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Back to The Verge, it's an awful name (the "on the verge" stuff always sounded silly) and their objective always seemed like a bunch of rubbish but who cares? It's got great podcasts, great writing and great coverage. I could just do without the whole "we're different" stuff. The real difference with The Verge is that they cover technology better than Engadget and the rest, in my opinion.

Ever heard of Ars Technica? Quality content without the pretentious rubbish! Only downside is they're sometimes late to the party on breaking news and their live blogs on press events aren't as nice as the verge but goddamn they're thorough and their site is easier to browse to boot! Though on second thought a latin name is kinda pretentious too but I'll take classy pretentious over indie pretentious any day :P

edit: forgot to linky! here ya go! http://arstechnica.com/

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So... did anyone actually watch it? The first ep came out yesterday - http://www.theverge.com/press-reset

I haven't been nearly as negative as the rest of you guys, so I guess it should come as no surprise that I don't have that much to complain about. As someone who actually likes most of these guys, the pretension or self-importance that you guys noted from the trailer seems far more underplayed in the actual video.

I don't really think this would hold anybody's interest who isn't involved or interested to begin with, but isn't the internet generally about preaching to the choir anyways? It certainly feels like that in the video games space, where people who pre-order a game get exclusive access to demos and video content that seem promotional in nature. Who needs promotion when you already bought in? It's really just confirmation bias.

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The first episode is actually more interesting than the trailer made it look—but primarily because the only real pivotal, this-is-something-we're-actually-doing-to-build-the-website scene is presumably pitching Electronic Arts to give them access for coverage. Which is kind of expected and pragmatic, but also kind of... unsettling?

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The first episode is actually more interesting than the trailer made it look—but primarily because the only real pivotal, this-is-something-we're-actually-doing-to-build-the-website scene is presumably pitching Electronic Arts to give them access for coverage. Which is kind of expected and pragmatic, but also kind of... unsettling?

Well, I would consider it realistic more than unsettling. It didn't bother me anyway. It did make me realize that they have some nice site technology that makes it easier for them to provide content to computers, tablets and phones. That was kind of it. I don't know, I still think the whole thing is a bad idea. I'm sure they're nice guys and I'm familiar with the work of a couple of them and its good.

The thing is, all of this "what we're doing is earth shattering, changing the industry etc. etc." bullshit is necessary for them to sell themselves. That's just what you do. It doesn't make it less ridiculous.

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Well, I would consider it realistic more than unsettling. It didn't bother me anyway. It did make me realize that they have some nice site technology that makes it easier for them to provide content to computers, tablets and phones. That was kind of it. I don't know, I still think the whole thing is a bad idea. I'm sure they're nice guys and I'm familiar with the work of a couple of them and its good.

The thing is, all of this "what we're doing is earth shattering, changing the industry etc. etc." bullshit is necessary for them to sell themselves. That's just what you do. It doesn't make it less ridiculous.

Part of it is what you mentioned: the entire discussion—at least, what they showed us in the doc—was basically about "hey we actually use responsive web design in our CMS". Which is cool... but I'm a lot more interested in what their editorial slant is going to be, and I would hope that would ALSO be a part of their pitch to EA or whomever. Hopefully they'll go into more detail in future episodes!

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Well, they did seem to be talking about their editorial slant as somewhere to go and get all the information you need (I think... I don't want to misrepresent them) in response to which the EA guys were nodding and saying "yeah, as opposed to Kotaku for this, etc. etc.".

From what I know of some of these guys, it'll be a decent site. Though I don't think I'll ever recover from that awful podcast I tried to listen to. Maybe I'll give them another shot. Then again, real life is building up and there's only so much time! I wish them well of course, but I don't think what they're doing is going to be for me.

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So... did anyone actually watch it? The first ep came out yesterday - http://www.theverge.com/press-reset

I haven't been nearly as negative as the rest of you guys, so I guess it should come as no surprise that I don't have that much to complain about. As someone who actually likes most of these guys, the pretension or self-importance that you guys noted from the trailer seems far more underplayed in the actual video.

I just watched the first episode and I still really don't get the point. Which is to say I get that they're documenting the creation of the site but that was a whole lot of nothing being said there. And I still get a vibe and perhaps this is unfair, but of self importance just by the intro they have. THE STAKES HAVE NEVER BEEN HIGHER. Alright.

I'm also not in the industry. So introducing me to these people in 30 second talking heads doesn't do anything for me. I don't really care that this person was in charge of x site. I don't know...I'm probably coming off as an asshole here but this was very boring and did nothing to make me more interested in the launch of this site.

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Oh I just got it... "PRESS" Reset.

I know right! It's your usual slightly excruciating and bland reference to a video game concept (preferably NES or SMB-related)... but with a pun!

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Oh I just got it... "PRESS" Reset.

Ah, I see. Thank you.

I think I neither did get meaning one nor two.

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I just watched the first episode and I still really don't get the point. Which is to say I get that they're documenting the creation of the site but that was a whole lot of nothing being said there. And I still get a vibe and perhaps this is unfair, but of self importance just by the intro they have. THE STAKES HAVE NEVER BEEN HIGHER. Alright.

I'm also not in the industry. So introducing me to these people in 30 second talking heads doesn't do anything for me. I don't really care that this person was in charge of x site. I don't know...I'm probably coming off as an asshole here but this was very boring and did nothing to make me more interested in the launch of this site.

Well, I think we're kind of in agreement. If you know these dudes and already are interested in the site, it might do something (like it did for me) to make you more excited. If not, I don't think this is AAA documentary stuff by any stretch and really won't (so far) do anything to rope in new people.

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Part of it is what you mentioned: the entire discussion—at least, what they showed us in the doc—was basically about "hey we actually use responsive web design in our CMS". Which is cool... but I'm a lot more interested in what their editorial slant is going to be, and I would hope that would ALSO be a part of their pitch to EA or whomever. Hopefully they'll go into more detail in future episodes!

Responsive web design seems to be the new AJAX or Web 2.0. People obsessing over good practices that have been available for years. I'm glad that they're doing it, the site will look better, but I feel like it may be getting featured a bit more than it needs to be because of the sponsorship by IE. Clearly Microsoft wants to highlight that they can pull off media-queries and looks nice like the better browsers.

As for the slant, it seems to me like the reason that they're "pitching" EA and probably other companies like that, is that they want to obtain exclusives for their online site, as you would traditionally get in a print magazine. Something that "looking good" may help, but at the end of the day it seems like PR is never interested. If they do succeed I'm not sure if that will be "good for the web" or just good for their site, as they'll get a ton of traffic when the exclusive hits.

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Have no interest in this but thought I'd check out the design... it looks like idle thumbs website. weird?

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Have no interest in this but thought I'd check out the design... it looks like idle thumbs website. weird?

BEEF 2: MORE INTERNET BEEFS

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I don't think the three giant boxes along the top add anything to the experience, especially with the navigation toolbar below them. Once you scroll down so that navigation bar gets locked to the top, it's pretty nice.

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Most of my thoughts about Arthur Gies were formed from a ton of incredibly ignorant generalizations about PC gamers and PC gaming on Rebel FM, which, as a proper PC gamer, I am of course offended by. Not really, but it did leave a bit of a sour taste before I eventually gave up on the podcast (for a multitude of reasons, none of which are really relevant, shutting up now).

When he wasn't talking about PC stuff, he seemed like a decent dude, I guess. I'll give some of the stuff a read-through this evening. U:

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I understand their formatting style in so much that if I recall from their movie trailer thing they released they want it to feel more like reading a magazine but the full giant spread style images that break the blocks of text are very annoying to me. And since I'm being a complainer right now, I'd also like to say I'm not a big fan of how the review formatting has the top half of the review text to the left of the screen and then it jumps to the right for the second half. Minor nitpicks but I don't know...I'm the one reading it. JUST GIMME DAT STRAIGHT COLUMN.

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It looks really pretty. I don't really take the time to read any gaming sites "like that" anymore. I don't really have any interest in reading reviews. I don't really have any interest in reading previews. The only things I really actually "read" are RPS and Kill Screen Daily. Sometimes giant bomb. And on those I am only really reading their interviews and editorial content. I wonder if the idea here is just to replace mainline sites like IGN with something more sleek and modern. I mean there is clearly a demand for this particular kind of site but I was under the impression it was already being thoroughly filled.

I believe VOX Media is the "tech" subsidiary of SBnation which does ABSURDLY well. I believe they're using a lot of the same publishing tools as the verge.

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My only interest in having anything to do with this site is because of MBAMAM. Is that an incredibly bad reason?

That's how I got into it.

I follow Polygon, Edge, RPS, and Gamasutra. I like that Polygon is aiming high.

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My only interest in having anything to do with this site is because of MBAMAM. Is that an incredibly bad reason?

Nope! mbmbam is a seal of quality!

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It's got some nice ideas, but the design requires having editors of the same mind. The Need for Speed Hot Pursuit review that just went up is a good example, after the third paragraph there's just a massive gap. I waited for awhile presuming a video player was loading in. Sites like this never seem to scale well, The Verge is already a lot more messy when demand for clicks take over the need for a clean design.

I keep forgetting about it though, it hasn't made it into my regular browsing pattern just yet. Turns out that they made another website about video games.

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Just spotted that during this whole Tomb Raider twitter crash, Geoff Keighley sell-out week, it turns out Polygon was over here in it's games journalism corner, resetting the press with its real authentic news. Weirdly: not many comments.

Like- what was this, one day after their documentary finished? Come on, guys.

EDIT-- Also I gave this site a chance last week, but I didn't bring it up cos I wasn't really liking it.

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