Friday afternoon tidbits

A small milestone to mark: Sometime today, if it hasn't happened already, this blog will serve up its 200,000th page view. That's not a large number by most blogs' standards, but it seems like a big one to me. Thanks for reading.

-It's the best thing I've seen this week -- Matthew Gallant's mash-up of "I'm on a Boat" with Wind Waker:



-News of Stephen Totilo's move to Kotaku seems strange to me, for reasons I haven't quite been able to put my finger on. Kotaku is good, but MTV Multiplayer is often great. While Totilo will unquestionably be reaching a larger audience, which he deserves, I am hoping that he brings Multiplayer's sensibility to Kotaku, and not the other way around. Kyle Orland interviewed Totilo for Crispy Gamer, and he says all the right things. I just hope that Totilo's reporting doesn't get lost in the hourly press-release snarking.

-Critical Distance is a new group blog dedicated to highfalutin' discussion of games. So far it's a mix of original thinkpieces, well considered links, and a brand-new podcast. They've gathered a good collection of writers. Can't wait to see how the site develops over the coming months.

-Finally, I've deleted a couple of comments this week, so I wanted to take a second to discuss this blog's commenting policy. Simply put: I will only delete comments that are pure spam, or that link to something that seems illegal. That's it.

I won't delete comments for disagreeing with me, even if it's vulgar or just plain stupid. I trust that the tone set by me and by the regular commenters here is enough to dissuade people whose only interest is starting a flame war. Comments provide much of a blog's value, especially when the commenters are as passionate and as intelligent as you guys are. I'd rather err on the side of more reader participation, not less.

Workers of the world unite!

File this under: "Things you don't have to worry about when you only get 150 page views a day." Employees of Gawker Media -- which includes gaming mega-blog Kotaku -- don't have any idea what they're being paid.

In short, each writer gets a base salary and then a bonus for exceeding specific page-view goals, but those goals are adjusted quarterly and Gawker's major-domo Nick Denton hasn't yet handed down the details. Gawker writers are expected to produce now without knowing how they'll be compensated. As the author of the Valleywag post, Jordan Golson, puts it:

If a potential advertiser asked Gawker to start running its ads and promised to negotiate terms later, they'd be laughed out of the room — but that is exactly what the company is asking of its writers. If I were a salesperson, I'd expect to know my quarterly sales goals well in advance.

Ironically, this particular Valleywag post will probably result in a fat payday for Mr. Golson. But I'd be interested to see if other Gawker folks pick up the gauntlet that he's thrown down, particularly the folks at Kotaku. I imagine they're not hurting for page views over there, as Technorati's 27th-ranked blog, but it would be nice to see some good old-fashioned labor strife in this new economy. Gawker is a behemoth, and it's the writers that make it happen.

Anatomy of a traffic spike

Thanks, Kotaku!

What's wrong with this sentence?

From Kotaku:

The story does mention a few things interesting to the hardcore as well, like the fact that they had to play down the game's realism because if a person was really hit with a force blow it would be like being smacked with a cannon ball, and perhaps a bit too gruesome for the T-rating they are shooting for.

Ten dollars to any reader*

Who can point out one real, substantive difference between Kotaku, Joystiq, and Game|Life. I have them all in my Google reader and it's like getting the day's most unimportant news in THX surround sound. Did you know they're making a game based on the Saw movies? Can I tell you three times?

Seriously, though: which of these three should I keep in there?

*Offer not valid.