ublished on 11/25/2006 in THE POST-STAR
GLENS FALLS -- This spring, when Nintendo changed the name of its soon-to-be-released video gaming system from the "Revolution" to the "Wii," high school senior Ian Mikutel had a problem.
It was about two weeks before the staff of his year-old Web site and podcast about the Nintendo system planned to attend the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, and they had already ordered business cards and T-shirts featuring their site's name: Revolution Report.
The 10-person staff, scattered across the country, brainstormed via conference call until 4 a.m. and finally came up with a new name for their site: The Wiire.
"We've always been a very news-focused site, so it's like a play on 'news wire,'" Mikutel explained. Nintendo's explanation for the odd-sounding name, he said, was simple. "It's like the word 'we,' and the two 'i's represent two people playing together," he said. "So basically, it's all about inclusion."
Mikutel, now a freshman at Rochester Institute of Technology, said the redesigned site's traffic is growing by about 10,000 unique visits a month, pushing it toward 100,000 visits this month. Apple recently featured The Wiire Podcast on the home page of the iTunes music store. "At this rate, we could get two million hits a year," he said. "It's crazy to think about."
Besides a new name and color scheme -- coincidentally, the same combination of white and sky blue that Nintendo picked for the Wii packaging -- the biggest change to Mikutel's site is the addition of game reviews.
"Video game reviews are notoriously something that most people don't want to read, they just want to skip to the rating," he said. "So we decided to split our reviews up into three stages, to cater to all types of people."
Readers who want only a general synopsis of a game can check out stage one, "impressions," which explains in less than a page how the game is played and what is looks, feels and sounds like. More detailed information is available in the second stage, "analysis," written after the reviewer has taken a day off and then tried the game again. After the final stage -- "evaluation," written for what Mikutel calls "hard-core gaming enthusiasts" -- each game is rated on a 100-point scale.
Only a few complete reviews are on the site right now, he said, because Nintendo prereleased the Wii to the media just one week before it hit the consumer market on Nov. 19. That wasn't enough lead time to check out the 30 games launched with the console, some of which, like "Zelda," take 70 hours to complete.
"It was too late for most of the gaming magazines to get reviews done in time for their holiday issues, so it could push more people online, which I guess is a nice thing for us," he said. "But I'd rather see more press for the Wii."
Mikutel explained that his enthusiasm for the Wii is not simply because his Web site depends on its success. He loves the new system because it "levels the playing field" between new and experienced video game players. Some of the games are short and simple, and many of them provide a workout.
Instead of jostling joysticks, players can use remote controls to mimic the movements of real-life activities like tennis and boxing. Even his 80-year-old grandmother, Dorothy Smith, tried the Wii out when she came for a visit.
"She's never played a video game before, and she beat me at bowling!" Mikutel said.
Smith smiled modestly. "I can be a little competitive," she confided. Then she noticed the words "The Wiire" on her grandson's T-shirt.
"Do you have something to do with this?" she asked, looking puzzled. "Why is it spelled wrong?"
LOGGING ON http://www.thewiire.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment