GamingBoards - Where Gamers Unite

[••Gaming.Boards.net••]

Hey Kami,

I appreciate your honest review. You're right, the forum is dead. I spent time and funds on advertising and it just didn't seem to work out. I tried posting to other communities and paying for services to assist, unfortunately I just didn't see much, if any, increase in activity. I have basically given up at this point, as I'm unsure what steps to take next which would actually yield noticeable results.

My dream since I started this forum back in 2005 was to see it flourish, and for some time it actually was fairly active in the early years. Mainly because I lead clans in a variety of games and introduced my members to the community.  
I have failed at maintaining activity and regret that. I wish I had the know-how and funds to bring this community to life.

May 14, 2023 9:42:55 GMT -8 Kami said:

Hello again! I've reviewed this forum a few times already (and having my last review from four years ago in the first post is really convenient, thanks!), but since a pretty large chunk of time has passed, I wanted to give it another look.

I gotta confess, I am actually pretty disappointed. I really, genuinely don't mean this as a slight on you or your character, or your efforts for this forum. I know you're personally dedicated from an emotional standpoint, and I don't know what issues you may be dealing with in other aspects of your life that could impact the way you've run the forum. What I mean by this is, well,  I love video games. I love them so much that, since my last post, I became a game dev and have worked at two different AAA studios on some pretty huge titles. Theoretically, this community would be right up my alley as a player (to chat with people who love games too) & as a dev (to help keep an eye on trends), but to me it doesn't look like y'all are particularly active. The most recent posts were a week ago (by someone mainly bumping up old threads), and before that, mid-April, all 14 threads of which are spam. If we discount the mid-April spam, the last legitimate thread on this forum was created in 2022.

Truthfully, it is SHOCKING to me that this forum isn't absolutely inundated with users and buzzing right now, considering the fact that:

• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom released yesterday and has a 90+ metacritic score
• Diablo 4 is having another beta weekend this weekend
• Redfall launched earlier this month
• There have been pretty giant shakeups in the industry with mass layoffs across some pretty top tier studios and publishers (EA, Unity, Riot, ABK, etc)
• League of Legend's Midseason Invitational (MSI) is going on right now
• There have been several very noteworthy news items about the industry between mid-April and now (UE5 being added to Fortnite Creative, ABK merger with Microsoft being blocked by the EU, SEGA devs joining a union, just to name a few)

And the list goes on, the last two years have been incredibly huge for the games industry with a lot of really excellent titles releasing, ranging from indie to AA to AAA. The line between gamers and non-gamers are blurring as game companies start creating ancillary media to engage non-gamers with their content (and seeing a nice surge in new players due to it). There's so much happening in this fandom / industry in recent years, good and bad, and somehow none of that is reflected in this forum.

I am an incredibly avid gamer, and while at first glance the forum is just as gorgeous as it was four years ago when I reviewed it, as a prospective member that is a core part of your target audience / demographic, this forum doesn't really look like it's some place where I should spend what little free time I have when there are other communities that are way more active, even if less aesthetically pleasing. It's wild to me, and if you hadn't kept bumping this thread on Support I would have assumed the forum was almost entirely dead.

Ultimately, my question for you is this: you have been bumping this thread for reviews for the last five years. You've taken some advice to heart, and others you've disregarded entirely, which is of course your prerogative. But what is your goal for the forum? I would assume it would be to build a community of gamers, and it looks like you had that for a while (particularly re: RuneScape), but as of lately it seems to have fizzled out. The last review in this thread from a year ago called out that there was nothing incentivising users to be active, and based on what I can see as a guest, you've not made any changes towards that suggestion. Again, your prerogative, but I fail to see the point in bumping this thread for rates if the content folks can see as guests is basically just spam.

There's something amiss here, and people have stopped posting regularly. How can I recommend this forum to my other game-obsessed friends if I can't vouch for the existing content and community? Why are you still investing in a community that, by all metrics available to prospective members, is completely disinterested? I don't really have any suggestions or answers for you, but you're still asking for reviews, and this is my 0.02.

I want you to be successful with every ounce of my being, because I, and my friends, and my colleagues, are really trying to find communities they can connect with about games that isn't necessarily on discord or twitter. I know there's a very healthy and large niche for this community, but it feels like your passion for trying to court and cultivate that audience has died. I hope you find success, truly, but if you're still serious about making this community successful, something has to change and you are the only person that can figure out what, and how.

Best of luck; I hope in the future I can come back and give a much better review.

[Kami]

Nov 16, 2023 4:45:07 GMT -8 ••Gaming.Boards.net•• said:

Hey Kami,

I appreciate your honest review. You're right, the forum is dead. I spent time and funds on advertising and it just didn't seem to work out. I tried posting to other communities and paying for services to assist, unfortunately I just didn't see much, if any, increase in activity. I have basically given up at this point, as I'm unsure what steps to take next which would actually yield noticeable results.

My dream since I started this forum back in 2005 was to see it flourish, and for some time it actually was fairly active in the early years. Mainly because I lead clans in a variety of games and introduced my members to the community.  
I have failed at maintaining activity and regret that. I wish I had the know-how and funds to bring this community to life.

I mean this in a very gentle way, but considering I responded to this a half a year ago and didn't get any response til today, I kind of assumed so.

I hope you don't take it the wrong way; my intent is perspective / advice. I really, genuinely want you to succeed, because I think you can. There's a huge appetite in the industry for community spaces, and for a lot of people Discord and social media are just lacking on archival information and really favour people who are perpetually online since anyone who is gone for a few hours or longer wind up missing a lot of exchanges.

But I think maybe your priorities are/were a little bit backwards, as far as trying to make this forum successful. Posting to other communities and paying for stuff... I mean that's nice, and I'm sure that your members appreciated it, but it's not what makes a community successful. A community is built on camaraderie, shared interests, and someone in charge to make sure that everyone is having fun and getting along. You also need someone to take charge in the "lull" between hot topics and game releases.

The forum is so pretty; elli did a great job making a beautiful interface and user experience. But when I disregard the spam that's built up, I'm not seeing a lot of... well, interaction. While I see some members attempting some interactions with each other, the most notable thing I see is... a lack of interaction from the mods / admin(s) of the forum. Y'all should be members first and foremost, and it just seems that the onus was on everyone else to be active. Maybe I just missed the activity from the staff because it's buried under a bunch of threads, but it's definitely a negative for a prospective member.

I'm going to use this as an example. I have a very special affinity for Riot Games and their IPs, not just as a player but professionally as well (I used to work on League). I always get excited, even if I'm not a Rioter anymore, to find communities discussing Riot stuff because I love their stuff. But when I click into this thread, which I think is going to be a discussion about LoR, it's... not. It's almost like an advertisement. Now the thread was created a few months before LoR's official release, while it was still in Beta, but it just... never was talked about again, even though this post was in Feb of 2020 and then April of 2020 was the full release. And the OP, who I presume is a moderator, didn't offer really much of a discussion point. It's like, "Hey here's a new card game coming out" and then crickets. Nothing about their thoughts on the game, nothing on their ideas of where it could go, etc. I think it's important, as forum admins, to look at threads like these and think -- how does this thread facilitate discussion? And then try to go from there.

Continuing to use this thread as an example, if I were in your shoes, I'd think: okay, well, how can people take this thread and make it their own? And the answer really is... they can't. There's no discussion topic from the OP, it's just a quick ad for "Hey LoR exists here's a link". You can't build a community like that, and the community vibe has to be spearheaded by the staff team.

I really hope you understand that I'm not trying to berate you as an admin, or say that you're a bad admin, or anything. I know, because I remember this forum back when you were using copyrighted logos and I let you know that wasn't allowed (:P), that at some point this place was really all about gaming, and I thought that was so cool. I want you to be successful, I truly do. I want this space to exist, I want to tell my friends and colleagues about it, I want it to grow and thrive.

But -- and I don't know what changed -- at some point this forum became about getting members and being popular, rather than creating quality content and retaining members. Whenever that shift occurred, that's what got you here. Advertisements and a new skin and a custom domain are all great, but they are the icing on the cake, not the cake itself.

I hope, at some point, you find the motivation / energy to try again, and to remember: be player focused. Just like a game won't take off without good content that speaks to their target audience, the same is applicable to a forum. If you decide to try again in the future, let me know. I'd really love to see this forum succeed.

[••Gaming.Boards.net••]

As I stated in my last response, I really do appreciate all of your feedback. You're 100% correct with all of your observations and it's honestly motivating. I did create quite a few game review posts that I was hoping to stay on top of, the forum still generates a fair amount of guest views, likely from many of the keywords used in the fairly decent threads that as you mentioned, are mainly buried.

I'd love to provide more in-depth game reviews and discussions, my biggest issue is being away from gaming. I play a lot of the same old games from my childhood from time to time, but don't really dive deep enough into anything new to have of a worthwhile opinion on it. I also feel like I may have spread myself too thin by discussing multiple games/genres all at once rather than focusing on a specific area.

I think the let down of V6 never being released may have also made a negative impact on my motivation, I began thinking PB could shut the doors any day now and I'd lose all of my hard work. Most suggest going towards a paid service where this wouldn't be an issue, and I'd have more control over my forum and content, plus reassurance that it isn't going anywhere and updates would continue to be provided.

I'm going to ask around and see if I can find some new staff members to assist with lifting GamingBoards off the ground, again. I understand the majority of the responsibility is my own, however, it would be nice to have someone to share the passion with.

I'm going to reference all of your suggestions and observations when I begin to work on the community and content, thank you!

Nov 16, 2023 16:16:36 GMT -8 Kami said:

Nov 16, 2023 4:45:07 GMT -8 ••Gaming.Boards.net•• said:

Hey Kami,

I appreciate your honest review. You're right, the forum is dead. I spent time and funds on advertising and it just didn't seem to work out. I tried posting to other communities and paying for services to assist, unfortunately I just didn't see much, if any, increase in activity. I have basically given up at this point, as I'm unsure what steps to take next which would actually yield noticeable results.

My dream since I started this forum back in 2005 was to see it flourish, and for some time it actually was fairly active in the early years. Mainly because I lead clans in a variety of games and introduced my members to the community.  
I have failed at maintaining activity and regret that. I wish I had the know-how and funds to bring this community to life.

I mean this in a very gentle way, but considering I responded to this a half a year ago and didn't get any response til today, I kind of assumed so.

I hope you don't take it the wrong way; my intent is perspective / advice. I really, genuinely want you to succeed, because I think you can. There's a huge appetite in the industry for community spaces, and for a lot of people Discord and social media are just lacking on archival information and really favour people who are perpetually online since anyone who is gone for a few hours or longer wind up missing a lot of exchanges.

But I think maybe your priorities are/were a little bit backwards, as far as trying to make this forum successful. Posting to other communities and paying for stuff... I mean that's nice, and I'm sure that your members appreciated it, but it's not what makes a community successful. A community is built on camaraderie, shared interests, and someone in charge to make sure that everyone is having fun and getting along. You also need someone to take charge in the "lull" between hot topics and game releases.

The forum is so pretty; elli did a great job making a beautiful interface and user experience. But when I disregard the spam that's built up, I'm not seeing a lot of... well, interaction. While I see some members attempting some interactions with each other, the most notable thing I see is... a lack of interaction from the mods / admin(s) of the forum. Y'all should be members first and foremost, and it just seems that the onus was on everyone else to be active. Maybe I just missed the activity from the staff because it's buried under a bunch of threads, but it's definitely a negative for a prospective member.

I'm going to use this as an example. I have a very special affinity for Riot Games and their IPs, not just as a player but professionally as well (I used to work on League). I always get excited, even if I'm not a Rioter anymore, to find communities discussing Riot stuff because I love their stuff. But when I click into this thread, which I think is going to be a discussion about LoR, it's... not. It's almost like an advertisement. Now the thread was created a few months before LoR's official release, while it was still in Beta, but it just... never was talked about again, even though this post was in Feb of 2020 and then April of 2020 was the full release. And the OP, who I presume is a moderator, didn't offer really much of a discussion point. It's like, "Hey here's a new card game coming out" and then crickets. Nothing about their thoughts on the game, nothing on their ideas of where it could go, etc. I think it's important, as forum admins, to look at threads like these and think -- how does this thread facilitate discussion? And then try to go from there.

Continuing to use this thread as an example, if I were in your shoes, I'd think: okay, well, how can people take this thread and make it their own? And the answer really is... they can't. There's no discussion topic from the OP, it's just a quick ad for "Hey LoR exists here's a link". You can't build a community like that, and the community vibe has to be spearheaded by the staff team.

I really hope you understand that I'm not trying to berate you as an admin, or say that you're a bad admin, or anything. I know, because I remember this forum back when you were using copyrighted logos and I let you know that wasn't allowed (), that at some point this place was really all about gaming, and I thought that was so cool. I want you to be successful, I truly do. I want this space to exist, I want to tell my friends and colleagues about it, I want it to grow and thrive.

But -- and I don't know what changed -- at some point this forum became about getting members and being popular, rather than creating quality content and retaining members. Whenever that shift occurred, that's what got you here. Advertisements and a new skin and a custom domain are all great, but they are the icing on the cake, not the cake itself.

I hope, at some point, you find the motivation / energy to try again, and to remember: be player focused. Just like a game won't take off without good content that speaks to their target audience, the same is applicable to a forum. If you decide to try again in the future, let me know. I'd really love to see this forum succeed.

[Kami]

If what I have said is helpful, then I am very glad. I don't think it's a problem that you have a lot of games to talk about, I think it's the setup to be platform-focused, instead of genre-focused. This is the (ex)Rioter in me, but again, let's shift to player-focused thinking.

There are likely very few players in the world who play all games on any given platform; I suspect that the data would show that people lean more into their favourite genre(s) over their platform of choice, especially when so many games are NOT platform exclusive anymore. One of my favourite game series is Dragon Age; DA titles have been released on console as well as PC, and so based on your forum set up, I have no idea where I would post in order to find people interested in Dragon Age or other narrative, player-choice games.

Similarly, I love League; I am not generally into other MOBAs, but let's say I wanted to talk about them. Would I put my topic into "PC Games"? If I do, what about the MOBA community that plays Wild Rift or other mobile MOBAs?

Imagine the discussions that could be generated by players and staff if you used genre instead of platform; you could even introduce people to new games without worrying about if they would care -- of course they would, otherwise they wouldn't be in that genre section!

What purpose would game reviews serve a forum community? I already have Game Informer, IGN, PC Gamer, and Metacritic. Why would I go to a forum to read an article? Why not start a conversation instead, rather than reviewing games?

Whatever you go with in the long term, always think about what would be good for player and community experience (from content, to user experience, to forum rules, etc). That, more than literally anything, is the key to building a successful community.

Best of luck!

[sergeim]

I have a gaming site do you wanna come and join it too help me

[🎶Sossity🎶]

Mar 2, 2024 12:49:08 GMT -8 sergeim said:

I have a gaming site do you wanna come and join it too help me

sergeim

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