Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Unbiased Game Reviews Through Micropayments

Posted by Hemos on from the cool-ideas dept.

a reader writes:"Fed up of games reviewers giving in to advertiser pressure to go easy on high-budget turkeys? A group of distinguished British videogames journalists has set up an independent site called Digiworld. It's funded by an interesting micropayment system: you pay 50 pence (about 80 cents US) a week for full access, although new content is available for free on weekdays (details here). For extra geek appeal, the look of the site imitates the 8-bit Mode 7 graphics of Teletext, a British system that uses spare TV signal bandwidth to transmit pages of textual information (some of the staff previously worked on a Teletext gaming page called Digitiser). Even if you're not a gamer, the bizarre humor and characters make the site worth checking out."

3 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. gah. horrible site design by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If I'm going to pay 80 cents a week, as low as that is, I want to be able to read the site. God, the design of that site is *horrendous*. I gave up after the second 'tour' page and just started randomly clicking. It turns out the entire *site* is just that bad.

    I've got a 1920x1200 screen but their pages display about 30 words per page, have awful colors and one of the stupidest navigation systems I've ever seen.

    I can only imagine that a half-decent game review will take up perhaps 3,000 words which, at the words per page rate of the examples I saw, would take probably 50 pages - not including any screenshots they may want to offer.

    Gaaah. My head hurts.

  2. Re:Good lord, the lazy geeks strike again... by NetDanzr · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The site may show some "truly independent journalism", but that doesn't automatically translate into good journalism. Good journalism is not only good writing, but also getting the message across in a readable format. While some may enjoy the endless scrolling through monstrous letters and a very narrow review column, others would rather go to other independent review sites like Netjak, Quarter to Three or Four Fat Chicks, whose reviews are easier to decipher.

    (Personally, I'd like to see a sample review or two before signing up. After all, if I pay it's because of the content and not the design.)

  3. Re:man, oh man by joshsnow · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The parent comment is actually on-topic. Anyone who knows anything about teletext will undoubted recognise that this is a BBC basic program, written for the BBC model B machine using features of its inbuilt MODE 7 - which was the teletext mode.

    There was a joke somewhere in the notion of that program, but as usual, the /. crowd miss the point - just as they're all missing the point about the games review website look and feel.

    If you're too stupid to follow the teletext link in the story, I can't help yah!