Nintendo Week Comes to an End. Do you want more?
Posted on September 25 2010 by Nathanial Rumphol-Janc
Did you guys enjoy Nintendo Week? Do you guys want us to continue it as a regular thing? Let your voices, and votes, be heard! Nintendo week was, in general, wildly successful for us, and for you! Outside of the fact it steadied our traffic levels at a significantly higher volume than when we did just Zelda news, the comment discussions were very thought provoking and entertaining. In general, most people seemed to really enjoy the coverage this week. Through all of this there were some questions, so hop inside for answers!
So what was the real point of Nintendo Week?
Outside of the fact that Nintendo is simply that awesome, the point of Nintendo Week was to try something different. As our statistics show, our Zelda News every day was not getting a lot of attention save the one really unique post every other week (such as the Haunted Majora’s Mask post). What we also see is a very common trending in our forum user base – everyone likes far more things than just Zelda, and most of those gaming discussions centered on Nintendo. We wanted to see the actual impact of doing Nintendo news at ZI,and according to the statistics, it was indeed a great success. We wanted to, essentially, see if expanding our coverage would be a good thing long haul by experimenting with it through a celebration.
Why not just post this at New Nintendo or VGRC, where they are specifically for these sort of postings?
Bottom line is staff interest level and popularity as a means for motivation. We have a unique ability to get stuff featured at a lot of very good sites. As an example, during E3, we were able to get VGRC something like 15k traffic a day over the span of 3 to 4 days, due to cross promotion and features at places such as reddit, digg, and stumbleupon. In fact, doing those things is what lead to ZI gaining it’s initial hit base. Featured there, as well as at GoNintendo, N4G, Destructoid, and Kotaku helped ZI become a more prominent Zelda news site. Of course, we got featured at those sites because we offered some material that was worthy of being seen by a larger audience – we don’t just get featured for nothing.
The issue with such coverage being continued on VGRC and New Nintendo breaks down to what the staff are willing to do. Presently we have about 3 active news posters for ZI, and two active article writers. Those same people are the ones that work with me, essentially, to keep the other two sites going. If you haven’t noticed, those sites have died down. We do not have the staff to fully support 3 individual websites – but we do have the manpower to support one larger website. While we could abandon ZI and focus solely on VGRC or New Nintendo – bottom line is Zelda Informer has the popularity, and the name recognition on the net, to pull off an expansion.
That name recognition, and popularity, are two major motivating factors for our staff to continue their work.
Hey I really like Nintendo Week, but if this continues would this mean ZI is no longer a Zelda site? I would hate to lose what makes this site special for me!
There would be circles out there that would feel we are no longer a Zelda fan site. I understand this and without knowing our thought process, it is indeed a legitimate concern should this continue. Let me try to ease your minds on this matter.
Zelda is who, and what, we are as a site. It will always be the primary focus. We will always have game sections for each game, and try to release as much news, articles, and content material pertaining to said games as possible. You would still get your Zelda fix here everyday, as I can promise you at least one zelda related update a day We are who we are, and that doesn’t change.
What this expansion means, however, is that you can now find your other news here too, as well as some articles and video content/podcasts on other games and things going on that directly involve Nintendo. You get the same great coverage your use too, plus more. Think of this more like Zelda Informer Plus. Your primarily Zelda News and Editorial site… Plus more.
A lot of other sites post Nintendo news that I already frequent, so what’s the point?
Well the most obvious reason is to cut down on the number of sites you visit to find the news your looking for. Even if you can find all you want at say, GoNintendo, sometimes you have to sift through several pages of posts a day to find the one update you want.
The more long winded answer is if you could find all the Nintendo news you want at other sites, why are you here to begin with? There is obviously a void this site fills for Zelda, and if that void exists for Zelda, chances are it exists for all things Nintendo related. We would provide entertaining Nintendo articles about much more than Zelda, the obvious news posts, and as mentioned before, video and podcast related material. We would do much more than simply “provide news” – it would be similar coverage to what Zelda gets, but across a broader spectrum. We would then, essentially, fill a much greater overall void – all while still having our normal Zelda kick. It would create more entertainment for you, more material for us to work with as a staff, and, hopefully, make finding what you need to know or want to know about Nintendo related software and hardware much easier to find.
That’s really it folks. Let us know what you think both in votes and in comment area!
