Dont enter the video game niche.

Been a while since I've wandered through the world of gaming, but I do know that individuals with authentic, personal blogs/vlogs (especially the latter) can do really well.

Take a look at 'Flammy's clach of clans Guide' for an example. Don't know what you are exactly thinking of doing in the niche, but it's a massive niche at the moment anyway.

I'd try to rank for one new and specific game and (if that's your goal) then go talking about other games.

Exactly! And I suggest that you don't. However, there are different angles you can take to position yourself, say as a problem solver, helper or providing a more personal experience to prospects. There are always opportunities that one can exploit. Look at the big shopping outlets for example. Many people flock into them, but there are those who frequent the smaller shops for different reasons. Find those reasons and you'll do well. Just my two cents...

You just have to go about it another way. There are people making bank in the 'video game niche' on youtube through gameplay videos.

I have a mostly successful blog targeting just one videogame. The trick for me was creating the website months before it actually came out and getting ranked before anybody else had any content up or even cared about the game. If you continue releasing relavent content and keep up with the SEO it should then be easy to stay page 1 for all the keywords and keep up with the competition (popular gaming review/news/walkthrough sites).

But how you make money from review sites and blogs? CTA links at every page??

it might be worth it if you choose a few specific games that you know
well and do a site around those. I guess I would think of it on terms
of authority vs. niche and apply the same line of thinking.

To say the video game niche is a no go area is an understatement or ill-understanding of IM.
There are tons of ways to drive traffic to your site irrespective of the competition.

I know a guy who makes over 10k monthly from just social media and video marketing and he is not anywhere close to those big names you talk about.

Think MICRO-niche when entering a niche with big players. They can't dominate every aspect of a niche as huge as video games. I know people who are making a killing selling video game guides for specific facebook games for example.

It is an extremely saturated niche but one thing that is one your side if you do decide to give it a go is the fact that the bigger sites don't speak for the average Joe.

IGN, Gamespot and the rest will never highlight frustrating problems that everybody else is complaining about. They will review games massively high when nobody else agrees with them just so they don't risk upsetting the publisher of the game.

Many people including me have had enough of these suck up sites and welcome people who tell the truth about things instead of avoiding issues to keep publishers happy.

There is definitely room for more independent sites that don't have their reviews written for them by the company who made the game in question.

There are always sites that are at the top and cant be beaten it doesnt mean you cant get into the niche and be excellent too

There is so much variety in the gaming niche, no way they major sites can cover every angle. As long as you do not try to copy exactly what they are doing, but look for your own unique approach to the niche it is very well possible to have success.

This has been proven time and time again by people like Gronkh or Total Biscuit, just to name two. Type in their names on Youtube, look at their subscribers and then tell me again that it's not doable (I'm not saying it's easy, the guys I mentioned are of course serious professionals, but on Youtube everyone starts with 0 subscribers, if I can recall that right...).

Hint: Women don't hang around on XBox Live or read magazines or visit stores.

They do play games though. If somebody put a gun to my head and made me get in this niche, I'd buy a mobile capture device and do playthroughs/strategy for F2P cellphone games.

Just theory, but everyone isn't a core gamer.

I have a young son and I imagine he'll be into video games in a few years, maybe sooner.

While I'm of the Colecovision era, I look forward to gaming with him if that's his thing.

With social media and a small budget I imagine anyone could break in with great content.

I suspect simply running contests giving away a free hot game and/or console would probably do really well which could build up an audience quickly ... and as long as your content served that audience, you'd break in quickly and could make a go of it.

We have family friends whose 15 year old son created 1 video revealing some secrets in some game and quickly amassed 2 million views on YouTube. He did it for fun and never monetized, but if he put on a marketing hat, even sticking with that one game, he could make some money.

If you managed to gain traction with one game, preferably a popular one that's a franchise (so it's evergreen) and focused on that, I'm sure there's a pile of money to be made.

In my current niche (more like market) there are many authority sites (sadly mine isn't one of them) that totally dominate the search engines, but I've managed to gain some traction via social media.

Umm. I don't know how much you make online but your "objections" are actually "opportunities".

With huge sites like ign, Gamestop, Gamespot, etc. There are many more platforms to promote your products and CPA ads.

Without huge targeted markets of gamers, where would you promote your gaming CPA offers? Good Housekeeping?

For "authority sites" the gaming niche pales in comparison to finacial, health and weight loss.

Why would anyone enter the 'investment' niche when there are sites like WSJ and CNN Money?

Or 'weight loss' when there is Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers?

Or 'fitness' when there is Men's Fitness and Runners World?

You need to realize that big authority sites that make a lot of money are signs that the market is profitable and lucrative.

They provide a ready made market that you can profile and target.

Welp, I better get rid of my World of Warcraft Tips and Guide site...been making me good money for a while.... bummer

I owned three video game sites for several years (8 in all). We stocked and shipped the games and accessories from our own warehouse. I actually shut it down because of my poor people management skills and the fact that I hate having employees and I had 10 of them at the time. Three of them were full time customer service and phone order takers. It was so busy that one of my top months (December 2007) I broke 270K in sales. To say you can not compete with the big boys is a load of horse sh*t. You can absolutely level the playing field quite well with the right strategy of PPC SE, shopping comparison portals, and affiliate program. We did over a million a year with this strategy dealing exclusively with video games and accessories. You may want to do some more tests with the gaming niche before coming to a conclusion like that.

Sorry, but you are talking about a market not a niche

You can create your own game.
you can become an affiliate with gamestop
you can create tip trick game videos
you can make a game strategy course
you can host video game tournaments
you can create add-ons to popular games

I have made well over £100,000 in the video game niche on Clickbank.

Gaming guides for popular games - don't do it as much as i used to but yes there is a TON of money in the niche and that does not stop at game review sites, think of all the Youtube channels that get an insane amount of views from top gamers.

All the best,

Chris Jones

I'm an avid gamer, I would never pay for any content; I'm old (50) and have played virtually every good video game ever released since pong/asteroids/pacman early days in arcades, then SNES, then atari, then dreamcast, xbox and PS3. Current favorites are AC/assassins creed, COD, GTA, SR, various racing games, Rock Band Blitz and pinball arcade/zen pinball.

There's tons of strategy videos on youtube, plus gamespot/ign - why would anyone pay for walkthroughs/tips? Personally I wouldn't enter that niche with a ten-foot pole, for selling into. though a big a member forum w/pay areas might be one idea, like WF for gamers

You can compete but you have to go about it differently. Walkthroughs, live game streams(twitch.tv), secrets, live chats, you can definately drive traffic to this genre. You just need to pick the right micro niche, their are gems left untapped within the industry which are waiting to be harvested. Reviews are dead, saturated market.

You can still compete in the video game niche but in different platforms. One being youtube, on which I have a few videos ranked higher than gamespot, machinima and ign.

In terms of articles I would have to agree. It's extremely difficult to compete with those sites as they already have a massive following, and have access to review copies of video games early.

There are a lot of games that the big sharks do not cover. For example, they are not heavy into dating sims. Most are going after big games. Like those are from big companies. Perhaps my strategy is to act like a minnow. Hide in the weeds and stay under the radar as we say. I prefer to focus my energy on a niche that is very narrow. Competition is a lot less and profits are a lot more.

As mentioned by a few posters above, it is possible to enter the video game niche if you can create a unique identity for yourself like Ksiolajidebt for example.

There are always ways around it such as focusing on a specific game or a specific series, etc. When you have to compete with GameStop, Netflix, etc., you're already behind the eight-ball. A niche like this really necessitates thinking outside the box. It's possible. It's just going to require some creative thought.

This is one of those niches you don't want to be everything to everyone. Drill down and find your spot.

Pick one game and become the "go to guy" blog about everything position yourself as an expert.