with a bad experience as a potential user.
 
Wireframe

Wireframe

Member
JakR said:
You can sign up for free without access to premium content.
And the catch for siftd is that you can search for platform, content, genre or topic specific.
It is a powerful tool and someone can save a lot of time instead of trekking the internet.

In the general marketing and promotion department I think Shane made a lot of mistakes to elevate siftd.net to a visible state.

But it would be great if more people check out the side and looking into it.
Click to expand...

I subscribe to SIFTD too and I agree with the marketing. Shane has enough to keep rent up for now, I think it's more that he's frustrated that it's not took off. As he put it "It's been soul-crushing working 14-hour days for no pay" He's not even made his initial investment into the site back yet.

He doesn't wanna use patreon because they take a cut of what he thinks is the same model the site uses. He's very wrong however as patreon has tiers with incentives for higher subscritions and milestones, something he doesn't offer.

RPGam3r said:
Ok so I have a couple quick immediate design/usability questions.

1. What is that logo supposed to represent?
2. If I am not logged in you should be greeting me with something that educates me on why I should give a damn about your site. Instead my hand gets slapped when I start looking around, which leaves me with a bad experience as a potential user.
Click to expand...

An S for obvious reasons with large pieces of content becoming smaller below, the idea being that by using a content aggregator you get what you need in small digestable portions rather than having to look through all gaming news/ rss feeds to get what you're interested in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1Haz4hCekg This is a SIFTD promo and I agree the sites messaging needs a ton of work.
 
A

AAK

Member
Novel Mike said:
As others have said, he should set up a Pateron and work out of his home. EZA does it and is massively successful.
Click to expand...

While it's definitely a success, I think "massively" is a little misleading right? Only Brandon, Damiani, and Ben actually get enough of the Pateron share to make a full time living. Ian, Kyle, Bloodworth, Huber, Bradley, and Don all just earn a part time salary and need to rely elsewhere to make ends meet.
 
D

Deimo5

Member
AAK said:
While it's definitely a success, I think "massively" is a little misleading right? Only Brandon, Damiani, and Ben actually get enough of the Pateron share to make a full time living. Ian, Kyle, Bloodworth, Huber, Bradley, and Don all just earn a part time salary and need to rely elsewhere to make ends meet.
Click to expand...

They have an unusually large amount of people involved for a patreon project, but going by monthly earnings alone they are one of the biggest successes on the platform.

Echoing that you only tend to hear about SIFTD when something bad is happening like this. They don't seem to make much of an effort to get their name out there?
 
S

SprachBrooks

Member
AAK said:
While it's definitely a success, I think "massively" is a little misleading right? Only Brandon, Damiani, and Ben actually get enough of the Pateron share to make a full time living. Ian, Kyle, Bloodworth, Huber, Bradley, and Don all just earn a part time salary and need to rely elsewhere to make ends meet.
Click to expand...

From the sounds of it, only Ian—Don works full-time at Funhause—does other work. The rest for sure are involved as if they were full-time employees. Makes me wonder how they’re able to afford their rent and other essentials on a part-time salary in LA!
 
Mikey Jr.

Mikey Jr.

Member
It's funny. I commented about them a few weeks ago.

Shane had Brandon Jones from easy allies on a stream. Someone had posted it in the easy allies thread.

So I opened the stream.

Man, Shane doesn't get it. Firstly, there was absolutely zero info on the twitch page. You know how usually you can scroll down and see info about them? They had absolutely nothing. I tried to find their schedule to see when I could watch more. What they were about. Fucking anything.
Nope. Nada. Zero. Nothing there.

So I decided to check out their archived videos.
Nothing. Nothing too see their either.

Why man? I don't get it.

That was the last time I watched them. I couldnt even find a basic schedule, so mehhh. I bounced.
 
G

Glass Shark

Banned
Flarin said:
You make a good point. This is the first time I've heard about SIFTD for the first time since they got robbed. They have good content, but they don't push it anywhere. There's not even a community thread here on GAF as far as I know.
Click to expand...

Totally agree with this. Other than when they initially launched and the few times they've been hard up for money, I haven't heard a peep about them. I don't even know the kind of coverage they do really. That's a big visibility problem.
 
R

ronaldthump

Member
but is it worth saving? And why would something that no one knows about need saving? Wouldn't it be more for people who actually care for it?

Never heard of sift'd to be honest. Did one hell of a job marketing themselves.


* glixel also went under so maybe they just can't cut it. The ideal of doubling rent? Move somewhere cheaper.
 
ISee

ISee

Member
Instead of checking various sites one by one I can pay them to organize articles from various sites fir me? So they are mostly a middle man and try to push '3d party' content...
Sorry, I really don't need a service like that and I rather support original content like EZA, DF or NXgamer.
 
A

Aaron

Member
Needs to reform under patreon with a new name. I find the name actually repulsive. Like someone mentioned earlier, it makes me think of STDs and isn't expressive in any form, the way Giant Bomb or Easy Allies is.
 
Mikey Jr.

Mikey Jr.

Member
Look at Siftd twitch

https://www.twitch.tv/siftdgames

Versus

Easy Allies twitch

https://www.twitch.tv/easyallies

EZA has a whole schedule, who they are, where to follow them, how to support them. They have archived videos you can watch. They have collections which are like playlists which sorts all their stuff.

Siftd has nothing. This is pretty telling on how the whole site probably advertises itself.

This is COMMON SENSE stuff here.
 
H

Hubble

Member
It's just a bad product. People use the world wide web to search and browse anything they want. No one needs something to sort out anything for you. I've said it since day one that no way this thing will survive.
 
T

tim.mbp

Member
Mikey Jr. said:
Look at Siftd twitch

https://www.twitch.tv/siftdgames

Versus

Easy Allies twitch

https://www.twitch.tv/easyallies

EZA has a whole schedule, who they are, where to follow them, how to support them. They have archived videos you can watch. They have collections which are like playlists which sorts all their stuff.

Siftd has nothing. This is pretty telling on how the whole site probably advertises itself.

This is COMMON SENSE stuff here.
Click to expand...

I think Siftd stuff is behind a paywall.
 
A

Alucrid

Banned
Wireframe said:
I subscribe to SIFTD too and I agree with the marketing. Shane has enough to keep rent up for now, I think it's more that he's frustrated that it's not took off. As he put it "It's been soul-crushing working 14-hour days for no pay" He's not even made his initial investment into the site back yet.

He doesn't wanna use patreon because they take a cut of what he thinks is the same model the site uses. He's very wrong however as patreon has tiers with incentives for higher subscritions and milestones, something he doesn't offer.



An S for obvious reasons with large pieces of content becoming smaller below, the idea being that by using a content aggregator you get what you need in small digestable portions rather than having to look through all gaming news/ rss feeds to get what you're interested in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1Haz4hCekg This is a SIFTD promo and I agree the sites messaging needs a ton of work.
Click to expand...

it's weird that the first thing the promo tells you about the site is that it's founded by shane satterfield. is he that big of a draw?
 
Wireframe

Wireframe

Member
ISee said:
Instead of checking various sites one by one I can pay them to organize articles from various sites fir me? So they are mostly a middle man and try to push '3d party' content...
Sorry, I really don't need a service like that and I rather support original content like EZA, DF or NXgamer.
Click to expand...

It's custom aggregation based on your preferences, say you don't like esports or mobile? You'll never see anything like that in your feed if you turn them off. They also make their own weekly podcast on fridays and have written reviews with scores tuned to your preferences. Not sure what you mean by 3rd party content, any aggregation service would do the same, neogaf is a 3rd party content discussion forum.

Mikey Jr. said:
Look at Siftd twitch

https://www.twitch.tv/siftdgames

Versus

Easy Allies twitch

https://www.twitch.tv/easyallies

EZA has a whole schedule, who they are, where to follow them, how to support them. They have archived videos you can watch. They have collections which are like playlists which sorts all their stuff.

Siftd has nothing. This is pretty telling on how the whole site probably advertises itself.

This is COMMON SENSE stuff here.
Click to expand...

They need more info on there for sure. They don't archive episodes on twitch because then people would have no reason to subscribe given you already get the sift for free and gameface is one of their only 2 draws. I'm sure Patreon would remedy this.

FullMetalx117 said:
Neogaf is already my content aggregator unfortunately....cool site though
Click to expand...

And 90 % of the topics I could give 2 shits about (How many times have you seen BS threads like "Are JRPG's dead?" or "I'm tired of openworld games" SIFTD has a separate community for forum discussion). There is definitely a market for SIFTD, they just need marketing skills.

Alucrid said:
it's weird that the first thing the promo tells you about the site is that it's founded by shane satterfield. is he that big of a draw?
Click to expand...

He's a fairly well known name in games media, very polarising but definitely recognisable. He was editor-in-chief at gametrailers before they were bought and shutdown by defy and has worked at several places like tech tv and G4. It's most likely to show industry credentials.
 
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