The Bitmob Mailbag is back and ready for your questions. If you want to be a part of the fun, submit a query to Letters@Bitmob.com subject “Mailbag," and if it's good, we’ll like, answer your questions or something. Yep, that’s what we’ll do!

If you submitted a question this week, you might have won our "random game/random game t-shirt" prize. Are you the big winner? There's only one way to find out...

Hey Bitmob,

Have you guys ever had any challenges in terms of getting the coverage you want, given that you are a smaller site? If yes, have the non-founding members evoked the name of Dan Shu and Demian Linn to get in the door? What about Michael Donahoe? Will dropping his name get you anywhere? Maybe you'd be more likely to get kicked out?

Nosy in Newfoundland.
Andrew

Shoe: First of all, it's "HSU"! But I can see where that gets confusing, so it's all good....

Second, not really, because we're really not about making sure we preview and review everything at Bitmob. Other sites take care of that just fine -- we're trying to do something different here, as you can probably see.

So...so far, so good. We've been getting most of the access we're looking for, like in these 21 Random Qs articles -- if we can interview guys like that, then we're not having much trouble getting what we need here.

Dear Bitmob Editors,

I've learned so much from you guys in regards to writing, but I do have one question. First, let me preface the question with this: I've been reading Cormac McCarthy and, just recently, Jack Kerouac. Both of them have a writing style that doesn't adhere to the general rules of grammar, i.e. run-on sentences, combined words that shouldn't be combined, lack of punctuation, and so on. So my question is this: Does that writing style drive you nuts?

Regards,
Chris "Cosmo" Ross

Jason: I don't give a damn about grammar in fictional works. Fiction has separate conventions and rules for style. When someone pays me to care about grammar in fictional works, I'll start caring about it.

Aaron: I thought Jason would have a strong opinion on this, but I thought it would be the complete opposite. J-W gets PAID to do the wild thing!

Bitmob,

Do you prefer shopping at a video game store such as GameStop, EB, or Game Crazy, or do you shop where ever is cheapest?

- Nick

James: My favorite place to buy games is on Steam. I love the fact that I don't have somebody trying to fob off all sorts of useless magazines and club memberships on me. I also dislike being treated as a baseline, uninformed consumer when I probably have more information about the product than the clerk. I don't know. Maybe I'm a grouch, but I don't even really like it when people ask, "Can I help you?"

I like shopping on PSN and XBL to a lesser extent, but until the big console manufacturers open up their boxes to wider modification, I'm stuck going to GameStop.

Rob: I'm not sure I entirely understand the question -- do I prefer shopping at a brick-and-mortar retail store as opposed to...wherever is cheapest? Sometimes retail is the cheapest option....

Regardless, I don't particularly have any preference; although, I do still prefer to purchase a physical copy over a digital one. Steam is damn convenient, but I worry about the day that Valve servers go up in smoke and I'm left with nothing. If I've learned anything in my 27 years, it's that content owners come and go, but my original copy of Black Flag's Damaged LP is forever

Hey guys,

How do you come up with topics that are interesting and entertaining when writing features? By any chance do you guys have a copy of the Mass Effect 2 Collector's Edition I could borrow?

Thanks,
Andrew

Aaron: You’ve still got my lawnmower, a pair of socks, and $20 that I lent you a few months ago. You think I’m going to lend you a copy of Mass Effect 2? You’re crazier than James! And Rob! Speaking of James and Rob...

James: I try to think about things that interest me in real life and relate them to video games. For instance, I like to write about indie games. I don't do this because they're often free. It stems from a broader appreciation of the independent spirit as a whole. Particularly in music and movies, you always see indies pushing forward with what is possible with the medium. That interests me, so I threw that idea in with games.

If you can link up your topic -- in this case games -- with something you care about, then it stands to reason that the piece will come across as more exciting and engaging by default.

Rob: I write about whatever interests me at the moment and try to tie those to current events. I feel that leading a discussion with something topical can keep the reader interested while also giving me the opportunity to expose them to my ideas without seeming heavy-handed.

I also play games critically, not solely for my own enjoyment. Perhaps this is the analyst in me coming to the forefront, but I like to put my playing experience within the context of previous games in the genre. Doing so has helped me notice idiosyncrasies within a game and develop something worth reading. The more games I can play critically the better understanding of game mechanics I'll have, which should lead to more in-depth and interesting articles.

Hey Bitmob,

With Bitmob being such a unique form of gaming journalism coverage, and the recently announced GamePro and Bitmob partnership, do you guys think that the type of coverage Bitmob provides could ever exist in print?

-Trevor Hinkle

Shoe: Part of the beauty of what we do here at Bitmob is that all writers, whether from the staff or the community, can write about whatever the hell they want. Anything having to do with gaming that inspires them, they can put down in words here.

I can't imagine doing an entire magazine that way. With limited pages and traditional "sections" that readers would expect, print wouldn't be the right format for this.

You never know what you're going to get on Bitmob, which works great for online...not so much when you want people to pay for a periodical that's more of a known quantity, because consumers need to know what they're getting for their dollars.

What we're doing with GamePro makes much more sense -- an entire magazine of Bitmob content is too crazy, but one column a month is awesome for all involved.

Dear Mob Bosses,

Do you believe there is such a thing as “blogging courtesy?” This term could have a variety of meanings, but for now I refer to what I call “reciprocal commenting.” Or rather, the lack thereof on Bitmob.

Over the past three weeks, I’ve read and commented on close to 150 blog entries on BitMob, yet my own newest blog has a total of zero comments. That feels to me like an odd, somewhat shocking, disparity.

If blogs are the “gears” of a website, then comments are the lubricating oil. A blog posted online is useless so long as no one reads it; but as soon as a piece of writing is read by another, it has a purpose—the transmission of ideas. A comment beneath a blog is someone’s indication that “Yeah, I read your stuff, and here’s what I think of it.” That connection, that critical take on one’s work, should be what truly matters to any writer.

Personally, I’m not asking for praise, or fame, or fortune. I just want one person to read my latest blog and tell me what they think. And you know what? I’ll return the favour.

So, Mob Bosses, do you believe in “blogging courtesy?” Is “reciprocal commenting” a good stance to take when creating, and competing with, online content? I’d love to hear what you have to say!

Thanks very much for your time and patience,
Spencer Gregory

Aaron: Thank you for the email, Spencer. If you’re active in the Bitmob community, you’ll generally see the sort of “reciprocal commenting” that you speak of, though it’s something that we (the Bitmob staff and community) should do more. It’s great to have people reading your stuff, but it feels better when people comment on it.

While it’s impossible to say why your article didn’t receive any comments, I can only hypothesize as to why, and offer suggestions for future posts. You submitted your article for consideration in Shoe’s “Public Critique” article, so I’m going to share a few thoughts on your piece.Â

The first thing that stood out to me was that your article went up the day after Christmas. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the week before and after Christmas were very slow on the site. I posted an article two days before yours and it got three comments, one of which was a reply from me. So from a traffic perspective, you were a victim of bad timing.

Your article is well-written, and you did well to add some screenshots (though I would have made them smaller and aligned them to the right of the paragraph, starting with the first paragraph). However, there are a few ways in which you could have gotten yourself some more readers/comments. The title isn’t very good. It doesn’t tell me what I’m going to be reading about and it certainly doesn’t grab my attention and make me want to read more. As someone who has had to learn to come up with better titles, I can tell you that this is extremely important.

I'd also say that the introduction is too long. I would have combined the first three paragraphs into something more to the point and compelling. By the end of the article you had me convinced that Starcraft had a good story, but you never gave me a reason to care. If this were a review that came out alongside the game, I would appreciate your point, but you need to have a stronger thesis than “Many unnamed RTS games have a bad story, but Starcraft had a good story.” Call out some recent games that would have benefitted from a better story and give some reasons why.

Sometimes you have a topic that’s going to garner comments no matter how you end your piece, but that’s the exception and not the rule. It’s always good to end your article by asking questions for their thoughts on the subject -- encourage debate. And when you do finally get a debate going, be sure to check in and participate in the discussion you’ve spawned.

Regardless of the points I made, your point about commenting holds true. Hopefully people are now inspired to leave a few comments around the site after they're done with the mailbag.

Now, with all of that is out of the way, I should mention that you’ve won yourself a random video game and random game t-shirt from the fantastic Bitmob Prize Treasure Chest! We can only pay for shipping to the US (and judging by “favour” you don’t live here), but if you’re willing to cover the cost of shipping, email us your address and we’ll get your prize out to you pronto. If you don’t want to pay for shipping, we’ll find some sort of downloadable goody to send your way.Â

That’s it for this week’s mailbag. Thanks for reading! See you in two weeks.