What happened to this site?

[bikingjahuty]

I'm definitely not one of the oldest members on this site, but when I joined (2013) this site was a pretty happening place. There were lots of discussions about games, both new and old, tons of new posts and active users, and just overall I could count on new threads nearly everyday to check out. I feel like since maybe 2015 or so the site has been on a rapid decent downwards, not in terms of quality, but just in terms of active users and interest in the site itself. Maybe there is still a lot of database movement with people adding new games to their collections and tracking, but for me the community on here has become more important than what I'd originally joined for which was to track my collection.


As for the reason why this is happening, I can speculate, but it seems like this site should be more popular than ever. I say that because I feel like more people than ever took the video game collecting pill during the COVID lockdowns and prices have not really come down since then. I belong to a few Facebook collecting groups and there as vibrant and active as ever too, which supports this. So why is it that so many people no longer post or show that much interest in game discussion here anymore? It genuinely makes me a little sad seeing how I can go a week without logging in and there's a decent chance no new threads have been posted and there are only a handful of new posts on existing threads in General and some of the other more popular discussion forums.


And for the record I'm not criticizing the site or anyone else with this post. I'm just genuinely curious what's going on to where this site has seemingly been abandoned by the vast majority of its user base.

[NickAwesome]

I still really enjoy this site and actively use it to track my collection. My problem is that if I'm looking for quick engagement- I can find that in my local fb collecting groups. The forum here is just a very old school communication format. If I want to share a picture in a fb group it takes 20 second- here it takes much longer. I can also easily buy/sell in fb groups- here it is more complicated.

[mrkonasoni]

Well, sincerely, I stopped using this place for some months because I got sick and well, depressed... so I needed to take some time off, but I was planning to come back soon to make more topics about stuff that I am interested to.

If anything I don't think this place is dead and I believe it still has a bunch of things to say but at the same time it would be healthy just assume that everything needs to end at some point and just remember the good times, I am not planning to leave until this place is actually dead.

Funny enough, I prefer forums over social media.

[vivigamer]

A lot of people have more platforms for discussion on than just forums these days, they have social media at their finger tips or other apps like Discord which are more of a go-to for most people with Smartphones than accessing a traditional Forum Website. I personally don't use my phone for much of that and access the site when I am on my PC - Usually in the mornings before work/going out.

I think the website could use a little bit of updating, especially in being able to post images without having to do so first on another website like Imgur. I've also noticed the Twitter account is non-existant, so maybe it just isn't being advertised out there as much as it could? I think something as simple as even just posting additions the to monthly threads where people post their new items with a picture would help.

[burningdoom]

Facebook is a more active place to go for conversation. Less people are engaging here, so less to talk about. And we had an influx of trolls for a while there that I'm sure helped drive people off.

[emporerdragon]

I do typically visit the forums at least once a day, and will join any discussions that catch my eye. But I'll admit I'm not the type of person who will start discussions, just add to them, so with nothing new, my presence reduces quite a bit.

I will also say I'm not collecting as much game-wise right now as as speculated, I'm not really finding as many deals out there, so my collecting focus has shifted away from games (currently, my main focus is manga), and the games I am buying are digital, so I'm not really reporting my "findings".

[ignition365]

For me it's a mix of life and apathy.  Plus Discord is a better environment for me personally, so I'm active over on Discord with folks and I can constantly be in communication with folks, but on here it's not as simple.  It's not like SMF has a nice mobile interface or anything.

[sworddude]

It's like most people say, so many other sources for quick engagements

forums are a relic of the past, it ain't anything about this site specificly things change.

The communication format of a forum is to slow for most people these days. withouth the other options people focussed their energy in forums, nowadays that energy is spent elsewhere and it's unlikely for new members to choose a forum over discord etc.

not to say there aren't any succesfull forums left, but the thing with those is that those are huge. the kind where you are a number when you participate. This forum was never huge, the fun thing was that it wasn't to big and it wasn't to small either.

[Cartagia]

Are you asking what happened to the site or what happened to the forums?

The site generally seems just as active as always, whereas the forums are dying because, unfortunately, that is what forums do nowadays.

I do not agree with the idea that it's because forums are slow, or variations thereof, however.  It's not slower that posting on reddit or a Facebook or Twitter thread.  The issue is that they are decentralized and specialized.  Before Facebook, Reddit, etc. if you wanted to go discuss any niche thing you had to go looking for it.  Nowadays you don't have to leave any of those centralized hubs.

[fazerco]

The Europeans came?

[bizzgeburt]

I for myself collect video games for about 5 years now. I started listing my collection on another site of this type until that site went down.

Maybe all the collectors that started during covid hang around on other sites than this oO ...

[tripredacus]

We still have a lot of users who are using the main site and the forum has probably always been under 1% of that activity. That is just a guess since I don't know the actual numbers, but do get to see the daily registrations of active site users aka people who add things to their collection.

[leonefamily]

In the beginning I used to just use the collection tracker and never use the forums. It doesn't help that I don't get any email notifications when people reply to me in forums, so I never know and that doesn't really help for forum engagement.

[bigbossman]

I still actively use this site to track my gaming collection. I don't use the forum often, but the collection list is what I use it for mostly.

[Cartagia]

In the beginning I used to just use the collection tracker and never use the forums. It doesn't help that I don't get any email notifications when people reply to me in forums, so I never know and that doesn't really help for forum engagement.

There's a setting for notifications in your profile.  It is not on by default.