MapSpace Concept

31st December 2007

Who hasn’t heard of MySpace? Well if you haven’t it’s one of the most popular websites in the world. It describes itself as “An international site that offers email, a forum, communities, videos and blog space.”. It’s a place where people gather to talk, share, discus etc. For some, it’s their personal website, for others, just one of many website they use.

So, exactly what has this got to do with gaming? Well, image this. You are a mapper and you would like to create a homepage for yourself where you can post your work, somewhere where other similar minded people can contact you. Now, you could do like many do and setup a free website or even a MySpace page. others a blogspot or other types of blogs.

Of course the people who see this page might not have similar interests to you. If they have come to the page from a link you provided then they probably do but other people who find you maybe not.

Now, I think it would be cool if there were a place called MapSpace that was run on the same lines as MySpace but was focused towards mappers of all engines.

You could setup a homepage that could be linked to in all your released work, you could discuss topics with other mappers and most importantly not be limited by which engine you use.

There are plenty of forums but they seems to be limited a few engines, MapSpace wouldn’t limit you in that way.

You could join different groups, posts videos, a blog in fact everything that you do in other sites. The advantage is that everything is focused towards game content creation. Mod teams could set up pages and even pages just for specific projects/ mods.

I used MapSpace as the name (CubeDude89‘s idea) becasue it flows but it could easily be ModSpace, ModBook, FaceMod, etc etc.

Now, I did consider setting this up but let’s be honest, PlanetPhillip.com just doesn’t have the traffic or exposure. Someone like 3dbuzz or moddb could do this and get plenty of publicity.

Advertisers would have a very targeted market allowing for adverts that will definitely interest its viewers.

Users could still have their own formal homepage like many users do but not everybody has the time or inclination to do that. This idea would mean a mapper, modeler, texture artists etc could have a good looking page that is connected to like minded individuals with a few minutes.

Specific forums can be created for each discipline and engine/application. No longer would you have to join many forums to get access to expert help.

With a little effort you could maybe get the developers onboard to ensure that a person had everything close to hand.

Without doubt it has some negative aspects but if you only focus on them then nothing would get done.

4 Comments

  1. Another fantastic post, Phillip!

    I would like to see something like this, but isn’t Moddb already heading in this direction?

  2. Chewie

    It is, but isnt it pretty much the ONLY site (I think I have visited one more, but forgot the name)
    I think its a fantastic idea. I got it! Phillipspace.com lol. But seriously, I think you need more advertising, like the advertisments on Myspace. There are some hardcore gamers out there (i have dozens of pics of Half-life 2 and Heart of Evil on mine lol) and you would probably attract a lot more attention for your site.

  3. i think you need more advertising,

    I totally disagree. People often write to me and thank me for not having much advertising on the site. I may have a little more this year, to pay for coding, but not much.

    and you would probably attract a lot more attention for your site.

    I don’t see how having more advertisers will give me more traffic.

    I’m more interested in word of mouth recommendations. That way I get new visitors who will likely stay.

    Actually all I want for the near future is more readers who participate in discussions, posting reviews etc.

  4. I just remembered this: http://www.greatgamesexperiment.com/

    Is this similar to Mapspace in any way? I haven’t really tried it much, but once I develop my game/mod I’m gonna check this out properly.

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