Robot Viking

I know he looks angry, but it's just his allergies.

The results of the Robot Viking reader survey are in. There was a lot eye-opening information to be gleaned from the responses (and some info that was pretty much what I expected). We got some great comments, too, so I thought I’d share a little of the behind-the-scenes action and answer a few questions. Plus, the resolution to the Great Spokesmodel Controversy of Aught-Nine!

The first thing I want to address is Project: Death Race. A lot of people asked about it. It is not dead. It almost died when I had computer trouble a few weeks ago, and the files nearly disappeared forever (the amount of work that I would have had to redo would have been…discouraging). Luckily, the files were recovered and are now backed up. So why the delay? Robot Viking itself is partly to blame. Time spent here is time spent not creating Project: Death Race. I also took over as DM of my D&D group, which has eaten up a bunch of my random game designing free time. And, sadly, no one is paying me to design Project: Death Race, so all too often my other writing jobs (the ones I get paid for) have to come first. So I’m not going to make any promises on specific dates, but keep bugging me about it. Your interest is genuinely encouraging.

The other common comment was, “More posts!” The thing about Robot Viking is, it’s essentially a one-man operation (the Robot Viking doesn’t really help much), and thus far it doesn’t earn me any money. In fact, I have yet to recoup my hosting costs. That’s partly because it’s a youngish site (though readership is building steadily month by month), and partly because I’m new at this. The writing part, no problem. The figuring out how to make money with it part? Not so good. My point is, I have a day job. Posting more than once per week day is very difficult because I have a mortgage to pay. I try hard to post every single week day (weekends are for playing games, not writing about them), but sometimes my deadlines get tight and I have to take a Monday or a Friday off of Robot Viking. Also keep in mind that I never simply text dump someone’s press release into a post. I put a lot of time and thought into every post (probably too much). Using volunteer writers is a nice idea – you’ll notice a few excellent ones listed in the masthead. But for a variety of reasons I don’t have time to go into, that isn’t really a good solution. For now, five posts each week with the occasional extra is the most you’ll see here. Believe me, I’d love to sit here and write about gaming all day every day if I could!

Now, the spokesmodel question. That was put there because the Liana K interview was very popular. But Liana K is a special case, because she’s a strong, successful woman who is a genuine gamer, and she poses for photos in sexy costumes because she enjoys doing that. The survey was worded in a way that made it seem that any model would be focused primarily on the eye-candy aspect, to see how people would feel about that. If I asked, “Would it be cool if we had another writer here who also happened to be very attractive and posed in photos with gaming stuff?” then I might as well have asked, “Would you like it if Robot Viking shot $100 bills through your monitor into your lap whenever you read an article?” Duh. Yeah, that would be great. Bottom line: we’re not going to do anything cheesy, exploitive or unclassy. But…we do have a model lined up. She loves games and doesn’t mind dressing up as a superhero once in a while, but she won’t be writing any reviews. To be honest, her writing skills just aren’t really up to snuff (don’t worry, she’s not offended). A bunch of you suggested that I be the spokesmodel, which I can only assume is a result of never having actually seen me.

A surprising number of people were excited about the idea of a Robot Viking web comic. This has been in the back of my mind since the site launched, and I’d love to do it. No idea how though. I don’t have the artistic skills to do it myself. That’s a great idea that is unfortunately being forced to the back burner until I figure out a way to make it happen. On the other hand, a ton of you said you’d buy a Robot Viking t-shirt. Make it so! You’ll be able to buy them shortly.

Regarding expanded coverage – I was surprised how many of you want video game coverage added. Quite a few people specifically said, “Don’t add video game coverage.” I’m certainly not going to try to cover the same ground trodden by a kazillion video game sites, so you’ll never see stuff about the latest Run Around and Shoot People game or Brett Favre Unretires 2013. But if a game comes along that ties into tabletop gaming in a big way, I might talk about it. But I might not (I don’t get review copies of them, for one thing).

Even more readers were into expanding board game coverage. Actually, I never intended to exclude board games from Robot Viking, but they’re difficult to cover. Review copies are a lot harder to come by than an RPG book, and to review one, you have to actually get a group of people together to sit down for four hours and play it. That said, I will make a point of getting some board game posts into the rotation on a semi-regular basis. I love board games.

Now reread the above paragraph, but insert the words “war or historical simulation game” wherever it says “board game.”

There’s now another way to know when Robot Viking gets updated – you can follow Robot Viking on Twitter. This new feature is still being tested, so let me know if you experience any problems with it.

That just about sums it up. The winner of the swag box will be contacted shortly. Thanks to everyone who participated in the survey. I learned a lot, and hopefully I can put it to use improving Robot Viking. I work really hard to make this site a fun place to visit each day, so it was really nice to hear so many positive comments. Keep reading, and keep gaming!

AXE!

Related posts:

1. Introducing Robot Viking’s New Grrrl of Mystery
2. Robot Viking to Invade Grand Prix Washington D.C.
3. Robot Viking Invited to Magic Online Community Cup 2010!
4. Robot Viking is Selling a Baneslayer Angel
5. Project: Death Race – a Robot Viking Original Game