I made a video showcasing snippets of various projects I am working on, from big to small. The song used is "What This Could Be" by The Hamster Alliance. I have a lot on my plate!
2014: Upcoming Projects
Santa Claus by Kat Smith
In 2010 (I think it was 2010), Kat Smith, an artist most known for her work with Whiskey Media, drew a picture of Santa Claus for Christmas. I printed it out with the intention of coloring it in, and several months later, I actually did! I did this back in the middle of 2011 and always meant to post it. I did it in crayon!
I think I did pretty good:
My "Heroes of the Internet" Trading Card
I figured now would be a good time to post my "Heroes of the Internet" trading card since I changed my username (and since Whiskey Media no longer exists).
When a Whiskey Media user completed a specific task (I don't think it's been officially revealed), these cards were emailed to them by Dave Snider. Each card is unique to the user it was sent to and feature pictures Dave took around the office. It was a neat thing that made me love Whiskey Media even more.
I unlocked card #0013, Brad Shoemaker. My old username can be seen at the bottom of the card. Though many of the cards remain secret, several more of them can be found here.
Japan: Arrival (Episode 01) - Making the Video
Making Japan: Arrival was a lot of fun. It being the first video I've ever truly edited - meaning I'm excluding the two very, very minor things I've edited in the past using Windows Movie Maker - meant that I had to get a program capable of doing what I wanted to do and learn how to use it on my own. After browsing reviews, I settled on CyberLink PowerDirector 9. I went to The Pirate Bay and torrented a copy (I soon purchased a legal copy of CyberLink PowerDirector 10 to replace it, which is what produced the final video) and was impressed by how fast it loaded up and how easy it was to use. Having practically zero experience with this sort of thing, I was expecting it to be more difficult than it was to figure everything out.
I watched all the videos saved in the "July 15th" and "July 16th" folders and threw them into PowerDirector. Totaling a little over six gigabytes with a run time of 35 minutes, most of the videos consisted of shots outside the window on the Narita Express. While the landscape was beautiful, watching a video of it would only be interesting for so long. I knew I would have to make some drastic cuts and throw in some music to make it watchable. Not wanting to risk having my videos taken down by YouTube or anything, I would either need to use some royalty-free music or get permission from someone whose music would be a good fit. I've been following Hamst3r for a long time now (before The Giant Bomb Community Song, even) and had the idea of using his music for my travelogue since the trip. I didn't want to just be some guy asking for his permission, however, so my plan was to make the video as if he had said yes and send it to him privately. I went to his website and listened to a bunch of tracks, going mainly off of their titles, until I stumbled upon "At Last...". It was both a fitting title and theme for the video, so I downloaded it and added it to PowerDirector.
Now that the music and videos were in, it was just a matter of making everything fit. Being a huge fan of the work done by 2 Player Productions on Penny Arcade: The Series (and later Vantage Point Productions), I had wanted to edit everything in a similar vein before we even went on the trip. (Being a huge fan of Whiskey Media has influenced my thinking when it comes to video editing, as well.) That's easier said than done, however, especially since no shots were planned on the actual trip, and it was just me walking around with a video camera. One of the main influences I took from these guys was editing the progress of the trip to the beat of music; it's not a concept they invented by any means, but they're where I got it from. "At Last..." is only two minutes long, so this meant making further cuts to the footage of the train ride. I ended up having to be very selective with the shots I chose, especially since each one would only last a couple of seconds at most. Maybe after the series is done I'll upload the whole files for people interested in them, but I'm happy with the final sequence. Most of my time was spent stretching out the file editor and shaving milliseconds off different clips to make the scenes change on the beats. I've probably heard "At Last..." almost a hundred times now!
Making something of your own is just as much about avoiding the things you don't like as it is copying the things you do. One of the things I find most annoying when watching a YouTube video are long opening credits - the kind where there is one sentence per page followed by slow fade transitions, all before you ever see anything of the actual video. I've always been a big fan of just jumping right into the action, which is why Arrival starts in the middle of me playing Rastan. Anything that needs to be said can be said later in the video after something has happened, preferably with something going on in the background.
After stitching everything together, I added in the ending credits over the television scene. Though I will always credit the work of others at the end of my videos, future credit segments will be far shorter. I felt it was appropriate to give them more time in the opening and ending videos, however. With the video nearly finalized, I uploaded it to YouTube and marked it private, embedded it into a PM and sent it off to Hamst3r to ask for his permission; he quickly got back to me and said it was fine. This happened over three months ago, and since I decided I wanted to start the project in 2012, I had plenty of time to make whatever changes I wanted to before January.
Only a few changes occurred between then and the video's release, most of them minor. I edited the opening paragraphs and added in the kanji ("Japan") under the late title card (I love late title cards). I also took out the "Special Thanks" section I had at the end of the credits, which listed Whiskey Media, Penny Arcade, 2 Player Productions, and Vantage Point Productions. I chose to remove this part to avoid confusion, as they had nothing to do with the video and may not want to be associated with it. The only major change was the final part of the video, the one that plays after the episode information pops up. Before, it was bit more ominous, with the camera slowly zooming in on one of the televisions in the Narita Express while an accident report for another train line shows up and the video then cutting to black. Then I had the idea of doing what I've seen the likes of Freddie Wong and Corridor Digital do (even Egoraptor does it now) and added in clickable annotations at the very end. I already had the perfect shot - the one where I scrolled through all the games on the Global Arcade Classics machine - so I took some screens of the Giant Bomb blogs I wrote along with the list of episodes and overlayed them on the sides of the arcade cabinet. Since the Arrival blog couldn't be finished until the video was uploaded, I posted an unfinished version on Giant Bomb, taking a screenshot and quickly deleting it. This was all before I found out you couldn't place external links in YouTube videos, so I ended up just adding an "All links in description." speech bubble. I also added a Subscribe button at the bottom and decided to take a screenshot from one of the videos I would be using for Episode 02 to later turn in to a link for the next video. I made sure annotations would only come up at the very end since I personally hate having to turn them off every time I play a video after one pops up.
The video was then complete. After asking a few members to watch it to ensure there weren't any issues with it (online playback was choppy on my computer), I soon finished the blog post and released the video to the public on January 12th.
Three more things:
1. Someone asked why everything looked blue. This was because for the first bit of the trip I hadn't realized the video camera was set to "Tungsten". Whoops!
2. In the introductory blog post I said I wanted to edit and show everything in chronological order. I already broke this rule with the first video, as the superfast train sequence after the tunnel actually happened before the tunnel. It was the only bit of footage I had that fit with that point in the music!
3. This is one of my favorite Penny Arcade episodes. It has thus far been impossible for me to watch it without at least one tear!
Here's Japan: Arrival. Episode 02 will be released in February! -
The Giant Bomb Community Game Giveaway: One Year and Counting
The first Game Giveaway was hosted on January 16th, 2011, in the Off-Topic forum. On July 1st, almost six months later, I wrote an in-depth blog post about the origin of the contest and provided some stats. I said pretty much everything I wanted to say back then, so this post will be far shorter.
First, let's start with the old stats that I wrote at the beginning of the aforementioned post:
- 28 games have been given away.
- 20 of those games were donations from 11 different people.
- 12 out of 28 games were physical copies and had to be shipped. Let's say it cost $7 average for me to ship each game, including cost of bubble envelopes, delivery confirmation etc. 12x7 = $84 spent. This does not include the cost of shipping that the two donors who sent physical games had to pay.
- 3200 Microsoft Points have been given away. These were digital codes, so I didn't need to pay shipping, meaning the cost was $40 total. This means, along with the cost of shipping the physical games, about $124 has been spent thus far.
- 30 people have won something.
- 1 contest began and ended while flying several thousands of feet in the air.
- Vito's Game Giveaway has never missed a week!
Now, the new stats as of The Giant Bomb Community Game Giveaway #100:
- 150 games have been given away. I count bundles as one game, so this number is actually far higher.
- Those 150 games are the result of my own donations along with 93 other donations.
- 22 out of those 150 games were physical copies that had to be shipped. Let's say it costs $7 for me to ship each game, including cost of bubble envelopes, delivery confirmation etc., and let's subtract one game since I wasn't the one who shipped it. 21x7 = $147. This does not include the cost of shipping the three donors who sent me physical copies of games had to pay.
- 3200 Microsoft Points have been given away. These were digital codes, so I didn't need to pay shipping, meaning the cost was $40 total. This means, along with the cost of shipping the physical games and the $25 I spent specifically on games (X-COM: UFO Defense and Bastion) to give away, about $212 has been spent thus far.
- 144 people have won something. Less than five of those people are repeat winners.
- 1 contest began and ended while flying several thousands of feet in the air.
- The Giant Bomb Community Game Giveaway has never missed a week!
The look of the contests haven't changed much since contest #23. The only major changes that have happened have been the name change from Vito's Game Giveaway to The Giant Bomb Community Game Giveaway (at contest #55) and the new banner (at contest #58 and done by Deusx), both of which are a result of my username change from my Internet pseudonym of 10 years (Vito Raliffe) to my real-life name of 23 years (CharlesAlanRatliff). As I mentioned in a previous post, the change was also because the community had donated far more than I by that point, so it didn't make sense for my name to be in the title.
As far as special events go, the most notable ones would be contest #50 where there were 15 winners to celebrate The Big Live Live Show, and contest #62 which marked the start of the contests happening daily (or near daily). The latter was originally as a celebration of Christmas and also because I had so many damn donations. The daily contests ran from December 1st to January 16th, which was both the one-year anniversary celebration and the 100th contest in total. The only reason they've returned to their weekly format since then is due to the amount of time it takes to do them every day. I wish to focus that time on other projects for now, though I'm sure daily contests will return sometime in the future.
Big thanks to everyone who's donated; we wouldn't even be close to contest #100 if it weren't for you! As always, their names can be found here and here.
The last two lines I wrote six months ago were
And seriously, you guys? With the way things are going, I fully expect Vito's Game Giveaway to run a whole year straight.
If you ask me, I think that's pretty fucking cool.
And that's exactly what happened. Here's to another year!
Here are the banners used December 1st through December 31st. The first banner was done by Deusx with c0l0nelp0c0rn1 adding the Santa hat for me. This was only used on December 1st for contest #62 before Deusx sent me his version in time for contest #63, which can be seen below.
StreetPass 3: Smithsonian Edition
Last month, on our way to visit our mom in Kansas for Christmas, my brother and I spent a few days visiting Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia, and Gettysburg. Having not had a StreetPass encounter since the ones with the Whiskey Media staff in June of 2011, I was eager for more. Luckily for me, at least three other people had the same idea on December 17th at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History. My Mii got to meet Max from Virginia, sarah from Virginia (I'm thinking they're from the same family since both of their Most Recent Software titles were nintendogs + cats), and nick from Coahuila de Zaragoza, Mexico. Max and sarah helped me finish my Pikmin and Metroid: Other M puzzles, respectively. I took more steps that day than ever before with a total of 7,545.
The Miis I met, along with some of the new features Nintendo added recently.
The next morning, on the 18th, I was excited for more SteetPass opportunities. If I got three in just one museum, how many would I get today? Though I crushed my previous record of 7,545 steps with a new, and current, record of 17,396, I got nothing. At first I was sad, but then annoyed because I realized the wireless functionality of my 3DS has been turned off somehow. I wondered how many encounters I missed as I turned StreetPass back on.
Ahhhhh, my legs!
I encountered another person, Aggan, on the 22nd while in Kansas, but only via Super Street Fighter IV. Much like my fights with Jeff and Matt, I got my ass kicked.
Fast-forward almost two weeks later and we pass by someone on a road near our home, will rhein from North Carolina, who happened to have their 3DS on as well. On the 13th, at the Genghis Khan exhibit in Raleigh, North Carolina, I encountered Fupo, also from North Carolina. Supposedly it was their birthday!
I think that price drop is working!
Japan: The Series
List of Episodes
On July 15th, 2010, my brother and I took a two-week trip to Tokyo, Japan. It was a place I had been wanting to go to since I was in elementary school, and I planned on filming the trip so I could make a series of videos afterward. We purchased a Canon VIXIA HG20 shortly before leaving, giving me just enough time to learn how to use it. It was then that I learned my computer was too weak to play the videos properly, not to mention that I had zero experience with video editing and didn't own a proper program to do so.
It's been nearly 18 months since we returned, and, with assistance from Will and Norm over at Tested.com, I finally have a top-of-the-line computer that can play the 1080p videos at full resolution. I recently got my first video editing program, too, settling on CyberLink's PowerDirector. I'm still amazed at how fast and easy the program is to use, and, though I've just started, I feel like I've learned a lot.
With over 300 videos totaling around 168 gigabytes, my goal is to whittle those down into a series of videos that are hopefully somewhat entertaining. I actually didn't film as much as I had planned to, opting to just enjoy the trip and not focus on documenting it. Because of this, I don't really have a set plan; I'm just organizing and editing these videos as I go, eventually turning them into something I feel comfortable showing other people.
As of right now, I intend to have each video in the series represent one day and be edited in chronological order, though I might throw an extra day in there if there's not enough footage. The first episode, which I'm titling "Arrival", is nearly done and takes place during July 15th and July 16th. Each episode will be accompanied by a blog post that I'll be posting across the various Whiskey sites. I imagine the Giant Bomb and Anime Vice crowds will be most interested in these, as you can't turn a corner in Tokyo without seeing something related to video games or anime. I also spent a lot of time in arcades, though I don't have much footage of that as they don't like people filming or taking pictures inside.
There's no set format for each video, since, as I said before, I'm just now editing them and will be releasing each one when it's done. My shots weren't planned, so the quality of the videos will be dependent on what footage I have and what I can do with it. I kind of prefer it that way, as I have no idea what an episode will be until I'm nearly done with it. I'm really enjoying the process; it's a completely new experience for me and gives a unique satisfaction that I don't get from writing.
On the subject of Japan, it's the only place I've traveled that I can say I would like to live at (though I probably wouldn't want to work there). I was taking Rosetta Stone courses to learn Japanese beforehand, but decided to stop a while before the trip for a very specific reason: that out-of-element feeling one gets when in an unfamiliar environment where they don't speak the language. I experienced it in France and Italy and loved it, and knowing that Japan is a place I'll be going to more than once, figured I could either have the one experience of knowing the language and culture, or have both experiences of not knowing what the hell is going on, and then returning later, fluent and far more knowledgable than before. I chose to have both experiences.
I think that's everything I wanted to say. The videos will be uploaded to YouTube (and my SmugMug account) and posted as blogs. Episode 01 will released on the 7th, and then I'll start working on Episode 02: Electric Town. All in all, this is just something I'm doing for fun to both showcase the trip and learn how to edit video.
Valve's Christmas Gift
I decided to do something special for Christmas 2009 and bought both sets of Valve's Left 4 Dead Holiday Cards. After filling them out for family and friends, I still had a bunch left over (there were a lot of cards), so I started filling out cards for things that don't fall under "family and friends", like Giant Bomb and Valve. Yes, I sent a Left 4 Dead themed Christmas card to Valve. This one, in fact:
I even drew a picture on the left side. What's on the right is none of your business! Not that it's anything personal - I just believe a message in a Christmas card should only be read by those it was sent to.
To my surprise, I received this envelope shortly after. Apparently they got my card:
So, what was inside? Why, Left 4 Dead bumper stickers, of course! The fact that they sent something back in return is pretty awesome:
Soon. Soon everyone will know your face.
Here's what I sent to Giant Bomb, back when they were in Sausalito!:
I picked this one specifically because it had Bill on it.
Deep.
Man, Christmas 2011 needs to hurry the hell up! I hope it gets cold in this part of North Carolina. If only Jack in the Box still carried taco nachos, I could celebrate Christmas just as I did then... by watching Giant Bomb content and eating delicious, greasy fast food.
Good times.
Here are the rest of the cards:
And here is White Fluffy Kitty attacking the cards:
And here is White Fluffy Kitty making amends for attacking the cards by licking my hand:
You are forgiven, Fluffy.
StreetPass 2: Giant Bomb Staff Edition
I haven't had a lot of luck with StreetPass encounters. Shortly after the aforementioned post, I met two other Miis in the form of Gamessa and Clif, making for a total of three people I've come across since the launch of the 3DS in March. My experience with this feature has been disappointing, especially since receiving duplicate puzzle pieces in Puzzle Swap is common when purchased with Play Coins, as opposed to being guaranteed a new piece when encountering a fellow player. Having never been to a convention where it's common for people to pack their 3DS, I was excited to see what would happen when I visited the Whiskey Media office on June 24th. Arriving back at my hotel later that night, I had completely forgotten that my 3DS was still on and in my pocket. I excitedly took it out and booted up StreetPass Mii Plaza to be greeted with this:
Can you guess who?
As you can see from the second pic, I totally had the inside scoop on Matt Kessler's first review.
I then loaded up Puzzle Swap to reap my rewards.
Patrick helped me finally complete my Mario and Bowser puzzle.
Though I've technically finished Find Mii, I still have a few more hats to collect. Here's what the guys look like when pissed off at ghosts.
Ryan is a badass.
I also had the StreetPass functionality for Super Street Fighter IV turned on, and was surprised when I saw that Jeff was one of my opponents since I didn't encounter his Mii.
They both kicked my ass, by the way.
And those are probably the last StreetPass encounters I'm going to have for a very long time.
Oh, and if there was still any doubt as to the identity of the man in the following photo (from this thread), I think Ryan's Mii is enough evidence to lay this mystery to rest:
Case closed.
Vito's Game Giveaway: Six Months and Counting
*This post is about a contest I host on Giant Bomb. It was written specifically for the members there.
The first Vito's Game Giveaway was posted on January 16th in the Off-Topic forum. Since its inception (bwaaaaaah):
- 28 games have been given away.
- 20 of those games were donations from 11 different people.
- 12 out of 28 games were physical copies and had to be shipped. Let's say it cost $7 average for me to ship each game, including cost of bubble envelopes, delivery confirmation etc. 12x7 = $84 spent. This does not include the cost of shipping that the two donors who sent physical games had to pay.
- 3200 Microsoft Points have been given away. These were digital codes, so I didn't need to pay shipping, meaning the cost was $40 total. This means, along with the cost of shipping the physical games, about $124 has been spent thus far.
- 30 people have won something.
- 1 contest began and ended while flying several thousands of feet in the air.
- Vito's Game Giveaway has never missed a week!
I've had a few people ask me why I started doing this. Sometimes the question is phrased in an almost mistrustful manner, as if it isn't possible for a person to just give away games without some insidious motive. It's perfectly understandable, really, with the Internet the way it is, though I still find it amusing whenever I see my threads mentioned elsewhere as spam.
The origin of Vito's Game Giveaway isn't very interesting. If you want to get really deep into it, it all started when I was younger and had to sell games to afford new ones. I've never been a collector, and I very rarely ever want to replay a game once I beat it. The ones I do, I keep. But the habit of selling games I no longer want to play stayed with me as I got older, even though it wasn't necessary anymore. So I was sitting at my desk, looking at a stack of 360/PS3 games I had organized into a pile of "things I probably won't play again", thinking to myself, "Welp, let's see how much I can get for these on eBay."
Now, eBay has been very good to me. It was even a major source of income at one point, making thousands of monies selling my old stuff and even selling stuff for other people, taking a cut. It was also, surprisingly, not a bad way to make money as a model photographer. But I was looking at these games, figuring out about how much I would make, and it suddenly hit me: Why not give them away to the community of Giant Bomb? Giant Bomb is awesome, and I wouldn't be getting a whole bunch of money anyway. I love Giant Bomb, and I wanted to do something to give back to the community, so to speak.
So I took some time to think about how I would do it, how much money I would be spending doing this and if that was something I'm OK with, etc. I also thought about if I should make people do something to enter that would directly benefit me, but quickly decided against it. I wanted this to be a contest for the community of the greatest video game site in the world, and I wanted it to be as easy, fair and non-sleazy as possible. Easy in that all a person has to do is answer a random question I've come up with (I mean, you guys have to do something), fair in that the winner would be randomly selected, and non-sleazy in that it would never be a requirement to do anything that would directly benefit me to enter.
I typed up a Notepad document outlining how I wanted to do it, found a random selecting tool, and eventually started the first Vito's Game Giveaway. JohnAsscream was the first winner, winning Alan Wake. I thought it was funny that he was the first to win, since he is one of the few people from the site I know. The contest would have only been rigged if I had chosen again to get a person I didn't know, however.
I had only expected Vito's Game Giveaway to last about six weeks, seeing as that's all I wanted to give away at the time. I then thought of maybe having a monthly contest where I give away $20 worth of Microsoft Points or something, using sites that let you buy points cards from other parts of the world so it wouldn't only be limited to those in the U.S. I also thought of buying cheap, used games that I could use to give away. These concerns were soon alleviated, however, when I started getting PMs from people offering to donate. Other users sending donations was honestly never something that entered my mind, but I wouldn't be writing this post if they hadn't. The first mention I made of donations was on February 15th in Vito's Game Giveaway #5, exactly 30 days after it all started. I had received my first donation by the seventh contest: an unused copy of Mass Effect 2 from zoskia. By the eighth contest I had received my second donation, this time from nintendoeats, who had donated four games. Out of all the donations I've received (and not to diminish the effort or value of the others), nintendoeats's would have to be my favorite. Every time someone wins a contest, I send them a PM titled "You're Winner!" asking for their details. nintendoeats is the only person to acknowledge the reference (whether that's because people don't know it or just don't say anything) with the awesome package he sent me:
Since then, eight others have also generously donated games. Big thanks to mosdl, rentfn, Kyreo, Sjosz, mracoon, rebgav, Dalai, and ArbitraryWater for always following through and keeping this going as long as it has.
Another question I've been asked is why don't people just give away the games themselves, instead of giving them to me first. I can't speak for anyone that has donated, but it's probably because it's easier. They don't have to make a thread, come up with rules, select a winner, and then send the game out. They can just give it to me and still get the proper credit they deserve. Sending a game out doesn't really matter anymore, either, since Vito's Game Giveaway has dealt almost exclusively in digital donations for a while now. I give the donor the winner's Steam ID or whatever, and they get sent the game. It's an easy process that saves everyone shipping costs!
The Look and Changes
The banner that has been at the top of every thread was done by Turbo_Toaster, who you probably know best as the fantastic artist who does all the quest icons, or for her work on Season 3 of the Bombcast (and Season 4 pretty soon!). It was a piece I hired her to do a while before the game giveaway was even thought of, but I thought it was fitting. I had asked her to do a drawing of me surrounded by all the major gaming platforms, with all of us happy and such, and I love what she came back with. I now use it as my avatar everywhere I go and have even had people identify me because of it. I'll probably need to have the DS and PSP changed out for the 3DS and Vita some time in the future, though!
Now to talk about how the contests have changed. I've always been fascinated by the evolution of something, and I don't think I've ever done anything for this long a time that I can look back on and be like, "Yeah, I can see what I was thinking there."
So... yeah, this next part is mainly for myself. You can probably stop reading now.
With Vito's Game Giveaway #1, I didn't really have a set plan; I just knew I wanted an image at the top that would become synonymous with the contest and myself. I also didn't know what Vito's Game Giveaway was going to become, so it was pretty simple to set up. I made sure to throw in a disclaimer in there about these being my own, used games, and that I wouldn't be held responsible if anything happened to them during shipping. I also had placed "Art by Turbo_Toaster" under the banner.
In Vito's Game Giveaway #2, I made things a bit clearer by using bold, underlined headers so people could quickly see how to enter and when the deadline was. I also added a "Previous Winners" section at the bottom, and announced the winner at the top along with how many contestants there were, which is something I've continuously done.
Vito's Game Giveaway #3 was the first contest to have games for different platforms, so I divided them up with a small header.
I threw in a "Quick Notes" section in Vito's Game Giveaway #4, which would be where I first mentioned donations in Vito's Game Giveaway #5. Giveaway #4 was also the first time I wrote the contest as a blog and attached it to the forums, as opposed to just making them threads. I did this so it would be easier for followers to know when a new contest started.
Vito's Game Giveaway #6 was when I started attaching the blog posts to the General Discussion forum instead of the Off-Topic forum. General Discussion is a more appropriate place since the blogs are about games. I was also hoping it would get the contests more views.
I added a "Donations" section to Vito's Game Giveaway #7, since it was the first contest where I had a donation. I also mentioned at the bottom that people could follow my Twitter and Facebook page for updates on contests.
Vito's Game Giveaway #8 was the first time I had a non-game-related question for people to answer, having everyone tell me what their favorite Brad Pitt movie was. This was the contest where nintendoeats sent me the "You're Winner!" box, and I couldn't stop thinking about the end of Se7en.
Vito's Game Giveaway #13 was where I introduced the big redesign by placing everything in tables. I also removed the "Art by Turbo_Toaster" caption from the banner, because we got into a huge fight. That was a lie. It was actually because I thought it made things look cleaner, and I figured that most people probably knew it was by her after 12 weeks. If newcomers wanted to know who it was by, I would happily tell them! This was also the lengthiest first post I ever made for VGG. I started toying around with using an image in the "How to Play" section, as well, using an image from Tangled. This was the first time where I mentioned a future Facebook-related contest.
Vito's Game Giveaway #14 continued the redesign of #13, albeit in shorter form. This was because I decided to make separate blog posts for the "Disclaimer" and "Donations" part of the contest and just link to them, saving a ton of space. It was also the last contest to use an image for the "How to Play" section. I mentioned in the notes section that when the "Past Winners" section reached 20 people, I would carry their names over to a separate blog post and start fresh with Vito's Game Giveaway #21.
Vito's Game Giveaway #15 was the first time I introduced the concept of a "Bonus" contest. I had three copies of Portal and decided to let people who just wanted Portal enter into their own little contest where they would have a much higher chance of winning. This was also when I had started moving and was staying at various hotels and using an annoying laptop to do all the work.
I was still moving during contests #16 and #17, so I put as little effort into them as possible. Vito's Game Giveaway #18 is when I started including the "How to Play" bit under the banner, all in the interest of saving space. I made the "Disclaimer" and "Donations" links a bit more prominent, as well.
Vito's Game Giveaway #21 was the first (and only) contest without a banner, due to me having a ton of trouble with the editor that night. I threw in a quick "How to Play" and the list of games people could win and left it at that.
Vito's Game Giveaway #22 was where I decided to just host all "Past Winners" in a separate blog post instead of including any at the bottom. I don't think it's something important enough to warrant being at the bottom of every contest, and most people probably don't care.
Vito's Game Giveaway #23 is probably the best-looking contest I've hosted thus far, and it's definitely a look I'm going to be keeping for a while. I mean, seriously, look how clean it is!
I hosted Vito's Game Giveaway #25 from a goddamn airplane. :@
Vito's Game Giveaway #20
I wanted to do something special for the 20th edition of the contest, so I decided to give away $20 in the form of Microsoft Points, PlayStation Network money, or Steam games. I also wanted to do something for myself while keeping in line with the "not making people do anything other than answer a question as a requirement" rule that I had set up from the beginning. I was a little concerned about how people would respond to it, but I made it so anyone who "Like"d my Facebook fan page (I know, I know...) would get an additional entry into the contest. The fan page is just a place where I link to blogs I write on Giant Bomb in an effort to get more views, so it all still ties into the site. I made it very clear that this way of getting an additional entry into the contest is only for VGG #20, and that it wasn't a requirement at all.
Regardless of what some may have thought about it, no complaints were voiced (at least that I saw), which I was happy about. It actually ended up being my most successful contest thus far, with 156 contestants total, and 54 of them participating in the Facebook drawing (it was actually a user's Facebook entry that won them the contest). My fan page went from around five fans to over 90 in just a few days. It was more successful than I expected it to be, and it's definitely something I will be doing again in the future.
The Future
There are some neat things happening with Vito's Game Giveaway later this year. While I'm not going into detail on most of it, I will say to be on the lookout for a special contest on July 20th.
I also wanted to mention that it was cool making it into the March 2011 and April 2011 editions of Ethan's Data Porn posts. I hope to one day make it into the "Most Viewed Blog" category without the allure of free video games, though I suppose that would require me to write consistently, first. Here's to hoping!
And seriously, you guys? With the way things are going, I fully expect Vito's Game Giveaway to run a whole year straight.
If you ask me, I think that's pretty fucking cool.