Discussion What happened to the free articles?

Lack of interest, really. Few people outside of me and Serperior ever took advantage of the program, which is a shame because it was a great way to get your voice heard.
 
I would have continued with it. There should be something there so it doesn't come across as a pay site. The biggest reason I don't like the premium options is because everyone should have access to the same information
 
No one wanted to write them even though we offered free prizes. Decent players aren't willing to write articles without monetary compensation. That is just the reality today, unfortunately. I tried my best to offer something that should have been irresistible to writers and loved by readers, but the community spoke and did not want it.
 
Water Pokémon Master said:
No one wanted to write them even though we offered free prizes. Decent players aren't willing to write articles without monetary compensation. That is just the reality today, unfortunately. I tried my best to offer something that should have been irresistible to writers and loved by readers, but the community spoke and did not want it.
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I guess that's true. Just shows the elitism side of Pokemon and we can't really expect people to give up their free time to write something for free. I have no problem doing this but there is nothing fun for me to write about and I don't care enough to write another article about Darkrai or Yveltal.
 
Water Pokémon Master said:
No one wanted to write them even though we offered free prizes. Decent players aren't willing to write articles without monetary compensation. That is just the reality today, unfortunately. I tried my best to offer something that should have been irresistible to writers and loved by readers, but the community spoke and did not want it.
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I wouldnt mind writing articles if most of the decks that are written about have already had like 3 articles on them each. I also dont think that people would really like reading about rogue decks. I almost finished my article on Vespi before the hype came around it, but by then school caught up with me and I could never finish it. I think that if the free articles were shorter more people wouldnt mind writing them, but at the current length of the articles it takes too long to write a huge article with no reward especially when most of us are in school or work.
 
To be fair, the blog discussion threads routinely gathered lots of posts.

I think some people might have overestimated the requirements to write articles. I've never won or cut at a large tournament in my life and I won the blog competition like two or three times. You don't necessarily have to be good, just entertaining. I mean, at least sound like you know what you're talking about, and the article practically writes itself.

I wouldn't mind seeing them come back, but when only like half a dozen people out of PB's entire viewership take advantage of it, I can understand nixing them.
 
I would write another one and I could do a updated Pidgeot-EX article with the new meta but I find all the other cards boring to write about. I planned on making another one assuming a Pokemon I like is made that is somewhat good.
 
Thanks for the responses. I would do a short article if I could, but I thought until now that to submit them you had to be a good player. My only good finishes are a few League Challenge wins and bubbling out of top 128 at regionals. If you still are willing to do them, let me know.
 
PMJ said:
To be fair, the blog discussion threads routinely gathered lots of posts.

I think some people might have overestimated the requirements to write articles. I've never won or cut at a large tournament in my life and I won the blog competition like two or three times. You don't necessarily have to be good, just entertaining. I mean, at least sound like you know what you're talking about, and the article practically writes itself.

I wouldn't mind seeing them come back, but when only like half a dozen people out of PokéBeach's entire viewership take advantage of it, I can understand nixing them.
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Again, im not a god at the game or anything, im pretty good though. I can and would be willing to write smaller articles that were more lax than the premium ones, that would entail talking about just rouge decks. I do feel like the current length of articles makes writing them so difficult when you have to add pictures and everything and make it like 5000 words to be anywhere close to the current ones. Im currently in school and dont have the time to focus in on writing huge articles for no reward when I can be doing lab reports and stuff with that time. Smaller articles that are like 1000-1500 words arent really an issue, theyre way quicker to write and I could just talk about one decklist that people can work on, or talk about old decklists or something. It keeps the front page always popping which is something that I find to be an issue for someone that isnt premium. Ill go over the new news for the day and that'll be it, I cant look at the premium articles, and I dont have the income to be paying to read them. I think smaller articles about rouge deck lists or about decks from like 10 years ago would keep the front page interesting for both premium and free users. Its an interesting read and the community can join into the conversation. Let me know what you guys think about that
 
If I wanted to write another one, would I be able to? I want to make sure it wont be a waste of time.
 
superdan51 said:
Again, im not a god at the game or anything, im pretty good though. I can and would be willing to write smaller articles that were more lax than the premium ones, that would entail talking about just rogue decks. I do feel like the current length of articles makes writing them so difficult when you have to add pictures and everything and make it like 5000 words to be anywhere close to the current ones. Im currently in school and dont have the time to focus in on writing huge articles for no reward when I can be doing lab reports and stuff with that time. Smaller articles that are like 1000-1500 words arent really an issue, theyre way quicker to write and I could just talk about one decklist that people can work on, or talk about old decklists or something. It keeps the front page always popping which is something that I find to be an issue for someone that isnt premium. Ill go over the new news for the day and that'll be it, I cant look at the premium articles, and I dont have the income to be paying to read them. I think smaller articles about rogue deck lists or about decks from like 10 years ago would keep the front page interesting for both premium and free users. Its an interesting read and the community can join into the conversation. Let me know what you guys think about that
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The decision lies with @Water Pokémon Master. I'm biased because I would be in favor of their return. I don't imagine that removing them was a decision that was made lightly, but if you want an official answer on the possibility of them returning, he's the one to ask.
 
PMJ said:
The decision lies with @Water Pokémon Master. I'm biased because I would be in favor of their return. I don't imagine that removing them was a decision that was made lightly, but if you want an official answer on the possibility of them returning, he's the one to ask.
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Oh I just assumed you two worked on these things together, I dunno how things work here haha. Ill message him and see what we can do, I wouldnt expect anything in return of course as they arent huge articles, maybe a title would be nice ;) It seems that @crystal_pidgeot (I think) and I are willing to put in the work to add some extra flavour to the main page as well as the forums
 
I think a can write an article, but I'm a senior sooooo I don't know if people are interested. I did play in worlds 4 times and probably this year too, so you can say I'm a "good" player i guess. Though my English isn't that good.
 
Water Pokémon Master said:
No one wanted to write them even though we offered free prizes. Decent players aren't willing to write articles without monetary compensation. That is just the reality today, unfortunately. I tried my best to offer something that should have been irresistible to writers and loved by readers, but the community spoke and did not want it.
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It seems like there are quite a few people who are interested. PokeBeach's free articles were the thing that got me to regularly go to the site. Other Pokémon TCG sites make most of the articles require paying. I think that if PokeBeach offered both free and paid articles, you would get increased traffic. Free articles might slightly lower the number of premium subscribers, but if you can get a increase of people in general, you will get more revenue from adds. To make sure that only quality articles make it to the head page, require enough likes in a certain period of time, or have it approved by another staff/writer.

I understand that amazing players want money since other sites offer it. Sites wont hire people like me, with only a few League Challenge wins, but it would be nice to share your experiences with each other and players in general. The main thing I want from articles is what makes up the meta, and the top few tables at a league challenge still show what the meta is like. Even small events are critical to learning what's played and how to learn your good and bad matchups.
 
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I'll say this - I do not consider myself to be a good player... Yet. However, I do believe I have interesting ideas towards the game and as I'm a relatively new player, I believe I could provide an interesting perspective for other new players as well as people that just want to have fun with the game outside of the competitive scene. If Pokebeach would bring this back and would accept me as a writer, I could commit to producing an article per month for the first three months. As a starter idea, potential articles would be more amusement regarding my home life and how I juggle responsibilities with casual and competitive play while my wife yells at me about how I never tell her I love her anymore (kidding). If people find that interesting along with some battle and testing reports, then I could see where it goes from there.
 
II'd write, but it's pretty boring to have to write about the same decks we've seen in the meta for God knows how many years
 
I personally would love to right an article(even without cash compensation). I feel that my grammatical skills are in fact sufficient enough for the literary part and I have been going to Friday night Pokemon league every week for the past few years now...;)
 
All these people that are offering to write a free article should just write an article and submit it to staff. See what happens. If it doesn't get approved as an official article it can end up in the forums and cause discussion there. Rogue decks, opening booster boxes, local competitions and local meta would all be great ideas for things to read about. These kinds of articles could be very beneficial to people and might give them the next good idea for a deck that could end up being T1
 
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