PSA: Still Working in Pravda’s Potatoe Fields

Geoffrey Wright | September 19, 2016 | Feature | No Comments

Last week marked our third anniversary here at OGUK and so it’s time for that yearly update. Indeed, I have dropped the ball on not having the usual message ready for then though, and I’ve already been punished by the team for the transgression. All my Beef & Pork ramen stocks have been replaced with Chicken & Prawn. It’s a cruel world. I may not survive the winter.

Heading into our fourth year now things have been looking up with regards to traffic in particular. There’s been a good boost these past few months, although there was some teething problems which regular readers may have noticed. The dreaded ‘Server 500’ used to flag up a lot as the server buckled, especially during reviews, but I’ve now plonked the max resources I can through our host without moving it to a private server just yet. There’s still the odd time a ‘server reset’ error is displayed, but the site as a whole seems to be running much smoother now. Sure, it costs more money to run the site now – But I’ve still no plans to incorporate adverts just yet. Likely see how things pan out in this next year.

Now the 1st year of the new site is gone and everything consolidated, most folk here are looking at new ways of expanding. Regular readers may have noticed a Mobile review section popping up not too long ago, unfortunately that’s been put on hold as the staff heading it are away at the moment. Some staff have been branching out, Andi has a podcast focusing on fighting games that he does with an ol’ contributor to the site (SteelballJack) and Des has been really busy on Indie titles of late. For myself I’m looking at stepping back a little and focusing on obscure games & releases from small studios (like Critical Hit I reviewed recently). We may end up doing something like a fortnightly podcast of our own where we chew the fat about all the important topics in gaming – such as why its a travesty Katyusha doesn’t have her own tank based game yet. At the moment though it’s a case of waiting till all the staff are back and then cracking the whip to see what we can do in the coming year. Even though our staff roster has grown, it still sometimes feels like a skeleton crew is sailing the ship at times.

Which means we are still interested in giving those keen on trying a hand at reviewing games an oppurtunity, so contact Andi at contact@otakugamers.uk!

We hope our readers will stick around for what could be an interesting year ahead for the site!