Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Callout to the Audience

All of us find ourselves in a rut sometimes. I can be from exhaustion, disinterest, indecision, and number of things. I feel like I'm in a bit of a rut with this blog, and and calling out to you, oh faithful readers, for some advice. Or just a strong kick in the ass, your pick =)

This blog isn't going away. It'd keep going even if nobody read it, which is a statement I've made multiple times and stand behind, so don't think for a second I'm considering hanging up the blog. Won't happen.

When this blog started, it was just a personal outlet to discuss what gaming shenanigams I've been up to, and who I'm playing with. While I have no problem with people in the industry gazing upon this blog (with the understanding that it's an "off-the-clock" personal blog and I represent only myself here), I've never aggressively used it as an outlet to "advertise" myself to those people. I've written special topics, some fun things like my dream videogame, or various predictions of the future (which I intend to eventually revisit and see how they turned out). I've made some great posts and built a fair following, and I'm happy about that.

But let's not kid ourselves, little of any real importance has been said on this blog in the last three months. I know, I checked. I could have looked farther back, but I honestly cringe to do so. I'll be completely honest so you all don't have to say it: For the vast part of 2010, ThrawnOmega's Blog on the Gaming Life has been... mediocre.

So, oh faithful readers, my question for you is, as I look to invest more energy into this blog and reestablish it as a proud example of my writing, what would you like me to focus on the most? I offer here some suggestions and thoughs, but you may offer any advice or ideas you thing of.

Note that I have no interest in becoming your personal source of news on all things in the gaming industry. There's a thousand sites offering info on every new release, every trailer that's posted, every preview snippet, every list of what X games are being released released in Y month... I won't waste your time copy/pasting info you already saw elsewhere, unless I have some substantial commentary to add to it, where the news is really just there to provide context to what I want to say.

I have a decent catalogue of game reviews. Do you want to see me focus more strongly on game reviews?

Do I devote more time into interesting and/or random special topics? If you've followed most of this blog's history, you'll know this means general randomness and expanded opinions on a topic, not to be confused with serious editorials. Special features are meant to entertain, not really inform.

Do I become more serious and offer you my serious thoughts through insightful editorials on the gaming industry? These would be researched, thoughtful articles, but you're going to see less posts due to the time involved in making them.

Do I pursue relationships with other bloggers towards possible guest posting arrangements, where I post for their blog and/or someone else drops into mine?

SHould I stick my heels in deep and write this blog as if I was someone working professionally in the industry, and move this blog much more in the direction of a marketing tool for careers in the industry?

Some combination of all of the above?

I'd love to hear your thoughts. I've never been to proud to solicit outside feedback and use it to improve my work. For now, I'm keeping my own leaning of each of the offered ideas to myself for the most part, as I don't want to bias your thinking... except for that first item. I will not to "hard news." I won't churn out what other people are posting everywhere else around the internet, so if I can't make something uniquely mine, I'm not writing it. (No smart-a**es looking through the archives for any contradictions to this LOL)

Be vocal! Let your thoughts be heard!

4 comments:

  1. I actually take offense to the below paragraph. I have a feeling you're referring to me, and I in NO mean copy/paste what I write. Everything I write is my own words on that particular news story. If you're not referring to me, then my apologies for this post, but I got a feeling you were.


    "Note that I have no interest in becoming your personal source of news on all things in the gaming industry. There's a thousand sites offering info on every new release, every trailer that's posted, every preview snippet, every list of what X games are being released released in Y month... I won't waste your time copy/pasting info you already saw elsewhere, unless I have some substantial commentary to add to it, where the news is really just there to provide context to what I want to say."

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  2. Wasn't referring to any specific individual when I made that statement. I was simply listing off the types of things I know if I looked around the internet, I'd see a lot of examples of copy/paste on. I realize after rereading it that my examples match up with what you've been doing lately, but the intent was anything but to say "Bishop copy/pastes." I'll admit I didn;t actually troll the net before making the statement, but I'm pretty sure there's a lot of link-spamming going on out their posing as original content. Again, accusing no specific individuals of anything.

    That said, I'm not touching news. It's covered in a million places. People don't need a write-up from me about it. If I can provide an interesting take on it it'd be worth it, but most of the time I have nothing extraordinary to add. If you enjoy doing it and your audience is receptive to it, more power to you. It's just not for me.

    Sorry about making you feel singled out =(

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  3. I know why i like to read your blog. I just like to know what you have been up to on Xbox. most of the time you have been playing up to date games, and give some very good opinions on them.

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  4. I'd have to go with a combination of all the above. But then again, I'm having trouble with content, too, but I've been using the excuse that I'm a college student working a part-time job and blogging is an on-the-side thing.

    Granted, you probably didn't need to know/don't care about that.

    I will admit that I enjoy reading random topics a bit more. With all the textbooks I'm reading, posts that are researched and relatively dry because of it don't seem very interesting to me.

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