Guilty_AI
Member
For a while now, i've been trying to come up with ways that could help bringing some attention to games the general public might not get much contact with.
The average user on GAF is fairly old (at least compared to a lot of other gaming forums), meaning generally busy individuals with families and full time jobs, and the population here isn't that big to begin with. As such, it isn't strange a lot of people in the site would never have heard of certain games that rely mainly on word-of-mouth to spread, especially those users that don't frequent other forums too often. So, how could we shine some well deserved light in such gemstones?
The first, and probably most obvious, means to divulge such titles would be making |OT|'s of whatever game you feel deserve attention but isn't getting any. However that has it set of limitations. For starters, the purpose of |OT|'s is generally to keep the conversation of ultra popular/hyped games in one place, basically the opposite of our main objective here which is to create/revive the discussion. Also, they're generally used for titles being released, when its not uncommon to play less known games years after it came out.
"How about creating a big thread specifically for those types of games?" Unfortunatelly that would be too messy. There are all sorts of genres and niches with varying degrees of popularity out there, and throwing them all into the same place wouldn't make for good discussions. One thing that could work, however, is to create threads for specific niches, like a community thread dedicated to Visual Novels, for DOS games, for good cheap games, for Point 'n' clicks or freewares.
"Couldn't we simply create topics discussing such games?" Yes, and thats generally the idea i'm getting at here. The point is that by standardizing the format of these topics, it would make the search easier for other users looking for these less known games recommended by their fellow GAFers, as well as avoiding multiple threads on a single title. To do that we'd need an identifier on the title and/or a tag (Like HYHO or something).
I'm starting this discussion because i've seen some users commenting about wanting this, but i don't know what everyone truly thinks. So please share your thoughts.
The average user on GAF is fairly old (at least compared to a lot of other gaming forums), meaning generally busy individuals with families and full time jobs, and the population here isn't that big to begin with. As such, it isn't strange a lot of people in the site would never have heard of certain games that rely mainly on word-of-mouth to spread, especially those users that don't frequent other forums too often. So, how could we shine some well deserved light in such gemstones?
The first, and probably most obvious, means to divulge such titles would be making |OT|'s of whatever game you feel deserve attention but isn't getting any. However that has it set of limitations. For starters, the purpose of |OT|'s is generally to keep the conversation of ultra popular/hyped games in one place, basically the opposite of our main objective here which is to create/revive the discussion. Also, they're generally used for titles being released, when its not uncommon to play less known games years after it came out.
"How about creating a big thread specifically for those types of games?" Unfortunatelly that would be too messy. There are all sorts of genres and niches with varying degrees of popularity out there, and throwing them all into the same place wouldn't make for good discussions. One thing that could work, however, is to create threads for specific niches, like a community thread dedicated to Visual Novels, for DOS games, for good cheap games, for Point 'n' clicks or freewares.
"Couldn't we simply create topics discussing such games?" Yes, and thats generally the idea i'm getting at here. The point is that by standardizing the format of these topics, it would make the search easier for other users looking for these less known games recommended by their fellow GAFers, as well as avoiding multiple threads on a single title. To do that we'd need an identifier on the title and/or a tag (Like HYHO or something).
I'm starting this discussion because i've seen some users commenting about wanting this, but i don't know what everyone truly thinks. So please share your thoughts.