Thursday 24 July 2014

Survey! Your Ideal Online Playground for Girl Gamers?

Some days my brain operates on two competing levels and it goes something like this:

"Yes but, um, I've been thinking--"




"--You've been THINKING!? Now look here, I warned you about thinking. I've got a knob for this job, now let's get on with it!"

(sorry I just had to throw that reference in)

We all have those days right? Where your brain is going in circles and you end up totally stalled? Well, today I did some thinking, and I concluded that it was time to get your input on a big idea that I have. 

When I'm not doing interviews for the doc, the majority of my work for She Got Game involves solitary things like organizing, researching, and planning. The same sites and big names always pop up, and frankly I get frustrated with some of the gaming resources out there. Not because they're not good, but because they rarely include diverse content continually created by new people.

You know what I really want? I want to discover some funky obscure projects+blogs+videos+reviews+podcasts+concept/fan art+games that so often get lost in the ooooooos of Google searches. A LOT OF YOU ARE ALREADY DOING THIS. Why not connect us all somehow?

Back to the big idea, I've been dreaming up a collaborative website for us

Think Kotaku meets YouTube meets Reddit meets GameSpot, except that it will include you and your friends and any other woman who's into gaming in a curated, fun, visually exciting way. Ok fine, that's one hell of an aspiration, but let's dream about it anyway.

If you knew a webwizard (which I do) who wanted to build you that perfect online niche you've always wanted, what would that look like? I seriously want to know!

I've been looking at women and gaming websites for a long time now and here are some examples of what's already out there:

Women in Games




Reddit: GirlGamers 




Casual Girl Gamer





Girl Gamer Vogue




So after taking a look at these, we want to know: What do you want!? Is there something lacking in the online communities and sites that are already out there? How can we build you the ideal online gaming playground for YOU? Fill out the survey if you want to have some input!






...And as always, feel free to email me personally at shegotgamethemovie@gmail.com if you have any other thoughts or ideas. 

Peace, love and happy Thursday.

5 comments:

  1. Haha! Those two were funny.

    While I am not a female myself, I do have thoughts! I think the GGVogue website is functionally the most useful, the Casual Girl Gamer site has the most charm (as elusive as that is), the subreddit is obviously the most open for user content, and WIGSIG is very aesthetically pleasing (but also a bit sterile, devoid of charm, looks like an Apple site).

    In a perfect world, the site would be categorized for easy viewing/finding, but also have sections for a random article (just to keep people from becoming too compartmentalized in their exposure on the site) and features (to keep important content from being buried too quickly by the flood of news). Forums for interaction and community. Interviews - I always like those, text and video. Getting to know people rather than whole games is fun. Events are huge, but going to them and providing enough coverage once you get there... I have heard horror stories from game industry journalists. That would be tricky. And expensive. I definitely like the idea of opinion pieces, from many people, guests and website visitors alike. Big game titles do have a lot of females behind the scenes, so definitely cover those. Indie games are growing like crazy, so definitely cover those, too. All-female studios? And what could be done with YouTube/Twitch? Curious about that.

    As far as the looks, I don't like crazy combobulated messes. It should be easy to read and navigate, with menus and categorical links. It should also have personality, because people like things that are pretty (males and females alike, in my experience). And if you are on a big monitor like mine, only the subreddit fills the width of my screen. The other 3 sites are like narrow little strips of website on my screen, which is a huge waste of pixels. Sure, scaling down to 1280x1024 is important, but scaling up to 1920x1080 (or larger!) is equally important.

    Anyway, just a few ideas.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Bob,

      Whoa! Thanks for the super thoughtful, detailed suggestions. I'm currently traveling in Japan, so please excuse the lag in my response time.

      There are just two of us doing the majority of the work on She Got Game, so I love getting feedback and ideas from people. The site's not set in stone yet, but we're collecting data and ideas. The survey responses we got were interesting--most of the people who responded said they'd be most interested in game reviews and interviews. Even after the She Got Game documentary is finished, we'd like to continue shooting video interviews and doing spotlights on various women gamers and developers, so we'll probably include those along with the rest of the content coming from various women's blogs/vlogs/sites etc.

      And on a technical note, it's always good to be reminded about the scaling and degree of user-friendliness! I tend to find most sites too jam-packed so it's hard to know what to pay attention to. I really like the way GGVogue is laid out--nice and simple!

      Delete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Personally, I think you have to look at the foundation/reason for having a site and then build on from there. To me, I would want somewhere I can connect, discuss, and possibly collaborate with other talented people. Everything else just adds to how you interact with them (reviews, forums, interviews, etc.)

    Maybe start with something basic and then add, don't get wrapped up in making it some massive and amazing thing right from the start. It might just become overly demanding to upkeep.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Jess,

      Thanks a lot for your thoughtful feedback. I agree that taking on too much at once can defeat the purpose and get you sidetracked from your original idea. I'm glad to hear that people are interested in collaborating and connecting, rather than just reading a news feed. I'll keep this in mind when we're thinking about how to move forward!

      Delete