Why We Do What We Do

I work closely with a large set of 2old2play members when it comes to promoting 2old2play and getting the word out about the site. Folks like JollyRoger, NoGame22, Tank and so many others write articles for us, promote us on social networking site and keep traffic coming to our site.

Who runs 2old2play?

There are many facets to the folks that help at 2old2play and there are just too many names to really sit down and give each person credit, but those that help out know it - and those that try also know it. We've got people that spend their days moderating forums, posting news, trying to get demos and products to test for news articles, asking people in the industry for interviews and overall: trying to get the world to know 2old2play.

It would take a full team of employed personal to run a site with 8,000+ members on a day-to-day basis. We've got a handful of highly dedicated gamers doing this for free.

Why do we do this? Because the site is only as good as its members and we need more growth to succeed as a renown game site. Very few people make any physical money from this site, those that do are the ones that maintain it (um, the one...doodirock). The money he makes barely sustains the site month to month but he continues to pour hours into the site with hopes that "some day" we could do this as a "job." I'd love to get a cut of the action myself, but first there needs to be "action."

Unless you want to live like a half employed bum trying to survive on scraps of food and donations (cough cough, you know WHO you are) you don't want to put your feet in the shoes of the admin. What would it be like trying to manage 8,000 gamers and their complaints/arguments/PM's? Hell.

Imaging running a game site as a real job? Well, in order to become a success you have to get big wig companies to look at your site as a premiere place for gamers over the age of 25. This is VERY important because potential "real" advertisers want to know a) how many eyes are on the site daily? and b) what demographic is the target?

We've got something special: a defined demographic of 25 and older gamers that consistently utilize the site. Second to that, we've got a front-page site that is hit by hundreds of unregistered gamers (daily) that just want to read our news, blogs and opinions.


How does 2old2play survive?

Their are three forms of payment:

• Donations
• Advertisement
• Donating Time and Energy

All are directly proportional to overall registered sign-up. Donations are done by those that want to keep the site alive and kicking, advertising supplements the donations so we can cover the server usage, bandwidth and overall upkeep.

We survive on traffic, because traffic drives new users, new "impressions" on advertisement and new talent that wants to help promote the site. General traffic helps with gamers linking 2old2play to their own blogs, myspace accounts and other social bookmarkings (del.icio.us, digg, blogspot, technorati, etc).

Here are some common questions/comments that need to be cleared up.

"I don't Digg because the site crashes"

Many of our articles are posted on digg.com, a social networking site which shares articles, editorials, opinions without THOUSANDS of gamers and techies a day. Some of our members submit our stuff to digg.com to drive new gamers and interested parties to our website, and yes, to increase traffic and advertising impressions.

The server can handle digg floods most of the time. It is rare that we fall under their flash crowds since upgrading our server. However, at times the server gets sick and needs a reboot. This isn't always because of a flash crowd (actually, usually occurs before or days later). This is because developers have a hard time writing stable software :-)

We are on some major gaming news site at least three times a week and each article/editorial is hit for roughly three to five days (tapering off after day two) and you probably don't even realize it.


"What is the point of digging anyway"

Besides getting our authors some attention in the market? Consider this: If we're on digg and we get 10+ new members over 25, a few news readers that frequent the site (daily) for free news without having to go to digg to get it, then we've done our job: spread the word. Each time we're on digg our traffic increases for roughly three days.

Guess what advertisers want to know about a website? Or PR folks like Nintendo, Sony, MadKatz, Konami, and all those others? The first thing they ask "how many page views a month do you receive?" In order for us to get some special treatment (which can translate to product give-aways and previews before a game releases) we have to have predictable and consistent traffic and page views. Big sites like digg.com help us to get there faster.

"I don't digg because it attracts Timmies"

Not true. Google organic searches, blogs and all references on the Internet attract new users at or above 25. There is no guarantee all new users are going to be polite happy little people. Digg doesn't attract a**holes - the Internet is full of them. We have to weed them out no matter what, that's part of growth and it won't go away.

"I remember when the site was smaller and everyone knew each other"

Do you? Nine times out of ten you'll notice your user id is much greater than "small." Mine is 798 or something like that, I wasn't here on the ground floor and there is a good chance you weren't either. You are here because the site grew to a new level and you joined up, just like the other 8,000 individuals. There is NO WAY you'll get along with 8,000 other personalities - it just won't happen. Be happy if you find 30 new friends and live with it.

Part of the sites growth is going to be new members, some good and some bad. Overall, we've had very few bad seeds and most leave on their own due to personality conflicts. Banning is the last resort. In four years you'll still be saying "I remember when..." so get used to it, if we decline in size the site has a much better chances of disappearing than getting stronger.

Growing pains hurt, take two Advil and get over it because this is going to sting.


"How Can I Help The Cause"

If you're serious, you've got to take initiative and stick with it.  Some folks, like myself, spend more time promoting gaming and the industry than doing any real gaming. So, be prepared to make a bit of a commitment.

• Submit News, Editorials.
• Feedback on podcasts, call-ins
• Let your buddies know about the site, reference it in external blogs
• Get in contact with doodirock or myself if you want to do PR work. But you've really got to commit to it, not just send out a "I want a free game" and expect to be done with it.
• Moderating and Planning: Help with planning events, contests, and forum moderation. Planning a single event takes many hours on the part of the event planner. Expect to lose some game time to planning events to help the community.
• Contribute to our site, register on digg.com, newsvines.com, reddit.com, stumbleupon.com, technorati.com, myspace.com, wherever - and help promote the site.

This is a community site run by the community because doodirock and a few others cannot do it alone. You won't be paid, sorry, it just isn't going to happen. Maybe someday if someone was interested in really working with the site we could hire people out to do work (but not until I'm hired dammit!).

Hopefully that answers some questions.