The Resurrection of Treasure Bin: One Year Later

Well, it was one year ago today that Treasure Bin got its face lift after two years of inactivity.  So, here's a look back on the past year, and looking forward to the next.

Over the past year, my writing style has changed. I can tell from the way I write now, versus the way I wrote my early reviews.  Shadows of the Damned? Crimson Tears?  They're nothing like the reviews I write now.  I like what my reviews have become.

I do, however, want to address one comment that I've heard from a lot of people.  Several people have asked why I don't assign an aggregate score or rating scale to my reviews.  There's a reason why I do this.  Too many review sites have that aggregate and scoring system, which I feel doesn't do these games justice.  When you consider that Obsidian Entertainment was denied a bonus because their Metacritic score of Fallout New Vegas was one point below the 85-point threshold, I don't want to be part of that.  Also, it helps Treasure Bin stick out.  I try to point out what I liked and didn't like, and let you be the judge.


Blogger allows me to track some metrics of where people find my site, like referring links, the google search keywords they used, and where my readers are reading from.  Here's a little infoporn for you:

Some of the more "interesting" google searches:
1) Catwoman Arkham City Facesitting
2) sex tony hawk
3) guy yelling
4) ISHYGDDT
5) Using tape for ddr

Most viewed articles on Treasure Bin:
1) Review: Mortal Kombat (2011)
2) Top 5 Video Games Based on Anime
3) Wishlist: What I want in Tony Hawk HD
4) Review: Dragon Warrior Monsters
5) Review: Legend of Mana



Top referring sites:

1) Google
2) raptr.com
3) americanswhohateobama.com (wait, whut?)
4) gamegrep.com
5) n4g.com

Preferred Operating System:  Windows (83% of page views)
Preferred Web Browser: Firefox (31% of page views)

So, with one year under my belt, here's what I want to do to improve:

• Get another regular columnist writing here. It would be nice to have more opinions beyond my own on Treasure Bin, especially another regular column.
• Add guest articles. I really want to add voices besides my own here.  I've already approached a few people about adding a guest article, but perhaps a regular column around this might be worthwhile.  If you're interested in writing one, post in the comments or email treasure.bin.comments@gmail.com and I'll see what I can do.
• Improve my writing/reviews. I can tell that my writing style has improved, but I want to make it better.
• Post more gaming news related articles. While I don't want to become a rumor mill, I want to start writing more articles based on upcoming games, topics relevant to gaming, and similar stories.  This should be easy to implement, so expect more articles in the future.
• Add the occasional off-topic post. This could be about anything and everything.  However, I want to keep these to a minimum, if possible.  It's too easy to have random rants overtake my blog.  I don't want that to happen.

With that, I'll be signing off.  To another year, and many more awesome posts!

Cheers!