So here's a curious question I've been asking myself for a while.
All of us, at one point or another, have used guides from GameFAQs, right? Right. Given the kind of site it is, it's pretty logical to imagine that they have ways to track the amount of views each individual guide has, if only merely for statistical purposes that serve us, as mere users of the site, no real purpose.
But even if it is to tacitly show your appreciation for the work done, even if no one outside GameFAQs themselves notice, when you look up guides for a game that's part of your gaming community's focus, do you support guides written by your fellow community members?
Allow me to explain with a personal example.
Let's turn our clocks back four years, and settle ourselves in mid-2004, right when MMZ3 took the world by assault. I was the first in the MegaMan community to submit an every-nook-and-cranny guide for the game to GameFAQs (viewable
here), and the first to publish an entire game guide covering every single aspect of the game, even if it's been superseded/overshadowed by newer, more recently-submitted guides. At the time, those of you who for one reason or another decided to look up a guide, did you use mine? And if you did, why?
I myself, for all the years I've been using GameFAQs, I've always been on the lookout for guides by people I know. When I first had access to the internet AND an SNES at the same time (hey, blame third-world countries' shitty economy), I know I spent hours perusing Reeve's FAQ for the first MMX game, and also did so with all the other guides he wrote for both GFAQs and his own site, originally MegaMan X Online and later The MegaMan Network. Even when he stepped down and Tim took over, every time I need a guide on a MegaMan game, I usually look for names recognizable within the community, if only to show an unspoken appreciation to them for all the work it takes to write out a detailed guide.
So what about you? Do you simply take whatever guide looks meatier, or do you explicitly look out for people you know and try to support them in a tacit way in their work?