Since we started in October of last year, PowerGamer has achieved more than I ever expected as a ground zero startup.
With over 30,000 unique visitors since launch, we have been heavily engaged in what has been a tumultuous period in video gaming history in the wake of ongoing scandals and consumer concern around the behavior of individuals within the gaming media and developmental community. I believe that PowerGamer’s open platform approach has helped to buoy interest in consumer advocacy and has provided a platform to encourage those without a voice to speak out.
As you may have noticed however, PowerGamer is not as active as other sites on the market, and it’s my view that under our current revenue-free model we will never be capable of reaching a suitable level of dedicated coverage. With sites like TechRaptor, GamesNosh and Highland Arrow and others already providing excellent consumer driven content, my conscience is eased in this regard. Additionally, we sit in a comfortable position in which we hold no obligations to advertisers, shareholders and backers in general and only to the consumers and contributors who help to build our site.
As a result, we’ve decided to reassess PowerGamer’s place in the market and have decided to move away from a traditional gaming site model. Instead, we want to partner with existing sites in order to promote great content in addition to highlighting the best user created work on the internet in order to become a must visit community for gamers.
In the intervening period since we started the site, we’ve seen an increasingly blatant crackdown on freedom of speech in various communities such as Reddit and NeoGAF. Needless to say we’re not amused by what we consider to be an ongoing wave of intolerant behavior towards content deemed to be offensive or inappropriate by a certain section of the internet. PowerGamer aims to buck that trend.
What exactly is going to happen?
Starting from July, our webmaster/general genius person Ix will be pushing on with redeveloping the site with the aim of reopening in August/September.
To get a bit of an idea of the type of site that she’s intending to develop, you can check out Dial Square, a leading fan community for Arsenal Football Club.
As stated above, the new PowerGamer is aiming to promote and provide the best user created gaming content on the internet, as well as to develop a deeply dedicated social community for users to discuss hot topics without the fear of a chilling effect on discussion.
How will this affect the current running of the site?
For the time being, PowerGamer will continue to provide news, reviews and editorials on a per contribution basis.
Potential writers are more than welcome to contribute as per our current procedure. Any changes to this will be communicated via Twitter or via a news article on this site.
How will this affect content hosted on the site such as reviews, news and editorials?
We plan to continue hosting this content and may even continue to post our own news, reviews and editorials. It is important to note however that the aim with the new community will not be to focus primarily on creating our own content but to promote and possibly host other sites content as a place for discussion between fellow gamers.
Is this redevelopment a plan to enter into competition with Reddit/8chan/Voat/BasedGamer? etc.
Far from it. We would love to work with different communities as per the spirit of gaming to help improve the industry as a whole.
We plan to hold an AMA on /r/KotakuInAction (which is the cradle of PowerGamer’s development) in order to discuss ways in which we can best serve the consumer.
How will this affect PowerGamer’s ethical policies and procedures?
There will no doubt be changes required to our ethics policies and terms as more details are worked out. However, we’re proud to work with DeepFreeze and other sites to ensure that we are held ethically accountable.
How much is this going to cost?
The redeveloped site will not include adverts or other subversive revenue platforms in order to ensure a top end user experience. We will however be investigating alternative revenue streams in order to ensure that those who wish to contribute to the site can do so and be rewarded for their assistance.
How can I get involved? I want to partner with PowerGamer or help out with testing! I have a question that hasn’t been answered here?
Please email hello@powergamer.co or contact @PowerGamerHQ or @LCrowter on Twitter! I’m more than happy to assist!