etoychest is now Snackbar-Games?

Lord Jezo

When did this happen?

I always liked eToychest because he posted here and his reviews seemed pretty solid and honest, but now it's merged with the game cover site Snackbar Games?

What's the story on that and does the man with the Asian girl icons still exist here? How about the old reviews? Can I still get to them or is everything old gone?

LewieP

i really like eToychest, but have never typed the address into firefox, just browsed to it from articles linked here.

jclast

Yeah, we merged maybe a month ago. I'm sure etoy will still post links to interesting articles here. He's still posting news and writing p/reviews and conducting interviews. It's just that with the merger with Snackbar, he doesn't have to worry about administrating a site alongside all of the games-related stuff.

Deusfaux

I find reviews are not even necessary anymore for me.

Either you know a game is gonna be real good because of who's behind it or whatever, or you know it's probably a piece of crap

Reviews might help with titles that fall somewhere in the middle, but then, with so many obviously great titles, who has time to be playing the merely "above average" ?

Lord Jezo

jclast wrote: »

Yeah, we merged maybe a month ago. I'm sure etoy will still post links to interesting articles here. He's still posting news and writing p/reviews and conducting interviews. It's just that with the merger with Snackbar, he doesn't have to worry about administrating a site alongside all of the games-related stuff.

Are all the old reviews going to be ported over? Whenever I search for a game over at Metacritic I alays looked for his reviews but now the links just take me to your home page.

For example, this morning I was looking for his review on the PS2 Shinobi game, it's on Metacritic as being on his old site but I can't find it on the new one. Are some things just lost to the past now?

As for the reading reviews post above, I just like to read them, it doesn't mean I will go buy a game or not buy one, I just enjoy seeing what others have to say about things I might never play.

jclast

All our old content is in process of being ported over (Wii is done, and 360 is in progress), but it might be a while before sites like metacritic and gamerankings pick us up again due to Snackbar currently using a non-numeric ranking system (Buy, Rent, Don't Bother).

inthegray

it seems like etoychest has had a noticeable amount of downtime for the past year, so hopefully this merger will improve on that. i know jason already has a full plate with writing for gamasutra, so it's good to see that he won't have to divide even more of his time with the site's maintenance. i'm guessing that with the consolidation of etoychest's and snackbar's staff, we'll also be seeing a lot more posts from both?

ShimSham

While I understand why the merger came, I kind of preferred Etoy's site design. (at least one of the designs he used, it changed a lot)

taliosfalcon

ShimSham wrote: »

While I understand why the merger came, I kind of preferred Etoy's site design. (at least one of the designs he used, it changed a lot)

thats because the snackbar site is fugly. It looks like a cat vomited out the main page. My theory is they outsourced the site design to a color blind ten year old

edit: the etoychest website was as awesome as the snackbar site is ugly

Szechuanosaurus

Deusfaux wrote: »

I find reviews are not even necessary anymore for me.

Either you know a game is gonna be real good because of who's behind it or whatever, or you know it's probably a piece of crap

Reviews might help with titles that fall somewhere in the middle, but then, with so many obviously great titles, who has time to be playing the merely "above average" ?

Come on, that's ridiculous Deus!

The history of gaming is full to the brim with companies who produced a series of excellent games, only to eventually turn sour as well as completely unknown companies appearing from nowhere with awesome games.

Newres

taliosfalcon wrote: »

ShimSham wrote: »

While I understand why the merger came, I kind of preferred Etoy's site design. (at least one of the designs he used, it changed a lot)

thats because the snackbar site is fugly. It looks like a cat vomited out the main page. My theory is they outsourced the site design to a color blind ten year old

edit: the etoychest website was as awesome as the snackbar site is ugly

I second that, the etoychest site even loaded faster and you could find stuff more easily on it.

Vyolynce

A new site design is in the works, but it's a painfully slow process, especially with all of the content that needs to be converted.

Deusfaux

Szechuanosaurus wrote: »

Come on, that's ridiculous Deus!

The history of gaming is full to the brim with companies who produced a series of excellent games, only to eventually turn sour as well as completely unknown companies appearing from nowhere with awesome games.

Maybe I overstated it... but I dunno, the pre-game buzz or something lets me form an opinion of the vast majority of games ever before they're released and "proper" reviews are written.

I might be apt to look at a IGN "score" quickly to throw out any nasty surprises (God Hand comes to mind), but yeah I dunno I just rarely feel compelled to read a review about any games, it typically seems pretty clear where it's gonna fall.

Caswynben

Also, things will go a little faster once Cone and I finish the backend. The admin of Snackbar, Snowcone, posts here as well. eToy still has a prominent place inside of the site as well.

BiggNife

Its not a big deal, really. Jason still posts, plus Snowcone and the others at Snackbar are good people. Although I can undestand the concerns about the archive.

bruin

I used to check eToychest daily.

Now I check Snackbar daily. It's not quite the same, but it's still great.

gilrain

I've always enjoyed both sites. For those concerned about losing the cool-factor of an Unofficial Official PA Forums Gaming Site of Choice, a few things to consider: eToy is still here, and still there, and writing more than ever. Also, the guys over at Snackbar have long been active members here, too, just like eToy.

So, update your booksmarks and prepare to look at some orange for a while. It's a good site.

etoychest

holy cow, I don't come here enough anymore.....sooooo busy these days.

Anyway, the gist of this is that with eToy, I pretty much ran the show with a staff of capable writers, but we had gotten kinda big and it was really a lot for one person to do. Plus, when I got hired by Gamasutra, it became near impossible to run eToy at night and off and on during the day, while at the same time doing my daily writing duties for gamasutra and its sister sites. So a merger with Chris and Snackbar made perfect sense. Now the site has a much bigger staff, a handful of really talented people on the back end making it run smoothly, and I can concentrate on writing and not having to be the ringleader.

Plus, eToy's constant layout change was sort of a running joke, and spun out from my obbsessive compulsive nature and not ever being satified. Now that won't be a problem, so yay!

We have a lot of exciting stuff in the pipe for the site as well, but I'll leave that at that. It was pretty neat being at GDC earlier this month and telling devs about Snackbar who came up and asked me "What the hell is up with eToy, mate?" I imagine I'll be doing that same explanation again in July at E3, but really it's fun. I sorta gush over the site (in a good way).

But yea, sorry I don't post here as much anymore. It sort of has to do with my color blindness and how the scheme here is sorta hard for me to look at (I'm sure that is just me and is in no way a slam on the the layout....my eyes are just fucking terrible). Anyway, carry on. Love ya!

Ginsane

The current snackbar-games layout makes my html heart bleed.

etoychest

If Chris is so inclined, he should post an image aproximation of what the new consolidated site will look like. It's pretty slick. I'll leave that up to him though.

Polago

Oi etoy! QUESTIONS AHOY!

What's happening with the etoy writers such as roger? Will they be moving over to snackbar as well or is there some kinda cut happening?

Also, what's your hotel situation for E3 (given that you were invited), or your E3 situation period? Need a roomate again?

etoychest

Heya

Yea, it's funny. I got my invite to go to E3 during GDC before a lot of my coworkers here at Gamasutra. They'll let anyone in these days I guess. LOL. Not sure what my hotel is going to be there, as they will be arranging all of that. I ASSUME it was someone at Nintendo that recommended me going (since you have to be sponsored to go so I am told), though when I asked then they didn't seem to know or would not say. Oooo, mystery. So, no roomate this year, but if that situation changes I'll let you know.

Edit..as for writers...the staffs merged, so Roger at all are on board. It's a huge staff now...lots of writing going on.

Polago

etoychest wrote: »

Heya

Yea, it's funny. I got my invite to go to E3 during GDC before a lot of my coworkers here at Gamasutra. They'll let anyone in these days I guess. LOL. Not sure what my hotel is going to be there, as they will be arranging all of that. I ASSUME it was someone at Nintendo that recommended me going (since you have to be sponsored to go so I am told), though when I asked then they didn't seem to know or would not say. Oooo, mystery. So, no roomate this year, but if that situation changes I'll let you know.

Edit..as for writers...the staffs merged, so Roger at all are on board. It's a huge staff now...lots of writing going on.

I'll be expecting 10 in depth articles daily with your colosso-staff of typewriter monkeys. Or shakespeare. Either will do.

And i'll keep you updated on my E3 situation. Apparantly I might only be limited by whether I can find a place to stay (hotel), and split costs are always nice. It'd be rad if I could help you out too, but the company bouncers would probably repo my elbows.

Lukin

Ginsane wrote: »

The current snackbar-games layout makes my html heart bleed.

What's wrong with it? It's easy to read, it's clear, it's no abomination like 1up. The font may be a bit on the small side, but other than that I can't say anything negative about it.

Snowcone

taliosfalcon wrote: »

ShimSham wrote: »

While I understand why the merger came, I kind of preferred Etoy's site design. (at least one of the designs he used, it changed a lot)

thats because the snackbar site is fugly. It looks like a cat vomited out the main page. My theory is they outsourced the site design to a color blind ten year old

edit: the etoychest website was as awesome as the snackbar site is ugly

Ouch.... cat vomit? I know it's bad, but it's not that bad. It's bad enough that we have been working for the last 4 months on a new site and new codebase that I think you will be very happy with.

As far as old content, yes it is all being ported over a chunk at a time but with 600+ reviews and lord only knows how many editorials it's going to take some time.

The merger is going to ultimately be a great thing. Jason can focus on writing, something he is awesome at, and I can focus on site maintenance, something I do much better than write.

Snowcone

Let me see, the new layout is supposed to be a huge unveiling, but I'll go ahead and post a link that shows a bit of what we have planned....

http://www.snackbar-games.com/sneekpeek.jpg

LewieP

looks nice.

One thing that would be important to me, can every link be opened in a new tab with firefox. I hate it when sites have fancey flash/java buttons, but they just set it up so opening in new tabs leads to "javascript:void(0);" or similar.

scott_young02

Wow, that new layout looks much better. I literally stopped going to etoy after merger mainly due to snack-bar's current layout. To quote the literary genius, "it's so bad"

Snowcone

As a fellow user of Firefox and someone who hates not being able to control where things open up, I'll do my absolute best to ensure things don't open up all over the damn place without your control. We are only going to have a single fancy flash app and I don't quite know how that is going to open up links, but I'll do my best.

LewieP

Cheers, that's awesome of you!

Snowcone

scott_young02 wrote: »

Wow, that new layout looks much better. I literally stopped going to etoy after merger mainly due to snack-bar's current layout. To quote the literary genius, "it's so bad"

I found out just recently while doing some research on color theory that orange and red are about the worst colors you can use for websites. I thought the orange made us unique, when in really just made the site harsh. I had our current designer really trim out all the orange except for accent colors to create a better look overall. I think its going to be a great design, but then again I am biased.

Snowcone

I should probably ask now, before we get too far down that road...

Is there any other feedback that you guys can provide?

Note: This is absolutely not an attempt to Site Whore. I've been around long enough to know that isn't cool.

Variable

I'm glad the site changing was a running joke at etoy... I've been going there for as long a I can remember and it's been consistently different almost weekly for years.

LewieP

I'd love to give more feedback!

to prevent if being a site-whore, you want me to start a thread on it?

do you just want feedback on site design, or content too?

Snowcone

LewieP wrote: »

I'd love to give more feedback!

to prevent if being a site-whore, you want me to start a thread on it?

do you just want feedback on site design, or content too?

Mainly site design at this point. You can start a thread or just continue in this one if you like....

FunkyWaltDogg

I don't think anyone would consider it sitewhoring since an unrelated party started the thread specifically about the site.

thegloaming

Regarding the new layout -

The orange color scheme is really hard on the eyes. I'm not sure how attached you are to it, but perhaps you could slightly alter it? Blue's all the rage nowadays.

Snowcone

thegloaming wrote: »

Regarding the new layout -

The orange color scheme is really hard on the eyes. I'm not sure how attached you are to it, but perhaps you could slightly alter it? Blue's all the rage nowadays.

The sneak peek I posted is actually the only place that orange appears in the whole layout. It's mostly white and grey from that point on. I am not attached to orange as denoted by the lack of it in the new layout, but too much blue might force a logo change for fear of looking just like the new PA Forums.

Newres

Snowcone wrote: »

I should probably ask now, before we get too far down that road...

Is there any other feedback that you guys can provide?

Note: This is absolutely not an attempt to Site Whore. I've been around long enough to know that isn't cool.

If I click on a article, say an interview about a game, than some fast links about the game would be nice directly from that page. (In addition a recent articles by this author a related articles menu)

Also a slightly faster site really would not hurt. Altough that might be a problem on my end, but I found etoychest noticeably faster.

LewieP

Yeah, I guess this thread is ok for it.

Anyway, things I would like, but by no means are these essential, just my tastes -

1. The previous point I made about not restricting how I browse the site.

2. Currently you have a "Recent Articles" on the top left, I think something like this is great, but maybe to make it easier, have a "Recent Reviews", "Recent Previews" and a "Recent Features". Seperate them into the type of artical they are. (looking again at the sneek peek, it seems like you might be doing it)

3. Search bar - I allways think that there should be a search bar as close to the top and left that makes sense in the site layout, whereas currently you have it under the podcasts

4. I'm a sucker for the random stuff that google do, to make the site different on special days, maybe something similar you could do - have a small gif of video game character/logo you love visable on he homepage somewhere, and cycle it every 24 hours, just a s a bit of fun.

that's all I can think of for now, I'll let you know if anything else comes to mind.

edit: I agree strongly with what Newres said.

Snowcone

Newres wrote: »

Snowcone wrote: »

I should probably ask now, before we get too far down that road...

Is there any other feedback that you guys can provide?

Note: This is absolutely not an attempt to Site Whore. I've been around long enough to know that isn't cool.

If I click on a article, say an interview about a game, than some fast links about the game would be nice directly from that page. (In addition a recent articles by this author a related articles menu)

Also a slightly faster site really would not hurt. Altough that might be a problem on my end, but I found etoychest noticeably faster.

I like the idea about the links. The recent articles by this author is something we currently do. Speed is going to be of the essence as I continue to build the new site. I am just not happy with the lag when the page is loading.