You might be just what I need. But rather than making this about me. Let's make it about us.
A little about me though:
I am Dylan Graham. You can call me Codewow if you so choose. I'm 21 years old. I have been a gamer for almost as long as I can remember. I'm also an ameatur web developer and drummer.
Now, what this whole thing is about:
The project: Gaming journalism website: Game Golem.
The problem: Gaming journalism, as well as journalism in general is filled with corruption. People being bought for good reviews. It's become more apparent recently with things such as GamerGate. Biased reviews also play a role. Ultimately leaving a sour taste in the reader's mouth.
Our solution: Game Golem is a gaming journalism website first and foremost. It's brand new. I'm building it from the ground up with the limited knowledge I have in web development. We intend to take gaming journalism in a direction that almost every major gaming site has failed to do.
We are going to be transparent. I own every aspect of Game Golem. Thus allowing me to control every aspect. -- Don't worry, I build on feedback and suggestion. I'm not a power hungry individual. I would rather work with people than have them working for me. With the control I have and the collaboration we participate in, we could single handedly change gaming journalism for the better.
"But how would we manage this?"
-- Good question! We will manage this by trying to bring in as many perspectives as possible. A written review of a video game doesn't deserve to have a number placed over it based one just that one reviewers subjective view on the game. Because bias reviews are a problem for many people we intend to include multiple individual perspectives on each review.
As well, we know exchanging of money for positive reviews destroys the whole point of a review, we will make it very clear that anyone participating in review fraud will be revoked from all future participation with Game Golem.
"And how would we know no money was exchanging hands with you?"
-- Another great question! The answer to that isn't very simple. Transparency is important to us. I will provide details on profits/expenses and other aspects of Game Golem on a monthly basis. As well, I will also disclose (if I am legally able) any requests for positive reviews under agreement of monetary gains. Note that we will NEVER accept such requests.
"How can we be sure you're not just lying?"
-- This is the rather complex part of the question above. While there's truly no way that I could ever be 100% transparent without running into some issue somewhere. I will do my best to provide information and answer questions people may have as to my legitimacy.
"What if a developer gives you a game to review for free?"
-- In regards to "review copies" of games, we consider such acceptable. We'd appreciate it if developers contact us directly or provide such games to our staff directly for redistribution to other members to avoid any confusion and settle all legal agreements first. (Legal agreements meaning we confirm that we are not being bound to provide an illegitimate review in return for a free game)
"What are you asking from us?"
-- I am asking a variable amount of effort from you. Depending on what your intentions are if you participate, you can expect to either simply continuing what you already do (assuming you make YouTube videos on gaming news as well as game reviews) or you could even write your own articles. It's ultimately your choice in what you want to spend your time on. We're happy to accommodate video-only content if you agree to allow our editors to provide a small text addition be added along with your video to accomodate our text-reader demographic.
"What are our obligations to you if we participate?"
-- Much like the Freedom! network, we have no contract. At some point we will have an "Agreement" that participants will be required to sign. The agreement is pretty basic and there's no catch either. What you agree to is that you will post relative content if you decide to post. As well as agree to legal aspects of content and asserting that while you may be posting on the Game Golem website, you do not reflect the views of Game Golem or any individual within Game Golem and any content used without consent from any legal entity is in no way Game Golem's legal problem.
There's also a bunch of other legal jargon that I will go over in more detail in a video once this agreement is written up.
"So what can't we do then?"
-- Basically, you can't take money from developers for anything in regards to your content. You cannot post illegal content. We'd appreciate it if irrelevant content remained off the website as well, but it will ultimately be removed by our editors. More details in regards to any of this information will be provided if asked as well as when it changes. I will make a video explaining it more in the future.
"What do we get out of it?"
-- "Professional" Games Journalists make money. Unfortunately, without a contractual agreement, Game Golem will not be able to payout monetarily right now. Because of this, we encourage participants to create video content and monetize it themselves. For those that would rather write articles. I will personally work with you to see if I can't scrape up some change to give to you.
Monetary gain isn't the only thing you could get out of this though! If enough people created content and shared their content, the potential to get seen by viewers increases. You could get more followers and subscribers this way!
"What do you get out of this?"
-- I would get the satisfaction of seeing my work actually used. I'd also be able to learn from the experience and apply it to both Game Golem and new projects as I work on them.
You probably asked this because of money though, in regards to money. I can open state that as of right now Game Golem is around -$500 for just being over a year old. I have spent more money than I have ever made off of the website. Of course, I would love to see that number be positive. Money is not my priority though. While a positive profit line is what is needed to continue running, it's not the most important aspect of what we are.
In short, yes eventually I might make a tiny bit of money off of the website, but isn't that deserved if I am building it myself? I don't think Mark Zuckerberg would have continued building facebook if he never saw any increase in users.
"How can I participate?"
-- If you are truly interested in participating in Game Golem, you can contact me either via email at [email protected] or here on the forum!
If you have any further questions regarding anything, please ask away! I will answer them sometime tomorrow most likely. I'll try to answer as soon as possible.[DOUBLEPOST=1449419196][/DOUBLEPOST]If you view our site and go, "What is this bollocks?" Please feel free to reply. Feedback is what keeps things flowing in the world. Without it, no one would excel in anything. So if you don't like the way the website looks, let us know. If you don't like the functionality, let us know. We want to build something that looks great (eventually), works great (eventually), and provides genuine content for it's users.
Thanks for at least checking us out!
Dylan Graham
CEO / Founder
Game Golem
Email: [email protected]
A little about me though:
I am Dylan Graham. You can call me Codewow if you so choose. I'm 21 years old. I have been a gamer for almost as long as I can remember. I'm also an ameatur web developer and drummer.
Now, what this whole thing is about:
The project: Gaming journalism website: Game Golem.
The problem: Gaming journalism, as well as journalism in general is filled with corruption. People being bought for good reviews. It's become more apparent recently with things such as GamerGate. Biased reviews also play a role. Ultimately leaving a sour taste in the reader's mouth.
Our solution: Game Golem is a gaming journalism website first and foremost. It's brand new. I'm building it from the ground up with the limited knowledge I have in web development. We intend to take gaming journalism in a direction that almost every major gaming site has failed to do.
We are going to be transparent. I own every aspect of Game Golem. Thus allowing me to control every aspect. -- Don't worry, I build on feedback and suggestion. I'm not a power hungry individual. I would rather work with people than have them working for me. With the control I have and the collaboration we participate in, we could single handedly change gaming journalism for the better.
"But how would we manage this?"
-- Good question! We will manage this by trying to bring in as many perspectives as possible. A written review of a video game doesn't deserve to have a number placed over it based one just that one reviewers subjective view on the game. Because bias reviews are a problem for many people we intend to include multiple individual perspectives on each review.
As well, we know exchanging of money for positive reviews destroys the whole point of a review, we will make it very clear that anyone participating in review fraud will be revoked from all future participation with Game Golem.
"And how would we know no money was exchanging hands with you?"
-- Another great question! The answer to that isn't very simple. Transparency is important to us. I will provide details on profits/expenses and other aspects of Game Golem on a monthly basis. As well, I will also disclose (if I am legally able) any requests for positive reviews under agreement of monetary gains. Note that we will NEVER accept such requests.
"How can we be sure you're not just lying?"
-- This is the rather complex part of the question above. While there's truly no way that I could ever be 100% transparent without running into some issue somewhere. I will do my best to provide information and answer questions people may have as to my legitimacy.
"What if a developer gives you a game to review for free?"
-- In regards to "review copies" of games, we consider such acceptable. We'd appreciate it if developers contact us directly or provide such games to our staff directly for redistribution to other members to avoid any confusion and settle all legal agreements first. (Legal agreements meaning we confirm that we are not being bound to provide an illegitimate review in return for a free game)
"What are you asking from us?"
-- I am asking a variable amount of effort from you. Depending on what your intentions are if you participate, you can expect to either simply continuing what you already do (assuming you make YouTube videos on gaming news as well as game reviews) or you could even write your own articles. It's ultimately your choice in what you want to spend your time on. We're happy to accommodate video-only content if you agree to allow our editors to provide a small text addition be added along with your video to accomodate our text-reader demographic.
"What are our obligations to you if we participate?"
-- Much like the Freedom! network, we have no contract. At some point we will have an "Agreement" that participants will be required to sign. The agreement is pretty basic and there's no catch either. What you agree to is that you will post relative content if you decide to post. As well as agree to legal aspects of content and asserting that while you may be posting on the Game Golem website, you do not reflect the views of Game Golem or any individual within Game Golem and any content used without consent from any legal entity is in no way Game Golem's legal problem.
There's also a bunch of other legal jargon that I will go over in more detail in a video once this agreement is written up.
"So what can't we do then?"
-- Basically, you can't take money from developers for anything in regards to your content. You cannot post illegal content. We'd appreciate it if irrelevant content remained off the website as well, but it will ultimately be removed by our editors. More details in regards to any of this information will be provided if asked as well as when it changes. I will make a video explaining it more in the future.
"What do we get out of it?"
-- "Professional" Games Journalists make money. Unfortunately, without a contractual agreement, Game Golem will not be able to payout monetarily right now. Because of this, we encourage participants to create video content and monetize it themselves. For those that would rather write articles. I will personally work with you to see if I can't scrape up some change to give to you.
Monetary gain isn't the only thing you could get out of this though! If enough people created content and shared their content, the potential to get seen by viewers increases. You could get more followers and subscribers this way!
"What do you get out of this?"
-- I would get the satisfaction of seeing my work actually used. I'd also be able to learn from the experience and apply it to both Game Golem and new projects as I work on them.
You probably asked this because of money though, in regards to money. I can open state that as of right now Game Golem is around -$500 for just being over a year old. I have spent more money than I have ever made off of the website. Of course, I would love to see that number be positive. Money is not my priority though. While a positive profit line is what is needed to continue running, it's not the most important aspect of what we are.
In short, yes eventually I might make a tiny bit of money off of the website, but isn't that deserved if I am building it myself? I don't think Mark Zuckerberg would have continued building facebook if he never saw any increase in users.
"How can I participate?"
-- If you are truly interested in participating in Game Golem, you can contact me either via email at [email protected] or here on the forum!
If you have any further questions regarding anything, please ask away! I will answer them sometime tomorrow most likely. I'll try to answer as soon as possible.[DOUBLEPOST=1449419196][/DOUBLEPOST]If you view our site and go, "What is this bollocks?" Please feel free to reply. Feedback is what keeps things flowing in the world. Without it, no one would excel in anything. So if you don't like the way the website looks, let us know. If you don't like the functionality, let us know. We want to build something that looks great (eventually), works great (eventually), and provides genuine content for it's users.
Thanks for at least checking us out!
Dylan Graham
CEO / Founder
Game Golem
Email: [email protected]
Last edited by a moderator: