The latest Soul Calibur is due to hit Xbox 360 and PS3 this Thursday, February 2nd.

Price round-ups are forum discussions that let the community track prices and trade-in offers for upcoming releases. It is an opportunity to share trade-in exploits, point out online sales, reveal broken street dates and helps reduce work for staff so that we can have more frequent round-ups.

The latest Resident Evil is due to hit Nintendo 3DS this Thursday, February 2nd.

Price round-ups are forum discussions that let the community track prices and trade-in offers for upcoming releases. It is an opportunity to share trade-in exploits, point out online sales, reveal broken street dates and helps reduce work for staff so that we can have more frequent round-ups.

Sounds like fun Anthony, I may be way of the ball in my interpretation.
Have a look at this social gaming site I admin for.
http://www.1000fraggers.com/

It also runs that FB style, the biggest issue many of us have with it, is that information gets lost very quickly as newer posts come through.
I constantly have to deal with duplicated posts, and these are made by members / admins that know better and how to look.

One of my priorities with the new site is to make sure good content is never buried, input/concepts after the new system launches would be much appreciated. I don't think initially there will be enough content for things to be buried in the first place though so it hasn't been a priority thus far.

I've been really hard at work on this new site, but unfortunately yet another spanner has been thrown into the works. I was intending to get a beta out after the Christmas holidays but it seems it might be later, but with no additional features. I'm planning to launch this thing pretty lean already but I hope it is enough to completely replace the front page:

For anyone keen to know about the new site, I don't want to use such a dirty phrase but it probably best describes the new site better than any other: social network. WAIT! Before you leave and never come back again the new Economical Gamer won't be what your friends had for lunch, or what your games your friends are buying/playing. That **** is rubbish and will never be the focus of Economical Gamer.

The new site will draw its submission/feedback interface directly from Facebook. Each game will have its own unique page (accessible via a search box at the top) where there will be a wall, which I prefer to think of as a bargain chat. Here you may post anything you like, from questions to prices, bundles, broken street dates, DLC talk and so forth.

Posts with the newest replies are at the top, directly under a form allowing you to post new content (Facebook). The types of posts though, revolve around gaming. You may post either a discussion or a review (with more to come, won't announce anything until later). Discussions are the focus for the initial site release and they will have optional attachments, links and headlines. Headlines turn your post into a sort of news article, making it more visible. Perfect for announcing a broken street date, prices, collector edition bundles and so forth.

Down the side of each page will be sortable lists of headlines, reviews and the newer things to come. The concept here is that if someone posts a price or what ever it may be, nobody never needs to ask "where is the cheapest place to get this" if the question has already been answered. People will be encouraged to ask questions, unlike the current bargain chat. But with headlines, readers can scan and find exactly what they want immediately.

Each post be it a discussion, review or coupon code will allow replies and in future (not the initial release) voting. Voting won't just be standard + or - but also include options to notify of expired or duplicate posts without giving negative feedback to the poster. This is probably more influenced by ozbargain than anything else.

Thats about it for now. I intend to also add a list of retail, digital and online stores for which similar posting mechanisms and lists will be available. On launch we are talking dicussions, reviews and coupon codes. Imagine finally being able to simply search for a store and find the latest coupon codes available there, or a master list of codes the help decide where to purchase.

It is my hope that this new site addresses four main concerns I have with the current website:
- Delays in content
- Cluttered bargain chat
- Not being able to find what you want at a glance
- Amount of time (I personally) put into the site

I plan to monetise the website too through the use of affiliate links that override links supplied by user submissions. I hope this does not offend those kind enough to send content to the site, but it is something I have to do to support myself and future development. That spanner that I mentioned earlier relates to finances.

I have signed up for UserVoice as a means of tracking which features members desire most. To begin with it will be a voting match between must-have features such as RSS feeds and hardware/accessory pages (as implied, these won't make the initial release). As time moves on I hope to use it as a means to keep in touch with the desires of the public.

Anyway, I still have a long way to go for the initial release and this initial release is probably only 15% of my overall vision. Once I rush this thing out I can forget about the hour a day (yes it takes that long) updates I do. Instead I'll be able to do development when it suits me and leave the content up to the community. Fingers crosses that when the change over happens there isn't a mass exodus because of the radical change.

Your initial impressions and suggestions are welcome.

Just to note, you may wish to change the date from November 3rd to December 3rd... i doubt its been out for almost a month yet =/

Ooops, thanks >_>

The latest Mario Kart hits the 3DS this Saturday (yes Saturday), December 3rd.

Price round-ups are forum discussions that let the community track prices and trade-in offers for upcoming releases. It is an opportunity to share trade-in exploits, point out online sales, reveal broken street dates and helps reduce work for staff so that we can have more frequent round-ups.

The game promised to Wii owners all those years ago... now just days away. November 24th is oh so close now!

Price round-ups are forum discussions that let the community track prices and trade-in offers for upcoming releases. It is an opportunity to share trade-in exploits, point out online sales, reveal broken street dates and helps reduce work for staff so that we can have more frequent round-ups.

We all thought we had played Mario in 3D back in '98, we were apparently wrong. Street date has been broken and the game is on sale now.

Price round-ups are forum discussions that let the community track prices and trade-in offers for upcoming releases. It is an opportunity to share trade-in exploits, point out online sales, reveal broken street dates and helps reduce work for staff so that we can have more frequent round-ups.

I signed up with my preorder for Zelda. Free is free, but customer reward programs have never influenced my purchasing habits. When I first heard of this I though it was pretty terrible, I mean I have two other EB Games reward cards just from this generation. Both proved to be utterly useless. This one feels different because of the larger investment EB made to get it integrated with the site, but I still wouldn't be surprised if it was gone in 12 months time.

I'm sure you'll continue to steer the site in the right direction and if it ever comes down to contributions/donations to keep the site going, I will gladly oblige.

Anthony do you get advertisment $$$ for the views on the site? you should.I bring 10s of thousands of ppl to discover my wisdom. need to charge for that ****

I get enough to cover the cost of VPS hosting, that is enough. I work full time and run a business outside that (not including Economical Gamer). My biggest priority is reducing my input into the site without compromising update frequency. Hence I'm considering a Beta to replace the home page when the application is only 10% of my 'vision'.

Love this site. Please keep the bargain chat the same or similar, it works well (most of the time).
I'm curious as to see what your overhaul entails.

Bargain chat will be going for good, it won't be needed for the new site. Every game will have its own page with conversations and data attached to it. Those conversations will be available on the game's page, homepage (spanning all games), a collection of lists (latest, most popular, etc), RSS feeds and hopefully be available via other means that I'm unwilling to share because they won't be available for at least 12 months.

Only two 'features' are missing from this concept. The Twitter integration and the ability to post to it from every page. The new site involves searching for a game first (but this will throw all existing data for a game in front of the user, hopefully reducing duplicate questions and tips). Not as rapid, but far more organised and equally visible.

Nice to hear all the support. Although I do feel the need to apologise because there are bargains I am aware of that don't reach the site. That is fail in my books.

What a great read.

"I hope that this article serves as recognition and an apology for the hiccups that take place on the website."

Certainly no need to apologise. Ecogamer is a fantastic resource, even with supposed imperfections. Just think how many trillions of dollars you have saved people since 2007. Seriously though, that is a staggering thought just how much money everyone must have saved since the start. I can't even begin to remember all the times I've saved (from sales) and gained money (from trade ins)... not to mention all the fantastic games that I've discovered from seeing games on sale and then researching them... and the community of people that now exists. Thanks heaps Anthony!

LOL, nice to hear, but I think the reality is that people are spending more since coming here. I know I have been spending more with all the tips. Once upon a time I couldn't imagine owning 50 games for a single console, but there ya go.

Economical Gamer was launched back in 2007. That may not seem like too long ago but when you think about it, it was actually a very different era. The landscape for bargain hunting was entirely different.

Online retailers didn't put their catalogues on the internet, importing was just for obtaining games you couldn't buy in stores, the Australian dollar sat around 50-60 US cents and digital distribution via the likes of Steam could not be taken seriously. It was back when nobody had HDTV. Plus it was also when Economical Gamer was conceived and built.

It made sense to make Economical Gamer a blog with central management. As official websites were often useless sources for information, people appreciated the accuracy and completeness an edited article brought. With the time at my disposal I could even drop everything to confirm a sale tip and come back with a complete list of items. Related content was regular and alternative content like reviews and additions to the free game database filled in the gaps. Economical Gamer was your one stop source for bargains and contained absolutely everything you needed to know.

I'm not sure that accurately describes Economical Gamer today. Competition like Ozbargain, PALGN and GameCafe often have content that is missing from this site and the community can get information direct from the source before it hits our front page. As my available time slowly evaporated so did the quantity and quality of the front page content, shrinking as the volume of content grew. It has reached a point where I literally post bullet points and the bargain chat is cluttered with discussions that should have front page articles.

I suppose everybody wants to know what is planned for the future? Well continuing the way things are now is not an option. It will continue only for as long as it has to, until the public beta of a new system I am developing goes live. It is a complete overhaul and it is being coded entirely from scratch. Economical Gamer will become completely community driven; with no more content delays or decentralised discussions.

Something like this is a big build, done in and around my already short supply of time. Over the coming months (I suspect many, many months) I hope that this article serves as recognition and an apology for the hiccups that take place on the website. Whether it be another feature that gets cut, missed content, inaccuracies, time delays or not properly crediting a submission or source.

In the mean time I will remain tight lipped on the new site, to avoid a situation where I might accidentally over promise (Peter Molyneux style). When the beta launches it will be a genuine beta (missing features etc) but I still hope it will be enough to replace the current website. It will all depend on submissions from the community.

Commence Dragon slaying on 11/11/11.

Price round-ups are forum discussions that let the community track prices and trade-in offers for upcoming releases. It is an opportunity to share trade-in exploits, point out online sales, reveal broken street dates and helps reduce work for staff so that we can have more frequent round-ups.

Another hotly anticpated title to hit in such a short period. Share your knowlege of prices and trade in deals to make sure we can make it through to the next one. Uncharted 3 is due out Thursday November 3rd (unless someone wants to break a street date again).

Price round-ups are forum discussions that let the community track prices and trade-in offers for upcoming releases. It is an opportunity to share trade-in exploits, point out online sales, reveal broken street dates and helps reduce work for staff so that we can have more frequent round-ups