Over the last few months, things in my life have not been terribly good. They're not awful mind you, but the wife had a barrage of medical issues, stress and problem stuff at the job, and other things were starting to pile up and after a while it mentally puts a strain on you. So a few weeks ago I pretty much had to give myself a kick in the ass and try to find some kind of new hobby or project to focus on to get myself out of a funk since video games and liquor weren't doing it on their own anymore.
So given what I do I first thought I'll do some new web project. The last time I did something big I made a blog where I reviewed really bad booze called SadSpirits.com. It actually got a pretty nice sized following, but in the process my liver and taste buds threatened to kill me, and I eventually retired the site. So alcohol was ruled out. At that point it pretty much fell back onto video games (yeah I know I really need to find a third interest at some point).
I brainstormed a while and finally fell back onto an idea for a niche site that I came up on several months back. A blog/review site where you get reviews for games that can be played and enjoyed by a parent and his kid. Good stuff, not just licensed crap that kids tend to drift towards. So I found a decent domain that wasn't taken, found a Word Press template I could live with, and lo and behold www.Second-Generation.com was born. And after I wrote the first couple pages I came to a grand realization.... I can't write reviews worth a crap.
The entire reason why I've never really written reviews for this site or any other is that I'm really terrible at it. If you've heard me trying to describe a game on the podcasts you know this. Public speaking = easy. Game reviews = nuts in a vice grip. My brain just doesn't remember all the reasons why I like something and I end up forgetting half the things that were important to mention. But you know what? That's actually okay. I don't mind that I can't write this shit. The whole reason I did the site in the first place was just to distract myself and find a hobby and mission accomplished!
I think I may even keep it up for a while. I doubt anyone will ever see it (I'll be sparing everyone here), but that's okay. If someone does stumble across it that'll feel doubley cool. And in the meantime I can be one of those uppidy pretentous people who says, "ooooooh I've written about that on my blog" and then never give the address out. And I will enjoy that too.
THAT'S ACTUALLY FUCKIN' AWESOME!!
The Blog part, not the Failure part...
CONGRATS, MAN!!
WHAT A GREAT IDEA!!
Review Journey. You could technically play it with your child if the two of you had separate PS3s and happened to end up in the same game together.
I can't play Journey in front of my son because I'd be swearing the entire time. He's picked up enough bad habits from me. He doesn't need extra ones.
And thanks Leo. I still think the idea has legs. It needs work, but the site will be a work in progress for a while. There's a whole generation of us who knocked up some random woman or got knocked-up (go gamer-grrrls), and had a kid who likes to play games too. So I know someone out there would want to read a review from that perspective, provided someone who knew how to write was doing it.
Given this: "Public speaking = easy. Game reviews = nuts in a vice grip." please consider that IGN and Giantbomb are going almost exclusively video content (to get ad revenue). This may be a route for you to take, especially if you can figure out a way to get the video into your reviews (it would be essential actually).
Also, you have marketing experience, what are you doing for your site in terms of getting attention for it (through social media etc...)?
The video reviews would be a great idea, but I have no idea how to edit video footage into what I'd be doing. Without it, it'd definitely be pointless. So for now, probably won't be able to do that.
As far as the marketing, I'm not quite ready to do anything big. Yesterday was the first day I really even put the site out to the public, aside from the very quick bit at the end of the podcast. I'll do the facebook page for it and maybe Twitter. I've got a few friends who have thousands of contacts so I figure if I pimp it out correctly I can get it in front of a lot of people's face. And I'm going to do it the old fashioned way to some extent and just go for word of mouth. I've got a few convention speaking engagements coming up, and I'll be shamlessly whoring myself out at those events.
Well, when you are a guest on Game Under Podcast we'll certainly feature it, and I can link it on our site (for what that is worth).
Video is going to be a lot easier than you think once you have the time to look into it.
I cant write for shit and I still write a ton of reviews, just try it.
The site is an amazing idea! What a great way to involve your kid, I love the entire premise. I wish you the best success.
Just write a list of the details (likes/dislikes) of your review; that way you can't forget them when actually writing the review proper. And if you can't turn them into a review, you can just post the list and no one will notice anyway.