Wikipedia Founder Starts "Open Source" Gaming Web Site
Wired Game|Life’s Chris Kohler reports that Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has announced the debut of gaming.wikia. Aimed to be an open-source web-magazine for gaming enthusiasts, the site is gearing up to be a mix of user-submitted opinions, cheats, and tips. Gaming.wikia is a component of the Wikia project, which also has sites dedicated to music, cars, and health.
Kohler comments that, “I know that sounds like NeoGAF run amok, but think about it: you can actually go in and edit other users’ articles.” While the site’s content is currently sub par, I’ll have to disagree somewhat with Mr. Kohler. I don’t think it’s NeoGAF run amok; it’s NeoGAF minus the drudge. If its managers can attract a large and intelligent user base that’s diligent about policing itself, then the site can have the all strong opinions and fantastic discourse found in NeoGAF. Best of all, its users would be instrumental in weeding out the angst, name calling, and general havoc that comes with any forum filled with ardent enthusiasts.
The market is already saturated with traditional enthusiast gaming publications. Gaming magazines have been struggling to reach the same ad revenue they enjoyed in the ’90s, partially due to the limitations of the format (long lead times and limited interactivity). GameSpot and IGN dominate the traditional review/preview/news web-site model. If a company is brazen enough to start a new site then a different angle is clearly required. Ziff Davis’ 1Up was able carve its own slice of the pie by highlighmting its editor’s personalities, giving users their own blogs, and fostering heavy interaction between users and editors.
Gaming.wikia is looking to take audience interaction a step further; its users will be the ones driving its success or failure. It’s an interesting gambit, to be sure, and there’s a potential niche to be filled. While there are millions of gaming enthusiasts out there, the question is how many of them care enough to participate in a site like gaming.wikia?
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dave_boo sent me!
Nice! finnaly sonmething for ther est of us.
While overall this seems like a good idea, one has to question the effectiveness of it. While the consolidation of information is always a good idea, the haphazard natures of wikis, along with the general feeling of discontent that arises from not knowing the qualifications of authors to submit those articles, might cause it to not gain traction.
Also unless some of the contributors are able to get scoops and not have to sign NDAs, I don’t see how they will be able to become a source that is able to pump out news more quickly than other websites. And if they do end up with exclusives, you can bet your ass to a barn dance that they’ll eventually get locked out of that information.
So let’s see, contributors of unknown qualification, no exclusives, and the inevitable infighting that goes on in wikis. I hope they do a good job moderating it to prevent those 3 previous items.
I often go to the Wikipedia entry of a game for basic info, certainly before checking the official Flash-heavy site, with the ad-heavy game press sites my last resort. Wikipedia killed the big online encyclopedias, I think the smart money is on this doing the same to the game press.