That was last week, and I have not received a response of any kind.
DotaFire, along with its sister sites MobaFire.com and SmiteFire.com, all generate ad revenue based on the guide content its users create. While the MobaFire Network is not alone in doing this, (take sites like GameFaqs.com for example) it doesn’t make it any fairer to the content creators of this community.
Don’t get me wrong-—the MobaFire Network should be making money. But so should the content creators of those sites. Because without us, the writers, there is no DotaFire. I appreciate the awesome guide creation tools that DotaFire provides (one of the many reasons why I continue to use and support the site) as well as the helpful community of Dota 2 enthusiasts that are all striving to get better and to write amazing guides. But I was taught if you’re good at something, never do it for free.
I believe with some sort of ad revenue sharing program, there would be so much more incentive to generate amazing content for this site and the writers of said content could make some cash in the process. It’s a win-win.
I don’t have any knowledge of the overhead and maintenance costs of any of the MobaFire websites, nor do I know how much revenue is brought in every month via traffic. Still I’m interested to hear what the other writers of the community think about this idea, and I’d be even more interested in hearing from someone on the MobaFire Network’s end.
As always, thank you for reading my work.
typing up mediocrely written articles for a small community of players, for a game that is ported from a mod of another game and is not even out of its beta stages. On top of that, you're not providing any original content to the scene, you're simply using the tools the site provides to write and format a very unremarkable amount of information. You should be satisfied with the fact you're helping the DoTA community better itself.
I disagree. I (and I'm sure many others) put a lot of work into writing the guides and I most certainly wouldn't describe the work as mediocre. The fact that Dota 2 is a game based off of a mod to Warcraft 3 is irrelevant when it comes to this matter, especially considering the fact that the audience for Dota 2 is massive. Dota 2 is the most played game on Steam by a large margin and I don't see that changing any time soon. Information has value. (Value this site profits off of.)
Some rounded statistics you should be aware of:
Registered Users: 22,000
Average Logged In Users: 30
Average Regulars: 40
Average Guests: 4500
Guestimate of Published Guides: 500
I'm not sure these statistics support your claim. Again, I don't have any information in regards to the cost of maintaining the site but 22,000 users with 4,500 guests is no small number. My Treant Protector guide has ~65,000 hits, and he's a very unpopular hero. I wouldn't consider those numbers anything to scoff at.
That said, if you don't like it here Dotahut is offering quite a bit with their contests, and some teams will pay if you can show extensive experience and meet relatively large quantity commitments.
When you join this site you're an unverified source, typing up mediocrely written articles for a small community of players, for a game that is ported from a mod of another game and is not even out of its beta stages. On top of that, you're not providing any original content to the scene, you're simply using the tools the site provides to write and format a very unremarkable amount of information. You should be satisfied with the fact you're helping the DoTA community better itself.
The only people who should be making the profit on the site is management and the owner for taking the time of their day to provide and regulate the site so we can create guides and interact with the other users free of charge.
Some rounded statistics you should be aware of:
Registered Users: 22,000
Average Logged In Users: 30
Average Regulars: 40
Average Guests: 4500
Guestimate of Published Guides: 500
If this still doesn't sway your mind, think about this; Remember all those Gameboy and Playstation2 guides that were published on Gamefaqs, the ones that averaged around 50,000 characters? Those were unverified, non-profitable, user-submitted guides.