Gold-Plated Games

Getting the website up and running was only the first step in a fairly long evolutionary process. There’s a lot of work that still needs to be done, and I’m going to be attempting to fit that in with all the Weeklong Reviews and seasonal series that I love to do so much. This is going to take some adjusting and some big changes, so let’s have a little chat about what all that entails.

Upcoming Reviews

My main priority right now is getting all of my reviews from Steam onto the website. Due to all the additional features and formatting of the site this is a time-consuming process, which doesn’t leave a lot of time for writing new reviews or even playing games. Nevertheless, the plan is to keep on with my original schedule of one Weeklong Review a week, most likely to be posted during the weekend. I’m already on track for a review of The Body Changer this week, so I think it’s doable. I wouldn’t expect any loose reviews outside those, however. When I’m not working on Weeklongs, I’m getting a giant head-start on my end-of-year series.

I’ll be working backwards in uploading existing reviews, which should make it smooth sailing for the ones written in the last year or two. Beyond that I’m probably going to need to replay and rewrite most of the older reviews, honestly. My writing has changed a lot over the years I’ve been doing this, and the reviews from stuff like the first two Spooky Games series just aren’t up to snuff. On top of that, I’m going to run into old Early Access reviews like Darkest Dungeon and Subnautica that are just too outdated to use now. I’ll need to make time to revise a lot of reviews, but that’s probably going to happen closer to (or after) October.

Steam Stuff

Part of the reason I have the site at all is because Steam was becoming inadequate for my purposes. I certainly won’t be abandoning the platform but there are going to be changes to how I use it. First of all, I’m still going to post reviews on the store pages, and my curator page will still link to the Steam versions of the reviews. I figure if you’re already on Steam, you probably want to stay there for all your shopping and research needs. I am adding links to each review that go to both the website and curator page, though. Advertising myself is always uncomfortable but it can’t be avoided if I want people to find this site.

As for the curation group, most of what went on there is going to be happening here instead. Weeklong Deal roundups and announcements (like this) are going to be on the website instead of the group. I’ll still post announcements there, but they’re just going to be short links to content here. I’m also retiring the practice of posting series as discussion threads. I can organize them much more easily here on the site, and it’s just too much work to do it multiple times. Eventually I’d like to use the group’s discussion board for actual, y’know, discussions, if the readership ever grows large enough to need forums of their own.

Ratings

It’s a minor thing, but I’m using a new rating system for reviews on the website. This is mainly to help sort games into stronger and weaker recommendations (or denouncements) so I won’t be using it on the Steam reviews. For more information, have a look at the About page.

Future Stuff

I’m going to be busy transferring and revising old reviews for the next few months, but that doesn’t mean I’m not looking to the future already. Having a website means I can move beyond Steam-exclusive content at last. Ideas for articles, non-Steam reviews, and other contents are already percolating, so there’s one more thing to look forward to past all the shuffling about.

As always, I couldn’t be doing this without such a supportive audience. My goal is to help you find the games you want to be playing, and I hope this site will make it even easier to do just that. Spread the word if you like what I’m doing, and by all means let me know if you don’t like it.

I got a good feeling!