Site Updates:
Today, I’d like to briefly update everyone on the status of Source Gaming, my expectations, goals and hopes for the future.
Source Gaming is a little over a year old. We just passed 200 posts published and have covered a wide variety of subjects in the Smash Brothers franchise. Source Gaming is a hub for posting new and old translations, analysis, opinions and various collections of information.
We will continue providing new information about the Super Smash Bros. series for the foreseeable future. Eventually, however, I’d like to diversify our coverage a bit. We will still primarily cover Nintendo games, as all of us at Source Gaming have a lot of knowledge to share and uncover. Personally, I’m a big fan of the N64/ Gamecube era, so I might start doing additional research into games/translations from that era. Other writers and translators have different preferences. I’m also exploring the possibility of starting a podcast, so stay tuned for additional details in regards to that.
We are working on various projects right now. Since we are committed to getting the information as accurate as possible, you may not see the results of these projects for awhile. However, there are a lot of interesting things being worked on behind the scenes in relation to Smash Brothers, and I’m sure you guys won’t be disappointed.
Right now, I’d like to increase Source Gaming’s social media presence. If you are comfortable and have experience with social media, please contact me through Twitter.
Why Source Gaming:
I would like to take a moment to briefly explain the purpose of it all. Source Gaming exists to provide accurate information to gamers. We work very hard to provide all of the sources for our posts. The reason we do this is because we want to make video game journalism better. I believe that the standard for reporting, and discussing video games, needs to be raised if people are going to take the medium seriously. In order to encourage this change, I decided to ensure that I properly attribute and source my writing as much as possible. It is also in that line of thinking that I require opinion articles to be labeled as such. Even though it should be clear by the author’s wording (Using phrases like, ‘I think, or ‘I believe’), having that warning prepares the reader to be more critical about the information.
I also believe that by sourcing everything, we are allowing our information to be independently verified. By providing links directly to the source, and allowing comments on all of our articles, we can ensure that the community will have accurate information. The Smash Brothers series has been severely affected by a lot of misinformation and lack of information. The best way to combat this is to demand sources and proper attribution– even from us. Therefore, if you find any errors in any of our articles please comment on them. Tell us we messed up. After all, we are building this site for you guys, the community.
Here’s some additional stats about the readers of Source Gaming:
I’ve only had Google Analytics up a little over a week, but the data that is coming in is really interesting.
There’s been 10,751 “users”. On average, a user will read on average 3.83 posts per session. Around 40% of the traffic is “returning visitors” (though that number is probably closer to 50%), and Twitter is the way most users found Source Gaming (most likely through my account). The majority of the users come from the United States, and the “peak time” is 11 AM, Eastern Time. As Source Gaming gets more data, we will continue to share it with you guys and adjust our content/ release schedule in order to create the most amount of exposure for our content.
Also, as a reminder: Source Gaming is completely ad-free. If you are able and willing, please support the site by donating to my patreon. Currently, I’m running the site completely out of my own pocket.
Lastly, I would like to briefly discuss my new role at SmashBoards. This week, I have joined the SmashBoards writing staff to help contribute articles. My commitment to Source Gaming is still my main priority. Despite both sites being parts of the Smash fandom, I feel like the target audiences for SmashBoards and Source Gaming are very different. Source Gaming will continue to provide old and new translations, and new information about the Smash games.
Let me know in the comments what you guys would like to see, or if you have any questions and suggestions for us.
You can follow PushDustIn on Twitter. Also, try liking us on Facebook. Come on, all the cool kids are doing it.
- Smash Ultimate Development Timeline - May 16, 2020
- Straight from the Source: Koji Igarashi on Castlevania in Smash, Bloodstained - October 16, 2018
- Sakurai Discusses Isabelle, Echoes, and Newcomers - September 26, 2018
I’m excited to see what future projects you guys come up with. I check Source Gaming daily (and comment so much) because I love the fact that it IS well-researched, both in the factual articles and the opinion ones. Sometimes I randomly Google “Smash Bros DLC” to see if there are any rumors flying around or if I missed some big news, and it appalls me how often “news articles” are written on rumors as if they’re fact.
I’m looking forward to the non-Smash content as well. I’m a bit of a video game historian myself and am looking forward to future articles on other topics, covered by the same journalistic integrity I’ve come to love and respect from this site.
Keep up the great work, everyone!
Thanks for all your support! You are definitely one of–if not the most active commentator on the site. It’s really good to have a constant feedback on the articles. If you are looking for more rumors, I’d suggest the NintenZone on SmashBoards. We always talk about rumors/ leaks there. I tend to only reserve posting rumors/ leaks on SG when I’m very confident on them. A lot of people post those rumors because they are easy views, sadly.
What kind of stuff have you researched?
I mostly have researched just the general gaming libraries of Nintendo and Capcom… especially the latter. I paid particularly close attention to the NES / SNES era, especially because I personally feel that video games as a whole lost some of its soul when it went to 3D. I’m not saying that N64 and beyond is bad… I’ve played tons of amazing games on those systems throughout the years… but to me, there was just something special about SNES that the gaming industry never got back.
Funny enough, I think a lot of the most interesting things that came out of SNES were from TRYING to replicate the 3D experience, whether it was making tracks using Mode 7 for F-Zero and Mario Kart, or turning CGI images into sprites with Donkey Kong Country and Super Mario RPG, or even attempting true 3D on that quaint little system with Star Fox and Stunt Race FX.
Plus, from N64-onward, we never really got the true “dot art” thing back… if you look at 2D games on N64 and PlayStation, everything is basically hand-drawn and shrunk down into sprite size. It just looked sloppy most of the time. 🙁
Going back from there, NES laid the groundwork for a lot of successful franchises and a lot of new genres. Since we pretty much just had Atari and arcade games back then, a lot of NES games were pretty experimental and most franchises were not really established. NES games from Nintendo are also pretty fascinating because a lot of them are related to each other… like how Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda were developed at the same time with opposite concepts in mind, Metroid sought to combine elements of both, Mysterious Murasame Castle ran on the Zelda engine while Kid Icarus ran on the Metroid one, etc.
And all of my research started because of crossover games… I would play things like Smash Bros. and Marvel vs. Capcom and go: “…huh, I never heard of this character… I wonder what her/his original game is like?” So, I would try it out, learn stuff, later go back and play the same character in the crossover game, and appreciate the character more knowing about all the references made. Once you get started, it kind of becomes an addiction. 😐
Anyway, sorry for the wall of text, but I’m passionate about this stuff… but you know all about that, right PushDustIn? 🙂
Why does it has to “ad-free”? There’s nothing wrong about getting money from something you guys put so much work and time on it. I mean, people get money from their work… I don’t think it would exactly look ugly, and if people get annoyed by that they are just selfish.
There’s a couple of reasons I chose to be ad-free.
1. We provide unofficial, unsanctioned translations. If Sakurai ever decides he wants to sell translations of his work, or if he doesn’t like SG, then we would have to immediately take our versions down. Being non-profit makes us less of a target for take down. As long as we aren’t profiting off Nintendo/ Sakurai, and we aren’t getting in their way to profit, then we should be able stay online. This is the biggest reason.
2. The second reason is there’s a lot of people involved with the site. Splitting the payments would be a royal pain in the butt. Plus, I’m worried that if we put ads, we would be tempted to put out posts quickly just to make a quick buck. I’m not interested in “click-bait” articles, and the reason they exist is because people can profit off of it. We have nothing to profit off of from Source Gaming. Our intention is just to build a solid reputation, and deliver well-researched articles/ well translated pieces, for the community.
3. I think ads look ugly. When a site is big enough they can probably be more selective and work with advertisers to ensure that the ads are integrated with the site’s design. However, to be honest, I browse the web with ad-block. As a content creator, I know I shouldn’t do this but I hate ads. It would be extremely hypocritical of me to put ads on the site.
Those are the three biggest reasons why SG is ad-free. I know some of these could probably be worked out, and I’m probably “throwing money away” by being stubborn and not putting ads on the site, but I think in the end it’s a better decision in the long run to not run ads at this point in time (even though I’m poor).
Ah, I understand, the first ones are very good reasons that I didn’t thought about. On a unrelated note, have you ever thought of working/worked on a video game official localization?