Wardrox’s Vlog 28th November: Let’s Cheat
Just to avoid getting into trouble, this is an idea that I read about from Seth Godin in his book Purple Cow. I would be very interested in your thoughts on the matter.
Just to avoid getting into trouble, this is an idea that I read about from Seth Godin in his book Purple Cow. I would be very interested in your thoughts on the matter.
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By John Kershaw
Sunday, November 28th 2010
I’m writing an essay on the virtues of a poem that says beastial rape is a good thing. Every word cleaves at my soul.
I would set my mind to your marketing question, but that would force me to revisit the dark days of Business Management classes in school, and that’s just not going to happen.
Nukezilla cheated by bringing the Destructoid community with it from Podcastle. The problem is that you didn’t snowball enough people up with Podcastle to get a powerful, all consuming mass of fanatics once it went into meltdown.
I think Pachter cheated quite well. He talked like he knew about the industry, and whenever he was proven wrong, use the proof to strengthen his arsenal of videogame industry knowledge. Also, thinking about all this has given me an idea, I’ll send you an e-mail in a bit.
I’d agree with UglyDuck about some of the Dtoid community finding this website through the podcastle being a failed cheat.
As for PR cheats generally, I figure they boil down to endorsements from trusted/popular figures and organizations, superior monetary resources, a compelling or sympathetic narrative, or an innovation that is not well known (regardless of whether it already exists).
What I did this Sunday? I slept in, played some torchlight, had a ham sandwich, took a nap, browsed the internet, and now I’m making burgers on my glorious George Foreman grill and sipping some Irish whiskey. Perfect day.
I don’t know if I’m left brained of right brained. That spinning silhouette ad isn’t helping! D:
So… what you’re saying is anybody who’s done better than you has done so because they cheated? I’d hardly consider finding a successful formula cheating. Sure it’s usually at the expense of someone else, but that’s just how business works. If you’re doing better it’s usually because someone else is doing worse. And like was pointed out above, your initial surge of readers mostly came from Destructoid/Podcastle, which by your examples means you cheated.
@ScottyGrayskull: Exactly. Every good site has found their way to be successful using methods that whiny people would call cheating. “Oh [x] is only popular because they [y]“. Very few sites have found a “successful formula” which didn’t have some element you can attribute to them using or doing something other people wouldn’t or couldn’t.
That’s not a bad thing. And it is how business works. Hence why I’m saying it’s something we should be considering in order for us to grow.
And I probably did cheat at the time by talking about NG on The Podcastle. In hindsight I probably should have talked about it more, lol.
Other than claiming more readers than you actually have or ‘reporting’ exclusives which are made up, how exactly do you want to cheat? Can I make 4 aliases and log on with each and comment on everything on the site? Or click on every advert multiple times with different IP addresses? How may I be of disservice to you? =)
@Adushan Govender: It’s more ways to bring in more people. Such as posting tits. I would say that’s cheating. Same goes for inventing news, posting unrelated content, using a much larger organisation for exposure etc.
Yo John, avoid the black bathrobe over the black shirt. It looks like you are in some weird cult.
Anyway, I think the site could get a whole bunch of new users if you (you being JOHN ‘ALL-CAPS’ KERSHAW) quit Nukezilla, get a job with Gamespot and writing a low-scoring review for a game that is heavily-advertised on Gamespot. Then, we you are fired, leave and go “Screw you guys, I’m setting up my own gaming website and it will be the best ever and it will be called Nukezilla!”. Then go onto Wikipedia and rewrite the history of Negative Gamer/Nukezilla. Voila, you are done!
I keep tellin ya, Herp.Nukezilla.com is a winner. Make it so, and watch the hits rise…
Well Wardrox, then I think what you should do is focus on how to cheat your way to success rather than pissing and moaning about how all the other sites have done it better than you.
@ScottyGrayskull: I didn’t realise I was “pissing and moaning” :-/
Pissing and moaning? That reminds me of a video…