Before I buy a domain and vBulletin license. I wanted to ask if a gamers forum and portal will be a success? The Forum will be all about the new games available in the market and about the gaming consules. While the forum will allow the users to discuss their game strategies, experience etc etc... And how and where should I advertise it? Looking forward to your comments and feedbacks!
Advertise on other gaming sites, advertise on marketing sites, advertise anywhere you can really, you might want to even get a google adwords acount! Regards
Thanks. But my real question is: Will it be a success? And what features should I go with? Apart from Forum and Portal?
It can be a success if you put the effort in, in all areas from design to marketing. It all depends on you. Any it also depends what you see as success? There isn't much money, in general, from game related ads - esp. adsense, but there is a big online market for gaming sites so you have potential to do really well. Give it a shot... but don't give up when things get boring or slow.
I just recently started my first own website, a video game blog with adsense on it. It's slow going for now (it's really only been a month or so), but with some good topics and StumbleUpon/Digg you can get some traffic pretty quickly. I haven't really made any money from adsense yet, but you can see where it would be profitable if you can drive traffic.
If you aren't good, or don't know people who are good at starting drama, don't waste your time. Everything is a soap opera with gamers, they have plenty of "outlets" & constantly need somthing to get them rilled up. I'm not saying be mean to people, but every game has its' villans & heroes, you know ? Gamers like new stuff. Try to stay far away from conventional advertising if you can help it.
It can be a success. Like the others have said, it all depends on whether you put the required effort in or not. Gaming, I would say is a pretty competitive market to jump into. There are so many gaming websites and forums out there. You would really have to dedicate a lot of time in producing quality content and getting the word out there about your site. If you're willing to be patient and take the time to doing it, then yes, it will be a success. But again, it depends on what you consider a success.
As many said here, it's a competitive market. If you're willing dedicate lots of time (perhaps even finacial investments) into the project, and possibly offer something unique to your community, I believe it could be a success, yes.
with my experience I will say Entertainment Sells big time. So the chances are good. I will not recommend VB right now. You shud start with PHPBB and if everything goes good then use VB. Why waste investment Use it for Advertisments