It’s been a long time coming and now it’s finally here!
IGD Sunshine Magazine has been around for a few years now, providing marketing services to various indie games, free reviews for indie games and game development assets and new coverage on game development and indie games alike. While the site was running smoothly for a while there, as the creator of the site, I started to notice some issues shortly after it’s creation, that would inevitably lead to the site speed decreasing over time.
The issue was the hosting provider being used and speed/data usage for the site, displaying images, videos, etc. directly from the server was always a pain. I spent years trying to get things to work well with the provider I used and in the end, decided to say goodbye to them and switch to something more ideal. Luckily I was able to find a popular provider that is actually local to my current location, this is great for a few reasons.
For starters they are in the same time zone as me, so I know the servers are always running off of my time zone, also they are within driving distance so if I was oh so inclined, I could go right down to their office and report a grievance (not that I feel I would need to do this but it’s an option.) and of course, their system is very well optimized, fast and reliable.
What does this mean for the site? Well in short, it means much faster loading times for desktop, laptop and mobile users, this in itself is one of the most important facts to having a regularly visited site, something I struggled with for far too long, knowing very well it was not an issue on my end but the providers.
I’ve also spent some time making changes and new additions to the site to really give it a better look, feel and over better experience. These things include color changes, banner changes, page setup changes, review changes (presentation, look, feel, etc.) and various other aspects that would be noticeable to anyone who visited the site previously.
Now that the site is performing properly and the main issue with images is squared away, I actually feel a lot more content with the site and promoting it, which in turn is partly the reason why i stopped posting so often (speed issues). I am planning to get things rolling again, pumping out new articles, reviews, etc. every day or at least every few days, fulfilling the actual purpose of this digital magazine, which is to help spread the word about awesome indie games and products!
For all those that have followed along during the journey and continuously showed your support, I am truly grateful, not everything is as easy as it seems and sometimes, that little extra push is all it takes to take something great and make it incredible!
To the future!
