Building a Retro Gaming Club

[Mat Growcott]

At this point id strongly suggest you pay your site start ups out of pocket like everyone else and stop insulting the intelligence of the good people of dp(we really don't need a dictionary.com definition of the word "club"). If your site is worth visiting then you can make your money back (although you mention that you guys had a site in the past, which ill take to mean it failed). All it seems you're doing here at this point is gaining a negative reputation with one of the bigger and wider ranging retro gaming communities

The exact definition of a word is important, making sure you're on the same page for an explanation makes it much easier in the long run. Nothing to do with this community's collective intelligence, but a foundation from which to launch that explanation. Several people questioned use of the word club and if we're not all thinking the same thing from the get-go, there's no point in continuing.

Other than that, I fully appreciate your point. While I'm happy to explain our ideas and discuss what makes us different, there's no point in going round in circles if we are just going round in circles. I want to answer a few points and then I'll check back for extra questions or whatever after, but defending the idea for the sake of defending the idea isn't entirely what this is about.

Yup, we had a mildly successful site a couple of years ago. Both Joe and I are professional writers both within the games industry and in other areas, which is partly why the site failed. Working for practically nothing is never as fun as working and getting paid incredibly well for it. The Retro Gamer Club was a popular enough part of the old site that bringing it back is high on our priority list. Successful sites, especially in the games industry, don't happen because you're a really good writer and try really hard. A retro-based site especially is practically doomed to failure, even something fairly unique, without some major backing (no news, likely well-discussed features).

That's why a quick look at Retro Gaming on Google brings at least a couple of retro sites that haven't seen any action for as much as three-four years. We feel a community-based site will ensure that the project doesn't die through lack of use; we also think, from experience, that there are people out there ready to join a community like this.

We want donation-based backing so to avoid pitching to various media groups and to have more control over the project (choosing advertising types, handling everything internally) and it's something that will, in some regard, pay off.

Again, I want to thank everybody that has posted and we hope to see you after the launch later this year.