Alright so I have been meaning to make this post for awhile now and just remembered it at this moment. Although it is past 3 am here, I wanted to post it before I forgot again so if it rambles or goes all over the place it's because I'm very tired. Here goes:

I have been a member of The Game Heroes since it opened (check my registration date). I came here because I was a fan of Handsome Tom's. I was introduced to his work from his reviews on GameTrailers. I never went to the Screwattack website but I knew he did Side-scrollers and watched all of the Classic Game Reviews on GameTrailers (I also watch the AVGN vids on GT but that is irrelevant).

One day I noticed Tom was not on the reviews anymore and instead was "replaced" by some weird sounding person. I looked up what happened and found out about the whole situation from HealingTouch. I also learned of The Game Heroes there, which had not yet opened but the release was only a few days away by the time I caught up with all of this so I eagerly awaited the new site.

Although I was never part of the Screwattack community itself, I wanted to be a part of TGH community because it was new and fresh. I felt more like I would belong by being here at the beginning rather than trying to inject myself into an already established, already huge community like SA. I was also not too pleased with how Craig treated Tom. I'm still not tbh.

So I began watching the shows and posting on the forums because I wanted to support him. Much to my delight, I quickly fell in love with everything Game Heroes. All the shows were awesome. All the people were awesome. Geoff Sexiness, Jordan Doom, Perfect Liz, Mickey, and of course Tom. Then there was Jared, Camerman Joe, and Andy The Movie The Game. Mike Dodd from the Prototype and recently Limited Edition Jason and Orlando joined up. Hopefully I didn't forget anybody! (Anybody remember Producer Shane?)

These are all very cool people who I wanted to hang out with in the real. I found myself often wishing I didn't live all the way in New York because it must be nice to have a group of friends like that all into video games as much as you guys are (my friends are more into sports and I am called a nerd for liking games). One of the best parts about the site was that it was so laid back that watching a podcast sort of felt like hanging out with the gang so to speak. For that brief time watching the video, it was like I got to be a part of the group. I liked this.

Everything started with a bang, presumably because Handsome Tom didn't have anything else to do but work on the site, but then it slowly started dying off. I have pondered why this happened and the answer seems simple. People just got too busy with other things.

See the reason Screwattack became so successful is that Tom and Craig viewed it as their job (in fact this is what led to the problems). Anything else they did, like Tom working at EB Games, wasn't as important as Screwattack. People knew him as Handsome Tom from Screwattack, not Handsome Tom from EB Games.

But with The Game Heroes, the site was more of a hobby than his job. Tom is now a successful business owner of (I think two?) pizza places. Running these establishments is his job. The Game Heroes is his hobby. That is why the site has declined. That isn't to say he made the wrong choice or that I am complaining, but I feel this is a major contributing factor.

For awhile, 8-Bit Mickey seemed to be running things. I remember him Tweeting or posting on Facebook about how he wanted TGH to become his full-time job and was trying to make that happen by putting a ton of work into it. He put out a lot of content, and was in even more videos than Handsome Tom at one point. I feel like the turning point for Mickey was when he got on The Tester. He came back and still helped out a lot, but you could tell he just wasn't as into the site anymore. It was almost as if he got "too big" for TGH and decided to go work on something else instead.

TGH has lost a lot of other dynamic personalities over the years. Of course Geoff Sexiness and Jordan Doom leaving hurt, but the site was still growing in popularity even after they were gone. Losing Andy The Movie The Game was also a detrimental blow, but I think the site had already started declining long before he left.

When all is said and done, the biggest reason that TGH has declined is a simple lack of content. Remember when they did weekly podcasts? Another turning point in the site can be seen when they transitioned from weekly to monthly. The podcast was supposed to get bigger and better, but it didn't. It pretty much stayed the same, but now just required 1/4 of the time commitment. Again, the reason behind this is because everybody was just getting busy with other stuff so the site was put on the back burner more often.

Soon it got to the point where monthly podcasts were late for one reason or another or sometimes missed completely. Fans started leaving the site because there just wasn't enough content to keep their attention. You had to wait weeks for things you wanted to see, and sometimes it never came. I think I remember seeing E3 videos one year in like September or October.

The podcast itself also began to grow stale. It would be a letdown to wait for the podcast to come out for a month then see that over half of it was just answering forum questions. There wasn't enough going on in the videos to keep people coming back (though I am very happy with the video game challenge addition to the podcast and think it is much improved now than what it was a year ago).

I admit even I stopped coming to the site or a good while. I'm not really a huge anime or comic fan so the Yamagato stuff was never appealing to me personally. Therefore the only things I had to look forward to on the site were The Game Heroes podcast (which was overwhelmed with forum questions), The Prototype podcast, and the occasional review or top five. That ends up being something like 3 or 4 videos per month. Not enough!

Since I obviously made this post way too long to the point people may not even read it let me wrap it up. Bottom line is, TGH site has been on the decline because there is not enough frequency in content. Tom always says there's lots on the way but there needs to be even more than that! If this site can ever return to its former glory, there needs to be something new posted every single day. Give people a reason to check the site everyday. The weekly news videos are a very good start (they are now my favorite part of the site to be honest) but augment them with other weekly content. Do a quick review every week. Increase the podcasts to two a month, then alternate weeks with The Prototype so that you end up having a podcast every week. Bring back some of the novelty shows like Classy Finds (if Jared is still around), Five Minutes to Burn, and post more frequent Sketch Masters.

Hopefully someone reads this whole damn bible of a post and that it can help the site. Don't take anything I've said as a complaint, I still love TGH and I'll always be around. You guys are great and I just hope the site can make a comeback cuz I would hate to see this place die. If there's any way I can help, let me know.

We're in the same boat in regards to our relationship to the site. I've made most if not all the same observations that you have. However I do not see the need for daily content in order to bring on a new revival for the site. When it comes to putting out videos, all things considered, I think everyone, especially Tom, has done a great job of putting out consistent content, despite having a pared down crew. But I do still think your points on that are valid.

Here are 3 things I recommend to impact viewership and community interaction:
A: Augment time between weekly videos with community interaction - This means actively build casual gaming relationships with viewers on this site. You play games. We play games. No doubt this is already taking place behind the scenes. Make it part of the scene here.

B: Hold Competitive Online Tournaments: You have a website. People like to see their names on a website when they have accomplished something. Have competitions regularly, but never on a whim. Promote them in your social networks. A lot of those who compete may not even stick around for the podcasts, but you'll build a name for yourself. There's some stickiness there.

C: This one might sound ridiculous, but hear me out. Find a way to display video length next to the videos on the website. People will cycle through a ton of videos each day, but will only give your video attention if the video length does not interfere with their "busy" schedule. With time being an unknown factor before clicking a TGH video, people may immediately decide it is not worth their time.

None of these options require the need to change your video schedule, though tournaments and community play may present opportunities for new content. Things like the online tournament would have some logistical challenges that I haven't thought through, but it would be worth evaluating.

To be honest I think that your first two suggestions would actually take more time and work than bumping up the frequency of videos. I also don't think there's still enough of a community for increasing the level of interaction to make a difference. How fun would a tournament be with just a few people?

I do like your third suggestion of putting the video length next to the video on the main page. I think they should also aggregate their content on one video provider rather than across both Blip and Youtube. You are effectively cutting your view count in half and channels that get more views are usually taken more seriously by people.

Anyway, there is one sure-fire way to popularize a website or Youtube channel and that is content, content, content. For example, I write an Xbox 360 column online where I had to build up my readership from nothing by writing multiple articles per day (check link in my sig). I now get hundreds of thousands of views. I still believe more frequent content would help this site get back on its feet and came up with this scheduling last night while I was asleep. The days are just examples and could be tweaked to whatever they feel is best but imagine if the site ran like this:

Monday - Podcast (alternating weeks between Prototype and Gameheroes)

Tuesday - Game review (alternating weeks between classic and new)

Wednesday - Novelty show (rotating weeks between Sketch Master, Classy Finds, 5 Minutes to Burn, Top Five, and whatever else they come up with)

Thursday - Article day.

Friday - The Game Heroes weekly news. Recaps that weeks news in a few minutes.

Saturday - Yamagato stuff

Sunday - User submitted feature.

I sympathize with the guys. I'm a tad older than HT but I realize with his busy schedule putting stuff out is probably extremely hard. So I try not to criticize much.

Having said that, I do agree with Xander756 on many things. I think it's obvious the site has greatly declined from 2-3 years ago. In fact in some ways I barely call it a site. Things are definitely not regular around here. We can go over a week with nothing new, then a Prototype pops up, the Weekly News many times isn't even weekly. And the Game Heroes Podcast.....yeah I don't know what to say. I enjoy it enough but I'm not sure it's even worth doing anymore. It's certainly not better than it used to be.

With all the people coming and going it's been hard to keep anything regular around here. I loved Take Two, the Mickey Spoiler Alert, and The Music, but they're gone. We haven't seen a new game review or a Classic Game Review in forever. I really come here for the Prototype, I still think it's an excellent podcast. But I agree with Xander756 that if this is going to keep alive long term, there has to be some regular content updates, and I mean from the main crew. It doesn't have to be daily per se, but you can't go over about 2 days without something.

And also the elephant in the room, the site still isn't finished. It's still in open beta and it's been that way, what, over a year now?

I agree with Xander on everything he pointed out. I used to come here every often especially when the website first launched. I loved everything about it, the podcasts, the classic game reviews and the Ultra podcast etc etc. I'd regularly posts threads participate in the weekly forum questions. I love the fact it was so laid back it was almost just like hanging out with your friends talking about games. The website started to decline for when the weekly podcasts were always late for some reason or another. I understand that Tom and the rest of the crew have lives beyond this website so I didn't complain. But once the classic game reviews were gone and the podcast went monthly to "improve" the podcast as a whole, I left. The podcast was just stale and for a quite a bit of time it seemed like the crew was just going through the motions and rushed through the podcast just to get it out.

And after Andy left and Mickey left there was too few content here to keep me coming back. New shows like Take 2, Mickey's Spoiler Alert would come in and appear for an episode or two then never be heard from again. In its heyday it was a great site but now its just a shell of its former shelf or what it could be. If there isn't enough fresh daily content to keep us the viewers coming back then you might as well pack up shop.

I check in every now and then but nothings really changed except for the new website makeover that has been in open BETA that was almost over a year and half ago?

Just reading thru what has been posted here and I'll have a talk with Tom for sure.
I am glad that you are all still enjoying the Prototype and sticking with it while I get things sorted out on my end.

Still, I want you all to know that I definitely value all of your input as community members and as those who have been with us since the beginning. I like some of the ideas that have been proposed here for sure.

Have you guys ever considered going through YouTube and finding some reviewers and other content generators and ask them if they wanted to join the site. I think that could be the problem, instead of just you guys doing content, bring in some other people. (RetroWareTV is a good example, or even the site that shall not be named)

For awhile we had stuff like the Ultra Podcast & How To Play The Game on the site helping out, which were stuff that was not created by Tom, Mickey & Joe (even if Shane & Geoff were friends, It was usually filmed in a different location and was edited and everything from Shane I think.)

It is a lot harder to get noticed these days on the internet and specially on Youtube compared to 4 years ago, I'm sure theirs a handful of hungry talent wanting to get noticed right now, so why not ask?

This is something I've been thinking about for awhile now, I know they probably want to keep the site more within the group but Tom & the rest of the Game Heroes simply don't have enough time to run a site anymore by themselves, thank god for Mike Dodd & The Yamagato guys for helping out this long.

So that's what I suggest, go around youtube and scouting some talent, and maybe setting up some sort of "submit your videos" thing on the site and see if anyone is interested.

-Reviewers
-Podcasts
-VG Music Covers
-Comics
-Original Gaming Related Shows

Other things I would suggest but I know that it's getting harder and harder with having free time but maybe some live streams with the Game Heroes crew, maybe more Top 10/5's, more reviews, etc.

That is a good idea Jay. Sort of like how Screwattack utilizes the AVGN and how TGH had The Game Jew for awhile. Perhaps something like a gameplay commentator? This guy is an up-and-comer with some good commentaries and high quality video editing: http://www.youtube.com/user/officerhall04

http://www.youtube.com/user/JHMDF/videos?view=0
What about this dude, he doesn't really do reviews, but he films vids at his gaming flea market table (and goes around to other tables) he also works for the band KoRn so thats pretty cool, also was recently on an episode of The Game Chasers.

http://www.youtube.com/user/SuperFXmusic
Or these guys, i just found them recently (they got like 32 subscribers) and they make video game music, right now they got Megaman covers, and a few Street Fighter stuff, they literally just started.

http://www.youtube.com/user/OttotheOtte ... eos?view=0
Or this girl, she does video game guitar covers. (she has less than 2000 subs)

http://www.youtube.com/user/hatebitpodcast
You could talk to the guys at the Hate Bit Podcast about bringing their show to this site (A podcast that has the popular AlphaOmegaSin, and his other cool friends on there) (a little over 2000 subs)

http://www.youtube.com/user/jparecki95/videos?view=0
This guy also does some VG guitar covers and has less than 200 subscribers.

and theres so many more people out there that would probably jump at these kind of offers to be apart of a site like this. with an already established fanbase and stuff.

Myself and Kaiserhawk make video game videos too. Just sayin'
http://www.youtube.com/user/mscupcakes91

This guy is a winner. He videos his flea market/pawn shop hunts. He gets some crazy good finds including a box full of classic SNES games for $1 - $2 a pop.

http://www.youtube.com/user/GameHunterVideos

Plus you have an awesome accent that is funny to listen to during livestreams.

Keepin' it real and in house...thats not my Yootoob channel >:{