I've got an idea for a site(s)

[final kaoss]

Mostly inspired by vgmuseum and tons of let's play videos on youtube. I used to browse around vgmuseum for game endings but I think with youtube, it's time we have a "game endings" site with videos instead of pics IMO. Also, I believe there is alot of traffic to be found in making a proper "let's play" video site, kindof have the systems & titles arranged in a cheat-site fashion.

Those are a couple of site themes that I've been working on, thinking about, that I thought I would share today. Hopefully we'll see these kindof sites popup soon.

[Lazy Bastard]

Interesting idea, concerning game endings. What do you mean by "let's play"?

[final kaoss]

well on youtube, go and do a search for "let's play (gametitle)". You can find a let's play video for almost any game these days. The author of the vid talks through the gameplay & some even play the game from start to finish. Here's one for Terreria. They generally give people a good idea of what a game is like, like for example... you want to check out some gameplay for a game before you buy... you could check out the first 2-3 vids & decide on that.

[kh2k4]

How about indexing the codes via game series too, too early to ask but how do you feel about mirroring my BH / RE code DB site once finished?

[Lazy Bastard]

Sure, we could do that. If you like, we can provide hosting for your main DB, free of charge, with full access and plenty of space. You could simply point your domain name to our servers, and the whole thing would be invisible to users.

[xibalba]

.

[Lazy Bastard]

We also have a fairly extensive Library here, you know. But, that's beside the point, I suppose.

Sure, such a site is always a welcome addition to the internet. You realize that MIT has already done this with OpenCourseWare, correct?

[GeoTube]

Scylla there already is a Let's Play site although it contains only contains entries from Something Awful (given that's where Let's Play originated) it's built great and you don't want to do this yourself due to major bandwidth problems with video hosting.

[final kaoss]

Actually it won't use much of my bandwith at all, just enough to load up a vbulletin thread. The rest of the bandwith is youtube's. Example thread and yeah... Now I see what you mean though, I see the vid sections now.

[OldSchoolGamer]

ReyVGM has a great site of game endings, in text form only, if you just want to read about what happens and other info regarding a game's ending. It's well organized and in simple and basic text format. He has beaten all U.S. NES Games except a few. He was also interviewed years ago by MTV Games regarding game endings. I forgot the name of his game ending site though... ReyVGM if you read this, please post the link/name of your game ending website. Also the link to your interview with MTV Games.

[final kaoss]

Your talking about vgmuseum yes?

[ReyVGM]

Yeah, it's VGM. But they are in screenshot format, not text format.

Scylla, you have an enthusiastic idea, however, you don't know what it takes to do what you want to do. I don't post videos not because I don't know how or don't want to, but because it takes a long time to do so. Also, games with ending variations are impossible to do unless you're willing to encode dozens of videos or edit one main video with tons of variations. And as you know, not everyone knows how to edit videos correctly.
I don't even have to mention the bandwidth issue and in the case of youtube videos, the dead links issue if the videos are removed.

There are several sites for "Let's play" kind of videos such as Speed Demos Archive and TASVideos already.

As for VGM, it's almost 12 years old. Back then I had a lot of time and was able to post a lot of content. Nowadays, not so much. Plenty of sites tried to do what you want to do regarding game endings and they all failed miserably. I always laugh about that because they all criticized VGM for using images, but what they didn't know is that I had a reason for using images and not videos. I guess they learned what reason was that after they failed.

But then again, there was no youtube back then. I would have probably made videos instead of screenshots if youtube had existed back then. However, if you are an adult, with a job or married or whatever, you just won't have the time to post more than a couple of endings per week.

The reason why I pick screenshots over videos is simple: I can take as many screenshots as I want, I can add, remove or shuffle pics from whatever part of the ending, I can edit them, I can remove graphic glithes, I can insert English text in Japanese endings and lots of other stuff in less than a few minutes. To do all that with videos, you would have to spend hours. And that's assuming the video you recorded came out perfectly and don't have to re-record it again (which happens, a LOT).
Also, more than half of the consoles on VGM don't have emulators with video recording capabilities (or decent ones at least). Sure, you can record tons of NES or Genesis videos, but what about Virtual Boy? or obscure Arcade games? Or Wonderswan? Or MSX? Or PC-88? I wouldn't have been able to make endings for lots of consoles if I depended on videos.
Then there's the issue of depending on an outside site (youtube in this case) to host your videos instead of having them on your own personal server.

An the last, but most personal issue is simple: I like pixel perfect accuracy. When you make a video, you have to compress it and by doing that, you automatically destroy the graphical fidelity. Plus, I just like screenshots. I like capturing a moment. It's the same reason why there are still photographers in an era of videos.


BUT...

Don't let any of that stop you. If you really want to do it, go right ahead. Just know that you can't have a job or family if you want to have a semi decent site in less than a year. Because that site will be your job from now on. Assuming you didn't give up by then.

[Lazy Bastard]

I like that entire post.

[final kaoss]

Rey you make some really good points there, but I don't plan on making the videos. There's several people with over 50 game endings on their profile so far. I'd like to contact them to use their videos. Also the way I have my forum setup is to where, if anyone posts cheats, gamegenie, gameshark etc codes, lets play videos and the soon to come game endings, the post/thread gets set into the moderation queue. Threads are automatically sorted by title, per system via vbulletin. My hope is to get enough traffic rolling to where they submit more of that kind of content more often. It would be nice to be a pro at using some graphics software but that's something that I never really picked up on.

[OldSchoolGamer]

Yeah, it's VGM. But they are in screenshot format, not text format.

I was talking about the site that talks about game endings, explains what happens, etc that is in basic text. You sent me the link awhile ago and I had it in my favorite links but then I deleted all my favorites etc by accident and I forgot the website. The website link you sent me what this really long page of just basic text with almost every game listed with an explaination about the ending and what happens. What is that link?