Dear Gaming Website Owners: Cosplay Articles Suck

With the ability to purchase a domain and set up a website, a lot of gaming fans have been able to launch their own gaming sites, in an effort to maybe become one of the Big Guns like Kotaku or Joystiq. However, to do that would require you getting maybe a few million hits daily. To get there, admins need to come up with inventive posts of get some easy hits.

Since most of the big sites still get exclusive access to news, previews and media, many small sites need to figure out way of bringing other news to the table. So what do they do? They post info from industry top dogs' Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, they sometimes steal screen shots from sites that may never appear on N4G and recently a big trend was to post pics of random Cosplay chics under titles like Cosplay Girl of the Week: OMG TITS.

The reason many sites like IGN, Joystiq and so on do well is because they spend years in the industry and have staff who actually play games, and not just post a bunch of lude pics of so-called cosplay girls. Also, with the number of years in service and the countless number of readworthy articles, they have built up a reputation for themselves causing a number of fans to become loyal to their site, bringing them back time and time again.

Do you think posting about cosplay chics will build your reputation? I mean YES, it works for a quick burst of hits, especially when the post hits the front page of N4G where a number of young gamers browse. It's a sure way to get hits, but does it build an audience? Does it add to your quality archive of information? Does it add value to the gaming industry? NO!

So please take a hint and stop posting these types of articles. It will add no long term value to your site, you will not be able to build a proper audience, and for those interested in making money of your blogs, advertisers won't be too happy about the type of content you deliver. Also we at N4G are fed up of it. :)

[JBaby343]

Don't care for the article but I sure like the picture. :P

[Aphe]

On your next blog can you get rid of the unneccesary text and post more Cosplay girls?

Thanks.

[stb]

I get that picture DUD...

[Speed-Racer]

you guys are pathetic

[BlackCountryBob]

A while back it was posted as news some garbage site which had top 100 cosplay girls. Now, that is fine by me for such an article to exist but I posted a comment that this was not in the strictest sense news. I got about 10 replies and some pretty offensive PMs calling me everything from a homosexual to a closet paedo who couldn't stand to look at women like a real man, reported to mods who did sweet FA.

Unfortunately, while there are still idiots out there who think this is great and N4Gs lazy mods do nothing to implement any form of quality control on the articles on the site, things will not change and these sites will keep doing this to get easy hits from 12 year olds (possibly mental age rather than physical).

[Aphe]

I actually feel the same, if I wanted to look at half naked women, or even totally naked women, there is plenty of places to go and look for it. This is the internet after all.

But tbh I'm not that fussed about articles with cosplay girls, I don't really care. The articles are too few and far between to get worked up about, and I certainly don't feel the need to make a blog about it.

My comment was actually a joke, unfortunately the blog writer seems to worry about something that really isn't an issue, and doesn't seem to have much of a sense of humour. If you don't like the articles (if you can actually call them articles) the simple solution is not look at them, and don't go on the sites you have an issue with. It's a fact of life that some will though, not much you can really do about it.

Standing on your soapbox bleating about it isn't going to stop these sites getting hits. And I doubt it will stop these articles being submitted either.

[Speed-Racer]

Well the thing is, I don't mind the occasional articles about it, but when a number of sites decide to make it a weekly thing, it adds up on the N4G end... where the hell else am I going to get up to the minute gaming news other than N4G? There is reddit and digg, but it's not as orderly as n4g since they are based on popularity and not time stamped news. So seeing a number of these articles top n4g all the time is quite annoying.... they could better spend their time finding some real gaming news... if i want cosplay, there are sites specifically for that...not n4g.

if it were reddit or digg, they would quickly eradicate crap that doesnt conform with the channel it's posted it...