Happy New Year Everyone! Mike here! 2023 has been and gone and now we are into a new year which means new propositions, a new start, new games on the horizon and just new everything. I won’t lie, 2023 has been a bit bittersweet year for me. The video game world has been jam-packed with lots of brilliant games with Nintendo knocking out winner after winner on the Nintendo Switch like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Pikmin 4, Metroid Prime Remastered, Fire Emblem Engage, The Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed DLC and so much more.
On the flip side, real life things have been somewhat complicated this year. I have had to make a strong decision in what I want to achieve in my personal life and accept the realization that while I would love nothing more than to see our beloved website achieve new heights, with the way things are going with the Google’s and YouTubes Algorithm and SEO, it becomes harder and harder to stay visible and most importantly, relevant. We are proud of what we have achieved and am honestly surprised with how we have managed to keep going for so long. It may only be eight years since we started up Miketendo64 and we will be celebrating nine years in May, but when it comes to the internet, eight years is a long time and unless you keep up with the current trends, you may as well just retire.
Of course, we at Miketendo64 have never been one to just throw in the towel but we know when the game is not going in our favour so it is time for us to change the game. Do our own thing. Having looked at our own analytics to see what works and what doesn’t, we are going to change things up a little this year, hopefully for the better and create content that not only you would prefer to read, but the content we enjoy writing. Reviews, Interviews, and Features will still be sticking around but we will be changing how we look at covering News. We are not afraid to admit that news is our weakest content in terms of views and engagement.
This is mainly because of how the algorithm works when it prefers to push the content of larger websites and edges smaller sights down the search page, regardless of whether that site published the content first. The other problem that we have with new is the way it is handled in this day and age with larger websites focusing more and more on clickbait articles that are packed with filler content and then a short blurb of what the actual article is all about, which they have only gone and ripped from another website anyway because it is better for SEO than using the actual source that the news came from. Gone are the days where professional journalism used to mean something and rather than fall down the rabbit hole ourselves, we opt to cover news on our own terms, meaning direct sources and no nonsense (well maybe a little nonsense but certainly no bloat). Also, a little more personality wouldn’t be such a bad thing either. After all, we are gamers too and have our fair share of opinions that we would like to express.
Instead, for this year, we are going to try something different and go back to our roots a little bit. Miketendo64 started out as a blog and so, I will be started up some more frequent content that I wish to publish daily but it may vary as we continue through the year. The purpose of this new content which I have haven’t quite settled on what I am going to call it or how I shall structure it (kinda sitting on M64 Latest for the moment as a callback to some of our earlier content), but its purpose will be to provide updates and our own takes on the daily news regarding videogames. I also plan to provide updates on what games I am actually playing on the day along with what progress I have made and if I am stuck on a particular part. By doing so, I hope to engage with you at home so that you can also tell me what you are playing and if you have played the same game, you can help me work out where I have got stuck and vice versa. If you are currently playing a game that I have played, I can help you out in return.
Another thing I hope to achieve with starting up the blog content is that it will allow me to get feedback from you as a reader. I would like to know what kind of content you would like to read, what games would you like us to review, and games you are currently playing and if there is anything you may need help on. Engagement and community is important in running this website and engaging with you and hearing your kind words or constructive criticisms is what helps us to improve Miketendo64. We are open to listening to you and how, as a videogames website, can serve you and provide you with the content you wish to read and view.
As some of you may be aware, we also have a YouTube channel where we upload gameplay videos to from time to time. Some of the videos are accompaniments to our EXPlay reviews, making up the PLAY portion of EXPlain & Play. Other videos serve as tutorials, guides, and other such content that we publish to accompany other content that we have written for our main website. We will continue to use YouTube to extend our content and while it is not our main focus, we will aim to share more content and would be more than happy to hear what kind of video content you would like to see on the channel.
We do have plenty of our content planned which we will share at a later date, so we hope you we stay tuned and continue to follow us through 2024. Our ultimate goal is to bring ourselves closer to our readers and followers by engaging with you more so please do leave comments on our content so we can keep on improving and creating the content we all want to enjoy. Thank you for sticking it out to the end and most importantly, Keep On Gaming!
[…] all, welcome back to the M64 Latest. As I mentioned yesterday, I am starting up a new form of content that I hope to publish daily, or at the very least, […]