I have to make a video game themed website...

[BoneSnapDeez]

...for a class I'm taking. Well, video games is the topic I chose at least.

A couple of thoughts I want some input on...
- I've been thinking about dedicating the site to console information, similar to the Beginner's Guides here on Racketboy. My problem is that I'm not sure if I should write solely about the consoles I own or all of the "major" ones. If I focus on just the ones I own I'll have some gaps (I don't have a Jaguar, CD-I, etc)... then again, I doubt the professor will know/care at all.
- Is there anywhere I can find some good video game console "stock photos"? Best place I know of is Wikipedia, I don't want to steal anything off of this site of course.

Any advice would be appreciated, I'm not much of a web developer (yet) haha.

[deathsled]

What exactly was the assignment? How are we supposed to know what kind of content you should include?

"video game themed" is pretty vague.

[Jrecee]

Sounds like a rehash. I'd focus it on something specific and unique. Something that hasn't been done a bunch of times already.

For example, there was a blog about dinosaurs in videogames. A site entirely about contra and contra like games featured my game.

[Michi]

...
- I've been thinking about dedicating the site to console information, similar to the Beginner's Guides here on Racketboy. My problem is that I'm not sure if I should write solely about the consoles I own or all of the "major" ones. If I focus on just the ones I own I'll have some gaps (I don't have a Jaguar, CD-I, etc)... then again, I doubt the professor will know/care at all.

I doubt your professor will even know what a CD-I is.

I say focus on the one's you know and enjoy. That way looking up information you need won't feel like such a chore.

[Nemoide]

Why not just make the website about your collection and you can take the photos yourself?

[flojocabron]

I know its cliche...

but your backgrounds/fonts for the consoles could mimic the pop culture styles of the era the systems came from.

Maybe a good/bad/ugly? With the best from the system, the crap and the WTF for each game console.

Maybe a Q and A with people that know lots about games (like us), the normal gamers and the non gamers? Some youtube embed links in the site?

And why not link to other awesome gaming sites? You can give the average person an introduction and it links to even more awesomeness on the bottom?

[Cronozilla]

It would make more sense to do something slightly more personal since you can control the content better and actually make it feel cohesive.

Take the same idea, but just seclude it to your gaming past. Like a timeline sort of deal. It only changes the framework concept of the site, not necessarily how you would execute it.

And, you're going to have to become a quality photographer to do web work. You either take it yourself or you pay for photos. You really can't just ... go snag images off the web, while they're publicly viewable, you don't actually have any rights to those images. (Unless you explicitly ask ... in which case it's usually only for very specific things.)

[Yancakes]

I definitely agree with the suggestion of making the site more specific than general gaming. Unless the site requires a massive amount of content which multi-console would warrant, you can focus on very specific content AND focus on more topical site design.

[D.D.D.]

You should go retro-internet. Like tons of animated gifs and weird navigation buttons. Straight up 1995 Netscape/AOL days.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Good suggestions guys. I played around with it some last night, I think I'm going to dedicate it almost solely to the 8/16 bit consoles as those are the ones I'm most familiar with. I'll talk about the hardware itself as well as the most interesting games. I'm also toying with the idea of having a JRPG section and some MAME and DOSBox tutorials.

It is going to be basic and introductory like: I'm assuming the people grading it have little to no knowledge of retro gaming.

Maybe I'll link it here once it's done. If it's not too terrible that is.