A New Era Beginning Soon at OS...

[rockchisler]

I'm late I just downloaded the mobile version last month.

[mdiggitydawg]

as a long time member, and albeit old school, turning 50 in 2 months...will the forums be the same way? As much as your articles, which I love, i do come to learn about sliders, rosters, players' views...bugs etc. and then make my purchasing decision based on what I've learned... also, sadly i agree, not a fan of video or podcasts... i like to quietly read and digest for myself...but such is life.
This is the only place I come for my video sports info

[Bryzine21]

Nooooo! Please don't take my number ratings.

[Guapo516]

I've been thinking over the last year or so that games need evolving scores, not only is it fair to the consumers but fair to games that improve over time. I'd hope you guys reconsider that as an option, I don't think people would be so confused.

[ps3veron]

Congrats OS! I have been with you guys since 2008 and this is one site, I visit consistently almost every single day.

However, I'm old school and I like my numbered reviews. I know several sites have gotten rid of them but mentally I keep translating what I read to a "7" or a "9".

Nevertheless, this his home and we are in this together!

[Northernwolf]

I think change can be good for OS, but I'm not sure this is the way to go guys.

First off, the logo looks clean and simple. That's fine.
I did find the article concept added below looked messy and lacked the clean simplicity the new logo articulates. Its a bit jarring to be honest.

The change in how people see the website is a real concern, and I use my own phone now to watch more OS news more than before. And it has not been very optimized for my phones.
So I get the need for a change in the way things are being written and seen, but don't loose the depth of what you have made already.

E-sports: I know its a growing sphere, but this is covered quite well on a lot of gaming sites already. I think it makes very little sense to jump on this bandwagon guys. Stick to traditional sports.

Let me be clear: I don't think there is anything wrong with e-sports or the audience for it. Or the fact that its growing. The "scene" has been developing for years now. The two big gaming sites in my country are already covering e-sports in depth. International sites are already doing the same thing.
Sports games have gotten less attention in gaming sites, because they are often yearly iterations of themselves. The market is owned by one or two major developers for quite some time. So there is little news in it for standard gaming sites besides telling me there is a fifa tournament going on (often e-sports related), and of course the yearly reviews of said annual games.

So there is little original writing or takes on traditional sports games as is, im concerned this move will move this away even further.
OS gives depth to this and a lot of inside knowledge. I doubt this will disappear, but I think the move into e-sports is very mainstream. I hope this will not take away from what you have built here for years.

Overall I will say I understand the need to do this but I have to say at this point Im am more of a skeptic than a supporter.

[jct32]

Re: A New Era Beginning Soon at OS...

I just logged on today, was gone all day yesterday and thought this was a really subtle April fool's joke.

I feel like a fool looking at the post time now.

[sirwoodz]

I hope this new era includes less sensitivity from the moderators. i've been on here for a decade now, and only get on here a few months out of the year honestly - but in that small amount of time i see more locked threads and banned users for very small infractions. Loosen up a bit fellas.

[RogueHominid]

Happy to see a more mobile-friendly site for those who browse that way. I almost never access OS that way, but I'm in the minority there by a long shot, so I'm happy the majority gets a site tuneup that will help them enjoy OS on the go.

I'm not at all interested in e-sports getting any attention on OS. I tend to think that while e-sports can be fun for some and are certainly lucrative for developers, they tend not to conduce to the improvement of sports gaming for sim gamers. If OS is deliberating on what to do with e-sports on the site, and if a fuller commitment to coverage of that area is not already a fait accompli here at OS, I'd throw in my .02 in the form of a plea to keep that stuff out of here.

But again, I'm happy for the mobile upgrade, and I'm happy for the increased video content for those who want to see OS writers and other staff in that medium.

[iLLWiLL]

Re: A New Era Beginning Soon at OS...

Change is needed. Why I am still greeted with this large MFL Mutant Football League image to an article of a game that -- for me, personally -- I care absolutely nothing about? How old is that article anyway, 2-3 weeks old? It's way past stale.

I do like the idea of more videos; however like most people have said, I do prefer silently reading the content and obviously it's faster to get the information that way than to have a video load, and either wait for or fast-forward to the information you are looking for.

Overall, looking forward to a fresh new look...

[Bigg Cee]

I can't wait to see what happens!

I hope I can still make my fight night threads looks sweet.

Also finally we're getting rid of the number rating next to your name. It's worthless if it's broken and no one else can rank up. I want my number higher then a 0 but can't since it has never worked for me.

[ffaacc03]

Change is always welcomed ... then again, as long as you guys keep the text articles, all will be fine with me ... even more, if you do some video or podcast based article I would really appreciate some text along with it, like a summary or something alike.

[SportsGameGod]

So in other words go to Metacritic for reviews and go anywhere else for coverage of games since everyone thinks they have present things exactly the same.

[The Senator]

Can't say I like much of anything I read about this overhaul. I couldn't care less about social media, I access the site on my computer and never had a problem with that, I much prefer reading a good well written article over watching some video(I can read much faster than you'll speak, and can multitask easier that way), and I feel that when it comes to sports games, e-sports hurt our genre much more than it helps, in terms of providing a solid, realistic "sim" approach.

I always thought that one of the best aspects of the OS community is that we're generally in agreement that we want to see our games reflect the sports they represent in as accurate a way as we can get without compromising the gaming experience. E-sports generally move away from that and take away many of the real aspects of the sport to replace it with a sterile "fair" environment to foster big money matches, with Madden being the biggest example. Anything that takes away from the purity of the stick skill gets purged from the game, like botched snaps or penalties away from the ball.

I digress however, as an old school user of the site who peruses the articles on my PC, I just don't see much good coming for my experience, and I'm sure I'm not alone here. All I ask is that people like me are considered in this change, too.

[RaychelSnr]

Can't say I like much of anything I read about this overhaul. I couldn't care less about social media, I access the site on my computer and never had a problem with that, I much prefer reading a good well written article over watching some video(I can read much faster than you'll speak, and can multitask easier that way), and I feel that when it comes to sports games, e-sports hurt our genre much more than it helps, in terms of providing a solid, realistic "sim" approach.

I always thought that one of the best aspects of the OS community is that we're generally in agreement that we want to see our games reflect the sports they represent in as accurate a way as we can get without compromising the gaming experience. E-sports generally move away from that and take away many of the real aspects of the sport to replace it with a sterile "fair" environment to foster big money matches, with Madden being the biggest example. Anything that takes away from the purity of the stick skill gets purged from the game, like botched snaps or penalties away from the ball.

I digress however, as an old school user of the site who peruses the articles on my PC, I just don't see much good coming for my experience, and I'm sure I'm not alone here. All I ask is that people like me are considered in this change, too.

I'll restate what I said earlier in the thread: we're looking to add aspects to the site not take anything away.

Nowhere in this announcement are we saying we are replacing text content with multimedia or sim content with e-sports -- the desire is to add it on top of what we're already doing. If anything, our new CMS and more modern architecture on the backend is going to greatly enhance/enable our ability to deliver even more text-based content as well.