MMG site shutting down

[Shrykespeare]

Last e-mail she told me was that she was still waiting on that information.

And tell your friend, whatever he does on our behalves would be welcome. I'm sure the lot of us could come up with whatever reasonable fee he asks for.

Just tell him the need for urgency and that we want it to be OURS.

I'm tired of having a site that's not properly maintained. The whole MMG experience is like being asked to move into a luxury hotel with all your buddies, but over time the hospitality staff all quit and now there's no one left to turn town the bed and the mint on your pillow has been stolen by mice. (Too erudite?)

[Buscemi]

It seems like all the owners ever do now is talk about how great Marvel is and how bad Ben Affleck is going to be as Batman (even though we haven't seen one frame of footage yet).

[Shrykespeare]

Um... wrong thread, Boosh.

[Buscemi]

Have you ever seen their Facebook posts? It's Marvel this, Marvel that. Talk about something else for once, come on.

[JohnErle]

Yeah, don't you hate it when people keep harping on and on about the same subject and won't shut up about it?

[Geezer]

What does this have to do with us getting a new web site?

[Buscemi]

It feels like they are ignoring the site in favor of other, insignificant things. We depend on them but they ignore us in favor of random, meaningless items.

[Shrykespeare]

Well, whether our new site comes from empire's friends, bestfilm's friends or Box Office Champions (the least likely of the three), we won't have to deal with that any more.

[Shrykespeare]

Listen, all... I had a crazy thought.


I was able to get a great price for my book's cover illustration by going through a site called elance.com. People all over the world are waiting to be hired to do freelance work, in virtually every field. Outsource.com is another great site for this.

What if I created a job for building our new website, as detailed as I could? Then web designers would chime in with their bids and timetables for completion. I'm sure we could get someone good for a bargain-basement price that all of us could afford if we chipped in. It would probably take a lot less time than finding friends of friends of friends to have to do it around their work schedules.

What do you think?

[Chienfantome]

I think it's a pretty great idea Shryke. And it doesn't cost anything to try and see at least if someone proposes something and see how much it would cost us. It's definitely worth trying.

[Geezer]

I say do it yesterday, Shryke.

[numbersix]

Great idea. I'm sure some of us could afford to chip in $50 or so each and have enough to pay someone to build a site quickly. Even if the weekend data has to be entered manually I'm sure we could figure it out.

[Shrykespeare]

I will try to get it done ASAP. I love e-lance, but I'm having a problem reactivating my account... something about having a valid Skype ID.

"Your Skype ID is between 6 and 32 characters and contains no spaces. It must start with a letter and can only have letters, numbers, and the following punctuation marks: period (.), dash (-), underscore (_), and comma (,)

To find your Skype ID, Open Skype > Click View > Click Profile > Locate the "Skype Name" displayed on your Profile."

Fuck if I know what this means. I signed up for Skype even though I never use it and I don't know what my Skype ID is. Can someone help me with this? If not, I'll just use Outsource.

[Ron Burgundy]

You should be able to re-activate your account, forgotten username, password etc. When i used to use skype, i ended up making 3 different accounts because of similar reasons. So im sure you could make another account if that suits.

And yes, im keen to chip in, starting with $50, hopefully everyone can do the same.

[Shrykespeare]

I have posted the job for building a new game site on Outsource.com. I expect bids to start coming in soon.


Here is what I posted. I tried to make it as cut and dried as possible.

Budget - $500 to $1000



I represent a group of movie-game buffs who have been playing a free online movie box-office prediction game that has existed since late 2006. The most recent incarnation has just folded its tents, and we need a new website. After years of having to depend on others to hold up their end as far as administrative responsibilities, we want a website run by us and maintained by us.

How the game works:
1. Players may join an existing league, or create their own. Leagues can be either Public or Private. Public leagues can be joined by anyone, Private leagues require a password to get in. After they have joined a league, they must create a "Studio Name" that identifies the films that they pick as their own.

2. The player may then selected up to eight films that are scheduled to be released in the three-month period that the league spans. (Let's say, for this example, March through May.) Each film has a dollar value assigned to it, based on how it is expected to do at the box office. Each player is given a budget of $100 to choose up to eight films, a budget that cannot exceed.

3. Once a film is released, that film can no longer be acquired by any player that did not select it, and it cannot be dropped by any player that picked it. Up until its date of release, any film may be added or dropped.

4. At the end of the three month period (say, the final week of May), whichever player's selection of films have the highest aggregate stats wins.


There are two different types of games: Box Office and Ultimate.

In Box Office, only the total box office (dollars earned in the U.S.) that a player's array of films has earned is counted.

In Ultimate, players are ranked in four different categories: User Rating, Top 5, PTA, and Box Office.
a) User Rating - the film's current User Rating on IMDb
b) Top 5 - If a player is #1 in the US for a weekend, it earns five points. #2 earns four points, and so forth.
c) PTA - Per Theater Average - The film that is #1 in Per Theater Average earns five points, #2 earns four points, and so forth.
d) Box Office - dollars earned.

Let's say there are ten players in a league. The player whose released films have the highest total in any category will have ten points in that category, and so on down to last place, which will have one point. All players in a league are ranked in the four above categories, and the four numbers are added together to get a cumulative total.

The player with the highest cumulative total at the end of the three-month period is the winner.


What we need:

1. Admin Page - A page with restricted access to only a few. This page will have the list of movies that are used in the leagues, its prices, and its statistics will be manually entered. These statistics will then flow over to the page where the leagues are built and the standings are kept. (I'd to be able to attach a thumbnail of each film's poster so it's easy for players to distinguish it.)

2. League Sign-Up Page - This is the page where someone can sign up for either a Private or Public League. Once they sign up, they will be asked to create a Studio Name which will then be attached to their User Name on that particular league's Standings Page.

3. League Standings Page - Each created league will have one. This page will include the ranking of each player that has signed up for the league. Below the standings it will have an alphabetical list of each player in the League, along with the films that they have selected for that league.

4. Studio Page - After a player has signed up for a league, he will need to create a studio. He will have a list of films to choose from, which will include each film's price tag. He will start with $100, but that number will decrease as he/she picks each film. He/she may pick no more than eight films, and may not exceed $100. When he/she is finished picking his/her films, he may "save" it, and then those films will appear on the Leagues Standings Page. (If possible, I'd like to have a feature that gives each player the opportunity to "hide" the films he/she has chosen that have not yet been released yet. It would only become known once the film is released and locked into that player's studio.)

5. Stats Page - A page that shows the individual statistics of each film that is being included during that three-month period. These stats will be changed manually by an admin once a week.


There will be other details to be worked out. We would like to have something up and running no later than the end of the year, but sooner would be preferable. Functionality is key, but we also want to make it easy for people unfamiliar with the game to be able to understand it.

We are looking for someone with the knowhow to create a website with a lot of bells and whistles, the ability to not only follow instructions but make suggestions as well.

We want a game to call our own. Can you build it for us?