At 6/15/07 03:12 PM, Mr-Money wrote:
First off, the problem with NG certainly should not be you having too much work to do. Once the redesign comes out, what is there to do? The site, as said, is self sufficient. It runs itself! Your only job should be making in-house content and handig out monthly prizes. I can't actually understand what else there is in your work life.
So just leave NG on its own to rake in the cash, whilst you work on Behemoth games.
I'm not wanting to get into an argument here, and I'll freely admit that I have no business sense, but the reason that NG is loved by the community we have (in particular, the Flashers, but also the BBS users, stat-whores, etc) is because we know that Tom takes the time to listen (although he may not always respond), and he truly cares more about the well-being and fair treatment of the Flash artists and regulars, more than he does about making money. That's where NG differs from pretty much every other big Flash site on the web, and that's what, in my opinion, makes it great. Leaving the site to run itself, as you say, would be easy, but the site's creator wants to make it a better place, not just some faceless Flash portal.
As for becoming dominant on the Internet, you've made mistakes in the past and I'm not sure what you can really do to make a "comeback" now. The biggest reasons why Newgrounds in its current state will not excel is the fact that you only host Flash, and a lot of the content is tailored towards the nerdy part of society - the gaming oriented crowd.
I disagree totally here, there's no reason at all why a solely Flash (although you should probably check out the talent in the Audio Portal sometime) site can't stand alongside some of the big boys in terms of entertainment sites on the web. Hell, the Alexa standings prove that NG is a massively popular site, and unlike some of the Flash sites ranked higher, pretty much all of the content is original.
The biggest reason why Newgrounds is not that well-known, is that the critics (read: failed artists/writers) don't like it - whether for the fact that it's non-PC or NSFW, or whatever, NG doesn NOT get the reviews and recognition, and therefore the publicity, that it deserves.
As for catering to nerds - blah, since when was it only nerds that play games? Internet users who spend more than a couple of hours a day online, do they count as nerds? Also, most of the submissions on the top 50 aren't games, they're animations, and everyone loves watching cartoons on TV, right?
For example, you have a game on the home page that boasts some form of "physics". Even console release games don't talk about the game engine. People are simply going to see the word "physics" and make numerous assumptions about the site, and why it doesn't mean anything to them.
No, but they'll happily boast about 3D environments and real-time rendering, which equates to the same thing. We're not console game developers, on the whole. We've learnt the skills to create a cool game, and Tom, as a game developer himself, appreciates those that have reached a milestone in their development career. The kind of people that judge a site based on a word such as 'physics' in a game description on the front page are few and far between, and if it disturbs them that much, they should probably seek psychiatric help.
With that said, you're going to have to focus on strengths that cannot be copied or immitated on other sites. Right now, you can boast the fact that you have the most Flash content on the web. A site like YouTube SIMPLY CANNOT COPY ALL YOUR CONTENT, since they're a corporation. They have strict copyright restrictions. They're simply not going to be able to get copyright permission from the hundreds of successful Flash designers on this site.
Agreed, if there's one thing that NG definitely excels at, it's original content
And while you're at it, why not hop on the casual game bandwagon. Have daily sudoku, brain training, simple games. Not many people want to play a full length adventure game on the net. They want quick simply stuff to pass time. That content should be pushed to the forefront of the home page. and for God's sake, advertise it in an appealing manner.
Kind of agree with this, there's definitely a place for NG-grown classic, short, play-at-work games. Personally, I can't stand Sudoku in Flash, it only works on paper for me, but there should possibly be more emphasis on/permanent links to addictive viral games
And from a technical standpoint, make the icons on the home page bigger, have more big pictures and less words, use a white background.
WHITE? GTFO
