Racketboy and the Future

[Gunstar Green]

I'm glad Racketboy isn't just rolling over and disappearing. I don't think there's any other retro gaming community I'd bother being a part of if it ever went away. That's not to say there aren't good ones out there it's just that Racketboy is where I've made my home.

I know I haven't been terribly active on here lately partially due to actually playing games instead of talking about them and more recently due to a spot of bad health but I usually give the forum a quick scan at least once a week and I continue to steer any new collectors towards the site.

[CFFJR]

Nice, I'm happy about that Master List idea.

I was actually going to suggest and volunteer for such an article covering the 32x.

Anyway, I like that there's a plan and new stuff in the works.

[Cronozilla]

I call dibs on a series of Adventure game genre guides about the entire Sierra collection!

You should poke Metal Jesus for some info.

[BogusMeatFactory]

I call dibs on a series of Adventure game genre guides about the entire Sierra collection!

You should poke Metal Jesus for some info.

MJ came into sierra much later when their focus was more on publishing and their own titles were more dedicated to games like nascar, front page sports and the strange adventure games like shivers. I may still see if he can shed light on things, but from I got he was in the company near the end.

[fastbilly1]

What kinds of new support for publication or new venues of promotion will be given to content creators? As someone who has created a lot of content for the site over the years, I always felt that this was the weak link in getting someone from the forums (e.g. me) to feel it was worthwhile publishing content to the front page. FTP, Wordpress, passwords, linking, RSS, and other kinds of issues were abundant.

I also know that in the early years of the site there was per-article compensation provided to some of the writers. Is that in the cards for the revamp?

What if Ack and myself have full access to the frontpage for updates? That way we have less of a lag on submissions and corrections.

As for the per article compensation, that is not something I can speak on. Back when we were the darling of the news aggregate sites and the store was fully functional, we had a reserve fund so bounties could be posted for articles. As far as I know that money is gone. But that is something for Racket to answer.

[dsheinem]

What kinds of new support for publication or new venues of promotion will be given to content creators? As someone who has created a lot of content for the site over the years, I always felt that this was the weak link in getting someone from the forums (e.g. me) to feel it was worthwhile publishing content to the front page. FTP, Wordpress, passwords, linking, RSS, and other kinds of issues were abundant.

I also know that in the early years of the site there was per-article compensation provided to some of the writers. Is that in the cards for the revamp?

What if Ack and myself have full access to the frontpage for updates? That way we have less of a lag on submissions and corrections.

As for the per article compensation, that is not something I can speak on. Back when we were the darling of the news aggregate sites and the store was fully functional, we had a reserve fund so bounties could be posted for articles. As far as I know that money is gone. But that is something for Racket to answer.

I had full Wordpress access to the Front Page but still ran into other kinds of issues and walls with some regularity that were more technical. I think that Nick's seeming disinterest or low interest in the site is also a bit of an obstacle since he ultimately holds all the keys for its functioning well. That's not a knock against him as interests change and he created a great place here, but I feel like the bigger questions of growth and relevance (e.g. regular and meaningful publicity and smooth scheduling of regular updates) are still going to be tough to overcome with the proposed new ideas/structure. If pageviews and reputation are the big targets, it might be best to have someone take over that has more experience in these areas with similar sites in the past couple of years who knows how to do it in the current web/media climate.

[aaron]

I will volunteer to update the "Best Games Under $10" and "Rare & Valuable" articles on a semi-regular (6 months or so) basis. These are WAY out of date and with the way prices tend to fluctuate it would behoove us to keep them updated.

Instead of just updating prices on the Cheap Games categories, I think it'd be better to rotate the games out and keep them truly "Under $10" for a CIB copy of a disc-based game, or a loose copy of a cart-based game. This is gonna get really difficult with a few of the older systems but there are still tons of good games out there under $10.

The Rare & Valuable games could just stand some price updates here and there.

[laurenhiya21]

While unfortunately my knowledge of retro games is pretty narrow (I get distracted by new shiny things too easily), I would love to help out somehow if given the chance. Whether that's writing something up or doing something else. Not really sure if there's anything I could cover well, but I just want to throw that out there ><;

I know I don't post as much here as I would like (I'm extremely critical on what I write and whether it's stupid or not), nor have I been here very long, but I would really hate to see Racketboy die off. Most of the time if I join a forum, I stick around for a few months at most and then get bored or get too intimidated by a lot of the other posters. Here though, there's quite a few things to do and quite a few people who post things I like to read which is why I've stuck around for... nearly two years I think?

Anyway, thanks for putting in the effort to keeping the forum going.

[marurun]

So, what are current options for folks who want to play retro games, shy of buying original hardware and software? How does someone get into "retro" games if they don't wanna hit eBay and the flea markets to buy a bunch of old hardware?

Maybe that's something we should address in an article. Between the Virtual Console on the WiiU/3DS, stuff on the Xbox Live and Playstation Network, re-releases for current consoles and PCs, and stuff like the Retron N4, what are the various advantages and disadvantages, emulation/recreation accuracy and enhancements, and associated costs?

I can't address this, because I don't have any of those, except a PC with Steam and GOG, but it would be great to know about. Might help draw in new fans.

[Exhuminator]

So, what are current options for folks who want to play retro games, shy of buying original hardware and software?

I think the answer is simply emulation, coupled with a decent controller. If one wanted things to feel a bit more authentic, run the audio visual output to a CRT TV and use a system-respective controller with a USB adapter.