Question: Blog vs Forum For Gaming Niche

[Cashdreams]

Sry I'm on my phone at work, search sucks to use on this phone. I have a friend(honestly a friend) who is a hu gegamer. I want to try and help him make a site that he can (via me) pour his knowledge into. I'm hoping to help bring in a large numbering regular followers then sell ad space / affiliate something.. Would you guys recommend a blog or forum? I plan on doing the setup and auditing/posting of the material.. of course I'll take a nice cut as well as learn about implementing ideas for my own projects.

 

[ProMoney28]

I would prefer a Blog with a Forum if possible.

 

[bihguy]

I would prefer a Blog with a Forum if possible.

What this guy said.

 

[techno1]

Remember running a forum can be very costly, and attracting members to your forum can be very difficult as well.
Just keep this in mind.

 

[Faith]

Forum is stressful. There are so many forums fail because they do not have any members.
A Blog is better because you would get readers and some interactions. I'd suggest going for a blog and rank them

 

[mickyfu]

If you want to spend every minute of the day deleting spam off morons selling penis stretchers then go for a forum. If you want an easy time go with a blog.

 

[Derpinard]

Depends on whether you want to go for the so called 'general gaming', or would prefer to focus on a smaller subset of games (mmos, fps, rpgs, etc.). I would assume that building a forum is actually easier when people in your community actually have something in common with each other (i.e. they like the same kind of games). That way they would actually have a reason to interact in your forums.

I would also guess that forums are actually harder to monetize with ads and, as mickyfu said above, they are quite costly and time-consuming. Plus, you can always build a forum later once you have a decent number of regular visitors.

Good luck, let me know if you and your friend need some grumbling about 'how games went to shit' content written. I'd be happy to oblige

 

[mickyfu]

How about add a forum to a blog and if the forum does not start working out, simply delete the forum.

 

[Cashdreams]

Thank you everyone for the great input, I'm taking your guys advice on starting with a blog then possibly adding forum when it takes off!

Well it'll be a specific game that's focused on. My buddys' life practically revolves around this specific game, however, hes has ZERO self confidence in himself other than playing said game. I figure this would be a great way for him to get out of his shell and share/talk about what he loves, while building some confidence in himself with something that has a positive monetary outcome.

 

[MafiaBoss]

First Blog and if you succeeded just add a forum to sub-domain.

 

[MrClifford]

Having ran a gaming site for the past year I would say don't bother with the forum as of yet, just focus on getting quality content out to the readers. Once you start getting good traffic with a good bounce rate then consider opening up a forum. Little traffic + empty forum = fail

 

[Derpinard]

Well it'll be a specific game that's focused on. My buddys' life practically revolves around this specific game, however, hes has ZERO self confidence in himself other than playing said game.

Is it MINECRAFT ? That'd be funny if it is.

 

[Cashdreams]

Is it MINECRAFT ? That'd be funny if it is.

Thankfully no