When we left Gaming Mommies nearly 2 years ago, it was a tough time, brought forth under less-than-ideal circumstances. It was a time filled with a lot of unpleasant feelings, piled on top of a determination that we could build our own online presence, even if we didn’t really know what the purpose of that presence was yet.
Out of that slag came Some Awesome. For many reasons that I won’t go into here, we quickly realized that it wasn’t going to work, and we shelved the main site. Suffice it to say, you can’t build something positive on the backs of anger and grief. And so it goes.
We knew there was something special there though. So for the last year, I’ve been steadily refining the concept for the site, and then building it. I’m proud to say that we’re now very close to release, but we need your help.
What is SomeAwesome.com?
The simplest way to explain the new site, is as a place where one can go to earn free games by writing game reviews. Authors start with 10,000 points, and can use those points to redeem games (games cost anywhere from 100 to several thousand points) via Steam key. After they play those games, they come back to site to review them, and those reviews earn them more points they can use to redeem more games.
The site is built around a system that automates the majority of this process, outside a simple moderation route that I currently run myself, to make sure you aren’t just writing the word poop 100 times and trying to publish it 😉 We have no intention to alter tone or beat you over the head with an Oxford comma. We just need to make sure basic guidelines are met.
You can read more about How It Works on the site itself.
How Can I Help?
What I need right now is testers. Specifically, people to test the redemption/review loop, point out inconsistencies, and just try to break the site in general. We’re calling this phase a Closed Beta, and the plan is to launch Open Beta on the New Year’s Day, at which point, anyone who has published a review will receive 2 invites to send to people they know who might be interested.
You can fill out the form at the end of this article to sign up for authorship, and I’ll be taking people in groups of 3 at a time, in order to allow myself enough focus for any issues arising from each group. In other words, if you’re not immediately contacted after signing up, please don’t take it personally. It’s just easier for me to manage this way.
Many of you have expressed a desire to donate to the server, and this is a good way to do so. In return, you get some free games, and once the site takes off, it results in more players for the server, since we’ll be regularly cross-promoting. Really it’s a win-win for everyone here.
When Do We Start?
I’ll be picking the first group on December 1st, which is the first day of Closed Beta, but please feel free to submit your signup below as soon as you want. I’ll pick a new group every Friday to add to the existing authors.
I’ve worked very hard on this for the last year and I really believe in it. I hope you can help me out and have a little fun along the way too. 🙂
Thanks,
~Serverus