Arses

As some people may have known, I submitted an article recently called “Ten Of The Best... Arses” (http://www.n4g.com/gaming/News-155354.aspx). Which happened to reach 1140 degrees, I believe this to be my most popular submission, certainly reaching much higher than I expected (not that I'm complaining).


The article came from play-mag.com which is the online resource for UK Playstation magazine PLAY. The point of this post is not to talk about the interesting subject matter of the submission, rather it is the increasing popularity of N4G. I’ve known for a while this is a popular site, even with many authors submitting their own works ( naughty naughty), helping to get their site more recognition. However in the last week two UK mags have made blog entries featuring N4G itself, leading me to believe this site is more widely adopted by the professionals then I previously realised. 



First Play-mag (http://blog.play-mag.co.uk/?p=111) made a comment about the popularity of their Arses article:


“This week www.play-mag.co.uk was launched arse-first into the upper echelons of internet popularity. As I write this, an old Ten Of The Best… from issue 164 that was recently transferred to www.play-mag.co.uk is the second hottest story on popular game news links site www.n4g.com, at a seering 1080°. That’s hotter than the first Call Of Duty: World At War images, although not quite as hot as the rumour about Metal Gear Solid coming to Xbox Live Arcade. The article in question: Ten Of The Best… Arses.”


Needless to say it was a complete shock to see this (especially as I submitted their article). Of course they didn't actually mention paul_war, but then contributors here are just humble vessels through which the best (cough) gaming news (cough, cough) is communicated.


Secondly is PSM3 (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=190199) where they comment on the MGS4 ‘Internet review madness’:


“Hello, If you've glanced at popular news aggregation site N4G (News4Gamers) recently, you might've noticed that the hottest stories in the world are Gamesradar.com and CVG.com's MGS4 reviews. Which'd be true - if the reviews in both cases weren't, in fact, ours (i.e. PSM3's). One the bright side, it's been voted - by one man, at least - as the best MGS4 review on the internet. And that's where the madness starts...”


This was interesting for another reason, that it answered questions many here at N4G had been asking about the somewhat similarity of the reviews from CVG, Gamesradar and PSM3. Indicating the guys here are closely scrutinising the comments sections! Usually a risky endeavour.


A third, slightly different example, is how other online sites use N4G to get their news. One example I’m well aware of is my post in the forums, showing scans of OPM’s Metal Gear Solid 4 review, which at the time was the first MGS4 review (http://forums.n4g.com/Metal_Gear_Solid_-_1st_Review/m_127991/tm.htm). The thread has now received over 65,000 hits and those scans have been shown on a variety of sites, kotaku and joystiq among others.


For N4G to be commented on like this by professional journalists was something I did not expect to see, this just leaves me wondering how much these journalists use and indeed rely on this site rather than perhaps more conventional sources?

Another one of Play-mag's examples (honest)

The man himself, PSM3 sorting out the issues over their reviews.

Perhaps my most famous post, a perfect 10!