Game Site Content Help.

Hello Friends,

I am in a situation here. I have started coding my new gaming website which will have reviews and previews for the games.

To get the content I went to Gamespress.com and vgaming.com

Over there people told me that I will have to write the reviews myself. Or hire writers for it.

I have asked this questions on many forums but no one is answering it.

I am hoping that you people will be able to answer them.

My question are

Question: Where Do I get Reviews?

Question: Do I have to ask the gaming company and have the permission if I want to put a review for their game on my site?

Question: Someone told me to contact PR reps. So what should I tell them? Should I tell them that I want to review their game and put it on my site?

Please let me know. I know some of you here will be having some experience in this things too.

Thanks a lot.

 

i see 2 options here :

a) ask game pr/admins
b) make an account and ask game users

 

Well, unless you're offering something completely different from the multi-million dollar companies who hire professional writers to work full time at reviewing games, and provide this information for completely free, then it's not really worth it.

When I want a game review (which I hardly ever do, I prefer magazines) I go to Google and type in the game name, then I go to GameSpot or GameSpy or a bunch of other review sites. I go to these because:

1. They're first on the Google list (easier)
2. I recognise them and I know that it'll be quality content
3. I trust their opinion

I highly doubt you could reach the bar, considering #1 comes from being established for many years, #2 comes from a lot of $$$ and #3 comes from my own assumptions which have been made as a result of #1 and #2. But to answer your questions:

1. You can write the reviews yourself, or get writers to do it for you - you can't take them from other sites without the authors permission
2. You don't need to get the permission from the game companies to review a a game
3. Whoever said you needed to contact a gaming companies PR rep is an idiot, unless they're desperate or you've got a lot of traffic influence, all a PR rep will do is kindly place your email in their spambox

Find something else to do

 

The game review niche is really dominated by a small handful of very well-established sites. So if you want to compete, you need an angle.

If you can write with humour, or lend unique experience to your game reviews, or if you can afford to pay someone else to do those things, you might have a chance. You would also have to be prepared to put in a lot of time and effort before your site becomes even remotely as popular as the leading games sites.

Another point of note is that games is one of the most saturated Dmoz categories: everyone has a games site, it seems. After all, lots of people know about them and build their first sites about this hobby.

If you love it, write about it. But don't expect to make a penny from this topic: do it for fun, or not at all.

 

Thanks friends. That clears my point. I got it all. I have a group of journalist which are eager to write for me So I think writing business I will let them handle. I can't handle it at all.

 

Where do you get reviews?
You write them! You're not going to find free reviews for you to use, and if you do they won't do your site any good at all.

Permission?
You don't need permission to review products.

PR Reps.
Start your site first, get a good amount of news and reviews up and start building traffic, then you should contact PR reps and you may be able to get games set to you for review.

There are some sticky threads over at vgamin that have tons of information about contacting PR reps.