The rise of indie game sites...
Games journalism is no longer a realm dominated by the traditional specialists. The Games Tribe’s founder Richard Keith looks at how the rise of independent media has impacted the market

There's no doubt that now is the time for indie developers.

Structural changes in broadband, gaming platforms, software and hardware mean that independent studios can make, market and distribute games without having to sell them first to publishers.

I bring this up because, in my mind at least, there’s a simultaneous change in the way that games sites are maturing.

Like the indie developer scene, the indie games journalism sector has been with us forever: before broadband came along there were forums and news groups, and fanzines before that.

And, like the dev scene, there is massive growth because the tools are now there – and are mostly free – to enable anyone to take up a keyboard and start creating.

The barriers to entry are almost non-existent and social media has given sites an amazing opportunity to build audience and grow users.

Last year I left an old media giant, Future Publishing, to set up The Games Tribe: a company devoted to enabling independent games sites to compete against the established ‘majors’.

This is a great time to start a gaming site: and it shows. By our count there are more than 2,000 English language independent games sites (that is, a website not owned by a multinational, with less than five people working full time) currently out there, creating some amazing content.

And there are great benefits to working with independent sites: they are run by committed passionate gamers, rather than suits and ad men. Done well, they can create engaged communities of gamers desperate to feel a part of something real.

TAKING ON THE GIANTS
There are two major challenges that indie sites need to overcome before we see a real change in the games media topography that’s dominated the post-magazine landscape.

First: indie sites have to stop trying to be GameSpot or IGN or any of the other ‘majors’. Those guys are too well staffed and funded for that to work. And there’s no fun in trying.

By concentrating on creating a strong identity and unique content, independent sites can build communities and really start to grow.

The second challenge is being able to communicate to the industry in a way that works for all sides. It’s impossible for PR and marketing teams to deal individually with over 2,000 news or reviews editors, never mind a thousand or so ‘CEOs’ – no matter how good their sites are. Even the community teams set up to do this job can’t deal with everyone.

One simple way indie sites can help themselves to overcome this problem is to agree some common measures that would make it easier for the industry to work with them.

This could be audience numbers – not just page views or unique users, but a way to show engagement.

It could be providing an insight into their audience, a series of set questions about each site’s users.

Or a set of criteria for quality could be created to mark a site a ‘real’ indie site, rather than just another hobby blog.

At The Games Tribe, we’re working on all these things and hope to get some industry buy-in for the measures we propose.

But however it’s done there is only one way forward: for indie sites to work together.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s informal collectives or a semi-formal structure like The Games Tribe, where we encourage our partner sites to look at their content, marketing and SEO plans as well as selling their advertising space for them. Only by working together can niche sites hope to compete and create the new dawn of indie games sites that I think is within our grasp.

I’d be fascinated to hear what other people – site owners, PR, marketers and the rest - think about this.

Richard Keith,
Founder – The Games Tribe
rich@thegamestribe.com

This article originally appeared in the 25th Feb 2011 Edition of MCV: http://www.mcvuk.com/digital-edition/archive/2011/february

The Games Tribe are the present owners of Gameleon.net and can be found online at www.thegamestribe.com