Sticky

2 comments by Sticky on Jan 31st, 2008 digg this super bookmark

After spending a while bumbling around pwned.com I noticed that there are similarities and differences between ModDB.

Pwned's Positives

The most striking thing on Pwned is the ability to earn "points" which denote activity and overall use of the site. These "points" then can be spent in the store on items like games (25,000-45,000 points), video game consoles (they offer up a Wii for a paltry 200,000 points, and more powerful systems like a 360 Elite and a PS3 for 350k and 400k points, respectively) and this encourages site activity, both through forum posts, posting blogs, and using the "Shoutbox" a kind of constant forum where there's usually always someone to talk to. Adding games that were conspicuously absent from the list will net you points as well. Interacting with others is also encouraged. They even have a forum designed specifically for Stimor and MadKill style spammishness.

The community there is also very friendly and I've recieved several friend requests and there is a growing ModDB shootoff branch from there. Bunnyjen, Gin, Krayzie, even BlueWolf is there! It is also home to a host of companies. Rockstar Games has a profile there, and a group that protects gamer rights from government interference is gaining a large following.

Pwned's Negatives

Generally, the only gripes I have are the slightly difficult to use blog poster, which is moderately inferior to ModDB's blog creator, and the strict policies for adding games, but once you know the protocol, even that becomes almost breezily relaxed. Also, there's no modification file, but the site is still in the beta, and something like that could come later on.

ModDB's Positives

A somewhat active forum, and of course, the endless mods. A strong central base of users who know each other and form a kind of loose member confederacy.

ModDB's Negatives

The "somewhat active forum" is losing members little by little and you'll get different answers from different people. Leilei will tell you the n00bs are fucking everything up and everybody who has a member number higher than 1000 will surely burn in the Stygian pits of hell. Newbies will tell you that the older members are relentless in torturing of new members, potentially driving them off for good. The forum policies are also becoming increasingly heavy handed. I dare say it's getting worse than my reign as Forum Moderator and Member Manager, when advertising for a potential sister-site to ModDB as a kind of gamer MySpace is locked without so much as a second thought.

Also, of the "endless mods" mostly are for HL, HL2, or BF2 and not everybody on earth owns those games. I don't own any of them, and while the mods in those sections grow in number, mods for games I actually own are becoming more and more scarce, either becoming archived or the mod team closing up shop and effectively scuttling the mod project.

Sticky's Analysis

ModDB has been great. Really. I've grown to love the forum with it's (now-gone) quirky members. But pwned.com immediately captured me with it's friendly userbase and rapid member growth rate. If ModDB can't take some cues and at least try to make the site more user-friendly, more intuitive, and offer more incentives for activity, then I might have to say farewell to the site I've called my homepage for nearly five years.

If you'd like to sign up to Pwned, then follow this link and sign up.