I want to start a gaming and technology community but how should I get started?

[FatalNetworks]

Hello,

I've been wanting to start a gaming and technology community for a few years now and I have no clue where to start. I do have a background in web development, server management, etc, but I'm completely lost at forming a community. I don't really have any friends online or offline that could help with this so should I just not do it since it'd be a one man show?

As well as being a one man team there are a lot of other gaming and technology communities out there that are really HUGE. My first question is should I try and compete with them or start out smaller?

I am interested in turning this community that I start from just a forum into something like MMORPG or ONRPG sites, but again they're the main huge ones that look impossible to compete with.

As for finding a team so that it's more professionally ran and managed, how should I go about finding team members? As of right now I'm a member on a few gaming and technology sites that allow project formation and advertising so I could use that but those sites are all full of little, immature kids. I'm looking to target a more mature gaming audience.

How would you suggest I go about finding a team for the following positions I would be looking at? Administrators, Moderators, Content Writers, and Promoters?

It'd be really good if you could give me a few pieces of advice here and thanks for taking your time to read my plead for advice.

Thanks,

Bryce.

[Neomega]

Well I'll try to help.

Back in 2002 I started a gaming news/reviews site called neomega.net, by the end of 2005 it had gotten pretty big and we had about 10 regular staff contributors. If you start something like this, it's important to know that it will consume a lot of your valuable time so you have to make sure it's something you're passionate about and something you won't lose interest in anytime soon!

First you have to decide what visitors you want to attract, and what content are you going to have that people will want to see. That is the hardest part IMO, creating some kind of content that makes your site worth visiting. It really is all about content, that is how the biggest vb sites got so big.

If you're familiar with websites and technology then vbulletin is one of the easier things you will learn. It really is the easiest online software I've ever worked with, and it has a ton of supporters and friendly contributors that will make your life a lot easier.

The last things I'll leave you with are the first things I did when I started my first community. Go around and take notes on the successful sites, don't be afraid to borrow some ideas from the big guys. If you're going to start off alone, you have to become a salesman and unfortunately that means you're going to be advertising and selling your idea to people. Make friends, friends with connections, and your life will become easier. You'll probably fall flat on your face a few times but that's part of the fun of learning something new like this. I will say that vbulletin is one of most fun hobbies you can ever take up, it's like crack!

Edit: Advertising removed

[Trasion]

<a href="https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost.php?p=1894757&postcount=3" target="_blank">Read this</a>, and then realize that you will need to start small. You can't just open a website, and expect to compete with a major gaming website. You need to build slowly, article by article, member by member. Once you get enough people, then start competing.

It is a hard niche to do, I've even tried it a few times and always failed at it. But if it's something you're passionate about, then go for it. Just realize that you do need to start small, and right off the bat can't expect to compete.

As you start, all you need is yourself. Then start advertising, and just hire the good contributors and helpers.

[Jaiibee]

Oh wow, a forum I can post in!
Okay, my biggest word of advice is not to do it. At least, not yet.
You see, one area I see a lot of forums fail at is their community, which is quite sad considering their run by community-centered software. When I was apart of a couple of these communities, the administrators had these ideas that they could get their board to be a massive, world-wide, house-hold name and they would have members flock in just to become members, as if it's some sort of honor. The reality is probably the opposite.

If you want to start a gaming community, then I suggest you find yourself a game you thoroughly enjoy, and try make some eFriends over it. I don't really care if it's a guild, or just a group of friends you play with regularly. For example, when I played CSS we never left this one server, and a small group of us became pretty good friends. A history was created etc. and I was able to tap into that with a website I made quite a while ago, but my downfall was that mentality I was talking about before. I tried to make the board something it clearly wasn't, and I lost members.

So my biggest piece of advice to you is to aim small and focus on the members who matter. Your website should not bend-over backwards to attract members, and it should not be created over theoretical growth guides on the internet. Your forum should solely exist for the sheer reason that you love that niche. If you want gaming, get an arcade with good games (have tournaments etc), an image-uploading script so people can upload their in-game success, find mods that relate to your niche and try not to go over-the-top with your theme. An example of a mod relating to your niche; the WoW armory hack, there's a SteamID hack which displays players steamsIDs, you could accomodate xbl user-things , there's heaps.

If you're keen to start developing, do so now, and gradually build up. When you're ready to invite someone, invite 3 other people at the same time, and make sure all four of them are actually going to post. You might not think 5 people is a lot, but it's surely enough. Just try not to treat them as items...

Good luck with it, and most importantly; have fun.

--------------- Added [DATE]1255785238[/DATE] at [TIME]1255785238[/TIME] ---------------

Originally Posted by Trasion

As you start, all you need is yourself. Then start advertising, and just hire the good contributors and helpers.

Hire contributors? Hiring people is not the way you go about creating a successful community. A successful website in the sense that you get a lot of hits, maybe, but a true community, I can't fully see it happening.
Why pay for a +1 on the forum post-count, when you can get proper, hard-earnt posts from members who care about the community?

[Trasion]

Originally Posted by Jaiibee

Oh wow, a forum I can post in!
Okay, my biggest word of advice is not to do it. At least, not yet.
You see, one area I see a lot of forums fail at is their community, which is quite sad considering their run by community-centered software. When I was apart of a couple of these communities, the administrators had these ideas that they could get their board to be a massive, world-wide, house-hold name and they would have members flock in just to become members, as if it's some sort of honor. The reality is probably the opposite.

If you want to start a gaming community, then I suggest you find yourself a game you thoroughly enjoy, and try make some eFriends over it. I don't really care if it's a guild, or just a group of friends you play with regularly. For example, when I played CSS we never left this one server, and a small group of us became pretty good friends. A history was created etc. and I was able to tap into that with a website I made quite a while ago, but my downfall was that mentality I was talking about before. I tried to make the board something it clearly wasn't, and I lost members.

So my biggest piece of advice to you is to aim small and focus on the members who matter. Your website should not bend-over backwards to attract members, and it should not be created over theoretical growth guides on the internet. Your forum should solely exist for the sheer reason that you love that niche. If you want gaming, get an arcade with good games (have tournaments etc), an image-uploading script so people can upload their in-game success, find mods that relate to your niche and try not to go over-the-top with your theme. An example of a mod relating to your niche; the WoW armory hack, there's a SteamID hack which displays players steamsIDs, you could accomodate xbl user-things , there's heaps.

If you're keen to start developing, do so now, and gradually build up. When you're ready to invite someone, invite 3 other people at the same time, and make sure all four of them are actually going to post. You might not think 5 people is a lot, but it's surely enough. Just try not to treat them as items...

Good luck with it, and most importantly; have fun.

--------------- Added [DATE]1255785238[/DATE] at [TIME]1255785238[/TIME] ---------------



Hire contributors? Hiring people is not the way you go about creating a successful community. A successful website in the sense that you get a lot of hits, maybe, but a true community, I can't fully see it happening.
Why pay for a +1 on the forum post-count, when you can get proper, hard-earnt posts from members who care about the community?

By hire, I mean put them in the position, not paying them.

And you hire them to help you, because eventually you will need staff.

[Jaiibee]

Oh, I thought you were talking about things such as paid-posting and all that. I'm with you, now :]

[JGreig]

The gaming niche is hard to compete in I can tell you that. I was going to start one particularly for gaming chat and news but seeing forums like FileFront, NowGamer and xFire I decided to go down another route. I still did a gaming site but I offer a service not many other forums do.

So you could still do what you like, but take a different road and add/change some ideas and offer something unique (or try to). It's always hard starting out, and getting members to join and stay active is one of the hard parts. If you need any help shoot me a PM.

[cheat-master30]

Can I be honest here? Gaming is an INCREDIBLY saturated niche to set up a forum for. At least, GENERAL gaming is. No joke here, there's so many forums and websites on the topic, and so many of them at big board status and beyond that even trying to compete in the general topic area is pretty much suicidal.

Try a different spin on the theme, or for a specific company, or series, or console platform in my opinion.

[kevcj]

Originally Posted by cheat-master30

Can I be honest here? Gaming is an INCREDIBLY saturated niche to set up a forum for.

The gaming niche is saturated with a lot of trash sites run by people who have little to almost no real gaming experience. Someone picks up a game, plays it for a few months, considers themselves a pro, and opens a site.

My suggestion - you better think long and hard about opening a gaming site. Its a very difficult niche to get into, its saturated with junk sites, and very few "quality" sites.

You might be thinking, "well, I will just open a quality site then." My next question is - how much experience do you "really" have? Can you write articles that span 10+ years of gaming? How about 15+ years? Can you take Doom, and compare it to Left 4 Dead from real hands on experience? Can you analyze a game, compare it to others that have been released over the past 10 - 15 years and post a quality write up?

Here is the gaming forum I have been working on for the past year.

I started playing console games back in the mid 1980s and got into PC gaming with Doom and Diablo in the mid 1990s. Even with posting all kinds of articles, I still can not get any real traffic to my blog/forum.

To get noticed in gaming, you better have hours, upon hours of free time to produce videos, go to expos where the latest games are being shown, do interviews, give away free games for contest, do hardware reviews, produce walk throughs,,,,,,,,,.

The gaming nichs is probably the toughest I have ever tried to get into. And that is with 25 - 30 years of gaming experience.

[TurkeySub]

Hey Guys,

I will add to this, as I have the first hand experience in trying to launch into the gaming world and like everyone else has noted, its living hell. I have been running www.gamerslifeline.com for a while now and so far it is a up hill battle that is like trying to climb a vertical cliff.

I do ok because we moved out of the technology realm and directly into file hosting, however as I found out the hard way, there is little advertising money in gaming and therefore covering the bandwidth bills is enough to turn your hair grey.

The main problem is, find staff who wish to really participate. As there is no money to be had from advertising, paying for a staff is obviously not an option and therefore almost impossible to have.

I am more or less a one man band and even with me working from home, I never have enough time to get anything done. If I am not adding files, I am fixing something, if not that trying to answer posts.

Its tiring...