Hehe. I'll do my best (but don't have much time, so don't expect word perfect)
Norwegian "to the game" does it better and better.
They have never adverticed for themselves. But they have still managed to turn the norwegian "to the game" to one of the worlds most popular gaming sites on the net with almost a hundred thousand hits from abroad each day.
In a small office in "Nedre Slottsgate" sits Knut Moen and Erik Johansen, to mature men og work among aquarium fish and computer games. Knut and Erik is the main people behind the gaming site "To the Game", which daily updates gamers from around the world with pictures and information about existing and coiming games. The only sound which can be heard is the clattering of keys on their keyboards and the bubbles from the aquariums.
It hasn't allways been like this though.
Let us turn the tmie back to 2001.
Careful start.
Knut and Erik ran then, just like they do now, the game distribution company "Play Zone". And the phones didn't stand still.
-If you ask those who works in a game shop about what the customers aska bout, the answer is easy. Around half of the questions being asked is about when a game hits the market. And when the shops wanted to find out, they'd ask us. The result was that the phone would be ringing all the time, and we had to tell our customers over and over and over when the game were being released.
To get away from all the phones, Knut and Erik sat down and planned a site where people themselves - either if gamesrs, journalists or shop-workers - could check the release dates on games they were curious about.
We wen live 1 sept. 2001, while we were on our way to the gaming convention ECTS in England. It was originally meant only to be an advanced list over releasedates, but with the addition of screenshots says Erik.
Turned quiet
-Now it's almost quiet here, it's not often people calls and ask us questions about release dates anymore. It's almost a bit boring, but we're taking it as a good sign - it only shows that people are using our site says Knut with a smile.
It isn't only the customers to "play zone" which has realized what an excellent tool "to the game" is if you're wondering about a game. All over the world people are logging on to see the latest screenshots, read the latest reviews or previews from acclaimed websites, if they're wondering about which games are released next week - and of course if they want to know when a certain game is released either in the US or England.
- We are, as far as I know, the only site which lists when the games are being released both in the US and England. In the next month we'll also satrt listing the release dates fir games in Scandinavia and after that we might try to localize a bit here andt here says Erik.
Increaseing popularity
The majority of their readers come from the US, 35%. 15% of the readers are frmo norway, but aside from that it's split evenly about, though with good representation from England and the benelux countries.
May this year, whilst E3 was under way, "To the game" had between 300 and 400 thousands pageviews each day. Normally it's a bit over 100 thousand, but from experience such highes as that leads to increased normals.
-Traffic is increasing steadily, and that is without adverticing for the site. The Jungle telegraph, or rather the internet telegraph, has been doing a very good job.
Since we often publish material first, other pages credt us - just like we often link to other pages. But that way more and more people discoversus and get used to us being the first site they check if they want to know somethign about a game says Knut.
Not handhelds.
"To the game" has so far been concentrating only on PC and console games.
-Why haven't you included handheld platforms like GBA and N-Gage on your site?
Exactly because they are handheld. But we do wish we could have those formats too listed, and if we're doing a major expansion in the future, adding those will be first on our list. Now it isn't too long until PSP and Nintendo DS comes to the market, and thus the expansion can come quicker than expected says Erik.
An expansion is officially launced tomorrow, which is a daily updated top-ten list for every console. It is being compiled by which games the users of "to the game" is searching for, thus giving a good picture of what is the
hottest at any give time. The list can be found
here.
-Haven't got to play
Now all taht remains for Knut and Erik is to make money of "To the game".
-We haven't adverticed for the site, and didn't thing to sell much adverticment spots on it eitehr. It has been too much else to thing about. But now that we've simplified the publishing process it'll be easeier for us to expand that site and thsu sell more spots. The way it is now, we live of what we earn distributing games through "play zone" says Erik.
And with time, the guys may get a normal releationsship to games again.
-It's been several yaers since I last played a game, sighs Erik
-I've been too busy working with them
AS I said it's not word perfrect, but I've tried to match it as closely as I could with the time spent. I didn't bother too much to fix my spelling if I saw you'd have no problem understanding what I meant.
some of the sentences might be a bit hard to understand, but that's just tough luck for you, as those are direct translations from the norwegian text.
Anyways, I hope this helps you out. BTW: What did you want it done for?
