Fan Service

Did you set up a website to discuss the hot topics in your lifestyle/hobby area of interactive gaming? Were you underwhelmed when nobody cared about what you had to say because the coverage on Kotaku was more even handed and up to date? If the answer to any of those questions is yes then fear not. You are a sad fanboy but by following our hot guide you'll have that template blog up and running again before you google your site url to see if anyone linked to you this week.

Step 1: Even if your site is really shit, get sponsored ads almost before you have any other content. This makes your content-lite website look professional and if you get any hits in the future you might generate an income! To add a further professional air get that advertising that highlights words throughout the blog. There's nothing less frustrating than boxes of text popping up every time the cursor accidentally floats over words like "here" or "price drop".

Step 2: After taking a step back you will probably realise that all your posts are about the Xbox 360! Whoops, no one is going to believe that you care about the other consoles out there! How do you broaden the appeal without giving up your ardent fanboy standpoint on issues around how microsoft can fight their way up to second place in the market despite having a three year head start? Easy, go multi-author. Four or five authors is best. To those who don't know any better it looks like you will have a diverse point of view on every topic. In reality, two of them probably won't contribute but they will comment making your site look much better. There's nothing worse than 0 comments all over the fucking place!! We should know!

Step 3: Create a forum! It's easy, you'll continually attract people who get kicked out of other forums and it adds yet another professional edge to your site. Before you know it the circle jerking will begin and for a sweet short while the reality that the console your mum bought you is shit will be a distant nightmare. What really impresses people is if you go to the effort of creating an image advertising your forum but put a deliberate spelling mistake in. The below example is from thatgamingsite another popular weblog about interactive video games.

Step 4: Coming up with games news is hard but stealing it is plain wrong. Instead the polite thing to do is steal news that is fourth or fifth hand. That way nobody cares that 6 out of 8 of your front page stories "stories" are just copied from the relevant Xbox sections of IGN, Kotaku or god forbid 1up.

Step 5: Name your blog something similar to the first or second greatest video games blog ever as proven by science that way you get to sail in the slipstream of their good name and get oodles of free publicity. Ideally, target someone who doesn't regularly google parts of their site name otherwise you'll end up in some kind of a blog war. And it's important for you to realise, that we've never lost.