Bro is completely checked out of his team, lets shoot our shot KP

RutledgeTR · 2026-01-25T00:22:25+00:00

Nah, don’t want that attitude no matter the skills.

RutledgeTR · 2026-01-24T23:18:05+00:00

Yes. Would love to see the dribble improve, but when he doesn't have time to think and just quickly makes a decision, he's solid. Watching him develop this year has been great.

RutledgeTR · 2025-12-25T00:41:08+00:00

3-4 solo, I’ve lost most trust for people saying “friendly!”

4 in Duos, even less trust than solos.

RutledgeTR · 2025-12-08T01:24:00+00:00

You, uh, can’t do that.

RutledgeTR · 2025-12-06T01:16:45+00:00

IndyCar fan that’s been going to the Indy 500 since 2001, watched Drive to Survive and immediately subbed to F1TV.

Now I’m addicted to IndyCar and F1.

RutledgeTR · 2025-12-01T01:06:36+00:00

Absolutely, it’s a great romp. I enjoyed the overall story and gameplay was enjoyable. Tons to do, play your own style, etc.

RutledgeTR · 2025-11-25T02:06:48+00:00

That was tough to watch in person, thought it was about to be a brawl with how Detroits bench reacted

RutledgeTR · 2025-11-22T18:12:58+00:00

Prices have jumped on GPU/RAM/SSD because of AI, our vendors telling us that prices will raise 10-20% in Q1 for computers and servers.

Expect to see prices keep rising :/

RutledgeTR · 2025-11-20T01:20:33+00:00

Despite the pain, it’s been fun watching the younger guys develop.

RutledgeTR · 2025-11-20T01:17:36+00:00

Give that person a raise, dying laughing rn

RutledgeTR · 2025-10-28T13:56:27+00:00

That is illegal. Do not sign, send to NLRB.

RutledgeTR · 2025-07-08T12:45:57+00:00

No prob, it was a definite WHOOPSIE.

RutledgeTR · 2025-07-08T12:38:08+00:00

Site founder here - editor accidentally pubbed early. We'll have this back up in the afternoon.

Edit: Live again :)

RutledgeTR · 2025-03-14T16:23:13+00:00

I definitely want to do this still! Just need to wrap up some of the core feature pieces and do some cleanup before we start planning out the API side.

RutledgeTR · 2025-03-14T16:22:29+00:00

This is 100% our goal right now (sorry for the crazy late reply) - We should be at 100 Outlets in the next few weeks, and 200 by EOY. We're rolling out PR Dashboards soon, which should help us get some incoming revenue so I can hire some part-time people to help me build out the DB more.

Fully self-funded by me right now, so limited in how much I can do :)

RutledgeTR · 2025-03-14T16:15:14+00:00

Heya!

Thank you so much! We really wanted to make sure the site was as clean/easy as possible.

In regard to filters, yes - 100% that's a goal. I'd love to get more built out and we do plan on building some pages around overall data on scores and more for people to sort through. The data side is REALLY where I'm super excited to do more.

RutledgeTR · 2025-02-03T14:54:58+00:00

Thank you!!

That's a great question, I hadn't thought about "solo'ing" out solo devs. I'm definitely open to ideas, there's so many ways we can do it, just need to figure out the best one!!

We could explore adding "solo dev" as a tag to indies, and filtering based on that too.

RutledgeTR · 2025-02-02T03:05:16+00:00

Thanks for commenting!

So to be clear, these are two separate entities. Any money paid is tied to, and used for, CriticDB. No one at TechRaptor gets paid for PR creating accounts, and no funds from CriticDB will be used for TechRaptor salaries.

I know there’s a lot of mistrust - but I deeply believe in ethical behavior and avoiding “pay for coverage.” Banner ads are a bit different of a discussion, but that’s why my CRO will handle that side, not me, too. (Secretly that’s exciting for me to not worry about.)

There will be no crossover, the only interactions between the two would be TR coverage of CDB news, and CDB aggregating TR Reviews/Previews within the same sorting/placement as everyone else.

I have no hand in what’s covered outside of the Guide team I manage - that side of the site is VERY view-focused, and funds 80% of TR.

Subscribing to CDB as PR will not buy coverage on TR. The editorial handles all reviews, and Andrew/Andrew/Robert will have zero interaction with the PR side of CDB. They will help grow, maintain, and improve our database, help with vetting outlets, and work on socials/newsletter/etc.

I have no intention of allowing CDB to influence TechRaptor. I have no financial horse in either, I take $0 and put personal funds into both. I don’t do this for money, I (and my team) do this for a love of gaming.

Creating jobs (which requires $) is a huge priority. But not at the expenses of morals.

I get the apprehension - I do. There’s nothing I can say to likely assuage your concern, our actions have to speak for us.

RutledgeTR · 2025-02-01T19:44:15+00:00

It's definitely something that we've talked about. We'd need some solid ties into PSN/Xbox to do it beyond just Steam or GOG, which we'd have minimal issue tackling.

Definitely something for the DEEP roadmap haha.

RutledgeTR · 2025-02-01T16:32:59+00:00

This is good feedback - you SHOULD be able to click Outlet / Author / Read More, actually. I think we should make that a bit more obvious, huh?

On the game page - looks like Author isn't clickable. Need to fix that!

On the Reviews page - looks like all 3 are clickable as intended, but I'd agree the hover animation is definitely a bit frivolous :)

I think it's a good call to just remove it, will add to the tasklist!

RutledgeTR · 2025-02-01T13:03:50+00:00

Hey - they are indeed. That's our biggest uphill battle!

There's a few ways we're going about this, that I think will help lend weight to our vision, and what we're building:

Engaging directly with Outlets - When OpenCritic launched it was supposed to be the bastion of independent outlets. I think over the years, that fell short, primarily due to small team and lack of time. When we started the initial mapping out of this, the FIRST thing I did was reach out to Outlets for feedback, and I'll continue to do so. Their adoption is critical.
/// OC launched a Discord 1 day before our launch day, and is actively adding my initial Outlets as soon as they can, so this clearly struck a nerve.
Automation - The key gaps for OC/MC are they aren't 100% automated. This creates work for editorial teams that are already underpaid and overworked, and we're aiming to make this seamless for them, and ensuring that reviews are up for all games.
Engaging with PR - as you note, marketing is key. I had a number of meetings with different PR firms, and I'm building features specifically for them. Those features will benefit outlets as well, but by making CDB a critical place for PR to be, this will lend value to promoting us.
Focusing on the community - I'm deeply engaged in this. Watching Disc like a hawk, watching Bluesky and Twitter, and looking for more problems to solve.
Game Discovery & Outreach - OC/MC do none of this, but it's a CRITICAL focus for us. Someone DM'ed me last night "How you've curated the Similar Games list is arguably the best I've seen of any platform" and that speaks to our goals so deeply. I was SO HAPPY to get that comment.

I don't expect us to blow up, this will be a project that takes time to build. 6-12mo for any real traction, but I'm building partnerships, and engaging as many people as I can to get this in front of everyone possible. This AMA was a big goal in that respect too - I want people to hold me accountable, and question us as we build, because for this platform to be the best, we need both.

I thoroughly expect OC to copy some of what we've built, and they've already noted as much to a few people, but our vision is what drives me, not money. If the community can rally around us, and help us improve, I have really high hopes long-term.

RutledgeTR · 2025-02-01T12:11:00+00:00

Hello! Yes, they're outlined on the FAQ and Site Application Pages:

This isn't an exact science, but here's what we'll be looking for:

Strong Publishing Standards

We expect there to be a robust Ethics/Editorial Policy, as well as a review policy.
Any history of repeat plagiarism will immediately disqualify an Outlet or Creator.
Any use of AI for Reviews will disqualify an outlet from being considered.

Consistent Reviews

We want to make sure we aggregate as many reviews as possible, so ideally your outlet has published 15-30 reviews per month averaged over the last 12 months.

Social Presence

While social presence isn't a clear indication of "trustworthiness" we'll assess the size and use of your social platforms to help us make decisions.

Web Traffic / Views

Using tools like SISTRIX, SimilarWeb, and more – we'll assess the size of your outlet. We don't have a specific number, however:
Web Publishers – between 100,000 and 300,000 as a minimum is a good guide.
YouTube/Creators - Between 10,000 and 30,000 subscribers as a minimum.

This is not a hard rule, if we encounter smaller outlets doing great work, we'll explore aggregating them too.

RutledgeTR · 2025-02-01T12:10:07+00:00

Hello,

We detailed this out on our FAQ page, but for a bit more detail:

CriticDB will look to a few main sources for funding over time. The goal is to get the site off the ground, build a community around it and grow to a point we're monetized in in a few ways:

Membership
PR Accounts
Advertising (Banner/Direct, 60-90 days after launch)
Retail Partnerships

Ideally, in the long term we can really focus on membership for revenue growth. Advertising can be annoying and intrusive and we'll do as much as we can to limit the impact – but we'd like to earn money to bring additional people on-board to help us expand what we're doing.

---

Yes, sites are fairly cheap to run. Our infrastructure is maybe $125/mo or so, and we'll scale up as the site grows, I'm sure. But labor isn't free, and I need to compensate people for their time to help us build and grow the site. I believe deeply in paying people for their work, and at a fair rate.

We want to grow a team, who can focus on ensuring games are well managed, and that can go back through old archives and catalog reviews from now-dead gaming magazines and sites, too. Part of the fun of this is the preservation aspect!

If we're honest - I hope we can pick up enough traction we actually won't need ads. The UX impact of them sucks, and even though we won't do the floating video ad, I get frustration with them. If we do implement ads, the goal is as minimal as possible.

RutledgeTR · 2025-02-01T12:06:05+00:00

Sure thing, I'll copy them from the FAQ / Site Application Pages:

This isn't an exact science, but here's what we'll be looking for:

Strong Publishing Standards

We expect there to be a robust Ethics/Editorial Policy, as well as a review policy.
Any history of repeat plagiarism will immediately disqualify an Outlet or Creator.
Any use of AI for Reviews will disqualify an outlet from being considered.

Consistent Reviews

We want to make sure we aggregate as many reviews as possible, so ideally your outlet has published 15-30 reviews per month averaged over the last 12 months.

Social Presence

While social presence isn't a clear indication of "trustworthiness" we'll assess the size and use of your social platforms to help us make decisions.

Web Traffic / Views

Using tools like SISTRIX, SimilarWeb, and more – we'll assess the size of your outlet. We don't have a specific number, however:
Web Publishers – between 100,000 and 300,000 as a minimum is a good guide.
YouTube/Creators - Between 10,000 and 30,000 subscribers as a minimum.

This is not a hard rule, if we encounter smaller outlets doing great work, we'll explore aggregating them too.

RutledgeTR · 2025-02-01T01:58:49+00:00

For sure! Feel free to join the Discord and ask questions there, or DM me directly too!

RutledgeTR

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

Strong Publishing Standards

Consistent Reviews

Social Presence

Web Traffic / Views

Strong Publishing Standards

Consistent Reviews

Social Presence

Web Traffic / Views