SEGAbits Forums

Off Topic => Everything Else => Topic started by: pcm92 on July 11, 2016, 05:15:47 pm

Title: Ghost Town
Post by: pcm92 on July 11, 2016, 05:15:47 pm
What happened?

Three years ago, this site was jumping. Now it's just Tad, Spock, Barry, Crackdude, Berto, and JRcade that I normally see responses from.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Tad on July 12, 2016, 01:25:35 am
I was wondering that myself. I know things like Facebook and Twitter gave forums quite a hit in general, but this change seems more recent.

We really need to get more people on here though.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: crackdude on July 12, 2016, 03:37:27 am
It's a phase.
A mix of a very scarce output of Sega games with summer at full swing. We've been there before, but the forum won't die.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Tad on July 12, 2016, 06:52:39 am
If it doesn't, who do we sacrifice?

I'm sure a sacrifice will bring new people. :)
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: crackdude on July 12, 2016, 07:35:24 am
We used to sacrifice Kogen for the greater good.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Barry the Nomad on July 12, 2016, 09:41:06 am
It's just a combination of SEGA being incredibly quiet throughout 2015 and most of 2016 and the summer lull. It is much more active here this year than it was last year. Once the new Sonic game is revealed and we have more games to discuss things will pick up. I am actually looking forward to discussing 7th Dragon III with you all.

Given SEGA itself is pretty niche compared to stuff like the modern console makers and SEGAbits is a relatively young site when it comes to online communities, we're doing well. When you compare the SEGAbits forums to other SEGA fan sites, we're very active. SEGA Addicts killed off their forum, and SEGASHIRO killed their forums and ended up just linking to us. SEGA Nerds forums are very dead,  going weeks or even years without replies to topics, and when somebody does venture in to say something (usually to promote a YT channel or something) it is just the writers jumping on the topic to generate discussion... which never leads to any. I do find it funny that one of the Mega Visions Kickstarter perks is access to a private Mega Visions forum.

I much prefer the discussion here to the official SEGA forums which are largely garbage. 

Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Tad on July 12, 2016, 10:31:29 am
All true. I do prefer smaller forums in general as I find the opinions are usually more explored and the atmosphere is better. I was on another forum like this, but it became very toxic unfortunately with the site owner publicly being abusive. The final straw for me was when he openly argued with a dev who took issue with a review.

It was nothing too bad, the dev just wanted something corrected on the review as it was wrong. The site owner basically said tough and he wouldn't change it. I left after that. Can't be arsed with people being abusive with their power like that.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: crackdude on July 12, 2016, 10:35:02 am
The admins here are waaay too abusive.

Just look at those inflated bling counters, goddamn
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Barry the Nomad on July 12, 2016, 10:37:40 am
The admins here are waaay too abusive.

Just look at those inflated bling counters, goddamn

Keep that up and I will max out your bling!
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Tad on July 12, 2016, 10:57:37 am
Just a thought, but maybe during these lulls a look at indie games or something could help?

I'm not trying to be rude, but I'm sure you'll agree little snippets of SEGA news that don't really do much isn't going to keep the site thriving.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Barry the Nomad on July 12, 2016, 11:22:45 am
The thing is, are we talking the site thriving or the forums thriving? I've found it is very hard to force discussion (as evidenced by how SEGA Nerds forums made such attempts) so really forum activity is all up to who frequents and what they want to discuss. As Crackdude said, it's a phase and something that has happened here in the past due to a lull in SEGA games and the summer season.

People are free to discuss indie games, and they have, but they have proven to not be an incredibly popular topic of discussion here. The Xenocider and Shadow Gangs topics were pretty quiet outside of posts from the devs. I have never personally been one to like to feign interest so as to attempt to generate discussion, as it usually is apparent (again, see how Nerds forums tried this).

On the front page and on YouTube things are going very well. We've actually been highlighting quite a few indie games and have interviews planned for developers. Traffic is up from last year, and things have been very steady. I guess the one thing that we could do is draw people from the front page and YouTube to the forums. We actually have some forum enhancements to come which would help that. Moving forward, I'll try and add forum links to articles to get people to click through for additional discussion.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Tad on July 12, 2016, 11:25:37 am
That's a good idea!

I can see what you mean though. I guess the key is in keeping things going till the news picks up.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: crackdude on July 12, 2016, 12:06:41 pm
Keep in mind that with the advent of social media, people also just prefer to comment on facebook posts and whatnot
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Tad on July 12, 2016, 12:12:35 pm
So, no sacrifice?

:(
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Barry the Nomad on July 12, 2016, 12:38:49 pm
Keep in mind that with the advent of social media, people also just prefer to comment on facebook posts and whatnot

Oh for sure, thankfully George was forward thinking and had bits go all in on Twitter and Facebook so we have a good network going. Maybe with the new forum software, we will have some sort of ability to login via facebook. I'm not too sure, but trust me when I say George and I are committed to the forums.

(https://presidentialpoliticsblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/trump-sly-smile-800x445.jpg)
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Tad on July 12, 2016, 12:52:29 pm
Giant wall confirmed!
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Barry the Nomad on July 12, 2016, 12:57:13 pm
Giant wall confirmed!

Trust me when I say that I know all about walls. We are going to build a nice big beautiful paywall around SEGAbits to keep out the lurkers and content thieves from rival sites. $10 to read the front page, $25 for forum access, $5 to select your own avatar. We are also going to develop a wonderful program where you trade your S¥£ Karma in for video game merchandise, like E3 giveaway items from 2009 and stuff that only loosely qualifies as video game related.

We will not only make SEGAbits great again, but we will make SEGA great again.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Tad on July 12, 2016, 02:57:06 pm
Huh...that sounds amazing.


*deletes account*

;)
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Barry the Nomad on July 12, 2016, 03:38:33 pm
Huh...that sounds amazing.


*deletes account*

;)

I will give you 25 bling to stay.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Tad on July 12, 2016, 03:54:43 pm
Thought you were going to say it costs $5 to leave :D
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Barry the Nomad on July 12, 2016, 04:02:45 pm
Thought you were going to say it costs $5 to leave :D

I cannot put a price on leaving SEGAbits...
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Clint Forrester on July 12, 2016, 07:26:17 pm
I don't know how active this place usually is but I think that forums have become sort of an old timey thing. Most people prefer Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and so forth now. Message boards like these have fallen out of style.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Spock on July 12, 2016, 07:36:52 pm
I don't know how active this place usually is but I think that forums have become sort of an old timey thing. Most people prefer Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and so forth now. Message boards like these have fallen out of style.
There are some forums that are thriving with thousands - even millions - of members. Nerdforum.org has members from nearly every country with Internet access. Forum websites do not seem to be losing popularity. This one is, but that's just because of the summer season. Facebook and Twitter are for posting thoughts to personal friends. Forum websites are for talking to people you don't know about very specific topics. Forum websites are not going away.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Happy Cat on July 12, 2016, 09:01:03 pm
The forums aren't a ghost town, just slow at the moment because there isn't much to discuss. We are never going to be a big forum, unless the popularity of SEGA randomly decides to explode. A SEGA website is a pretty niche kind of website to run at the moment. We aren't a Sonic fansite, so not going to attract loads of Sonic fans like say, Sonic Retro or Sonic Stadium. Just how it is
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Tad on July 13, 2016, 12:29:24 am
This is silly, are we doing this sacrifice thing or not!?

:)
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: crackdude on July 13, 2016, 03:22:52 am
Trust me when I say that I know all about walls. We are going to build a nice big beautiful paywall around SEGAbits to keep out the lurkers and content thieves from rival sites. $10 to read the front page, $25 for forum access, $5 to select your own avatar. We are also going to develop a wonderful program where you trade your S¥£ Karma in for video game merchandise, like E3 giveaway items from 2009 and stuff that only loosely qualifies as video game related.

We will not only make SEGAbits great again, but we will make SEGA great again.
We SegaNerds now
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Berto on July 13, 2016, 03:38:58 am
I know things like Facebook and Twitter gave forums quite a hit in general, but this change seems more recent.

On contrary, three years ago I rarely visit this forum, lol. I was too busy with Facebook and Twitter.
Why now I'm showing up and posting more often, may be it's because I just got bored with Facebook and Twitter.
Well, just Twitter may be, I can't leave Facebook, it's part of my life (especially because I'm an admin of seven groups there).

This is silly, are we doing this sacrifice thing or not!?

 :)

SegaNerds has sacrificed their best artist, Kopke, and it didn't work.  :P
Their forum is still dead, as dead as SEGA mobile forum (https://forums.sega.net/).
Or may be sacrifice one person isn't enough and at least five person has to be sacrified?
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: max_cady on July 13, 2016, 08:02:34 am
If you are not NeoGaf, your message boards tend to be a little on the empty side eventually. I think it's a combination of things:


- The big one is definately SEGA being much more quiet and way more low-key. I mean the biggest news as of right now was SEGA outsourcing several of their releases to Koch Media in Europe (which they have been doing for quite a while);
- Yes, people have tended to speak way more on Facebook, me wonders if SEGABits had a FB group it would probably be a little more active;
- Last, but not least, the obvious, we're all getting older, having more responsabilities and we aren't as readily available as we used to throw down;
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Barry the Nomad on July 13, 2016, 08:31:38 am
The forums aren't a ghost town, just slow at the moment because there isn't much to discuss. We are never going to be a big forum, unless the popularity of SEGA randomly decides to explode. A SEGA website is a pretty niche kind of website to run at the moment. We aren't a Sonic fansite, so not going to attract loads of Sonic fans like say, Sonic Retro or Sonic Stadium. Just how it is

Pretty much what Will said. Sonic fan sites attract droves of Sonic fans, general gaming sites – especially the old ones – have longtime members and cater to a much broader base.

Re: what Max said, I wouldn't be opposed to a SEGAbits group on Facebook. I'll see what George thinks and set one up if he thinks its a cool idea!
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: pcm92 on July 13, 2016, 06:11:02 pm
Wait! Am I the only girl left on this website?
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: crackdude on July 14, 2016, 02:23:06 am
Wait! Am I the only girl left on this website?
Wait. You're a grill?

Srs thought you were a robot
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: pcm92 on July 14, 2016, 09:51:10 pm
Wait. You're a grill?

Srs thought you were a robot
No and I am not a grill either.

I think Nameless was the only other girl on this website, but she has not posted in a long time. That's why I think I am the only girl left here.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Spock on July 15, 2016, 04:06:27 pm
Pcm92 is worse than a bot.

Pcm92 is a grill.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: pcm92 on July 16, 2016, 12:42:39 pm
I AM NOT A GRILL! Crackdude, I hope that was a mistake.

I am a girl. A female.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Barry the Nomad on July 16, 2016, 08:06:40 pm
Our forum used to have male user names in blue and female users in pink, these were the early days. We did away with that some time ago because it was really stupid. I do recall some other female users from the past, Ulala5 I believe did some wicked Bayonetta cosplay. She was great to talk SEGA with.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Happy Cat on July 16, 2016, 10:29:22 pm
Hope everyone enjoys the new navigation bar on the main site. Mobile navigation is a lot more user friendly now. Plus things are just looking better in general. a nice little visual improvement to the site
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: pcm92 on July 17, 2016, 12:08:27 am
Hope everyone enjoys the new navigation bar on the main site. Mobile navigation is a lot more user friendly now. Plus things are just looking better in general. a nice little visual improvement to the site
Definitely easier. Thank you. Though, I do wish the forums section was higher on the list.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Sharky on July 17, 2016, 03:52:36 am
George (i think) made the mistake of making a segabits skype chat group a while back and it sort of killed the forum...
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: CrazyT on July 17, 2016, 11:14:53 am
Love the website and the people a lot. Still visit the frontpage regularly tho life has been asking for my attention. You can always expect to see me as this may be the only gaming board I visit.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Barry the Nomad on July 17, 2016, 01:28:21 pm
Oh, hey! Crazy T, thought you would get a kick out of this license plate I spotted yesterday:
(http://i.imgur.com/HrCUPie.jpg)
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: crackdude on July 18, 2016, 03:43:47 am
George (i think) made the mistake of making a segabits skype chat group a while back and it sort of killed the forum...
Back in the day there was an IRC chatgroup, and it wasn't an issue..
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: crackdude on July 18, 2016, 03:44:43 am
I AM NOT A GRILL! Crackdude, I hope that was a mistake.
Sorry, it's a lame joke I have been making here for the past 10 years
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: CrazyT on July 18, 2016, 09:31:22 am
Oh, hey! Crazy T, thought you would get a kick out of this license plate I spotted yesterday:

Lmfao. What the. That sure is crazy
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: pcm92 on April 30, 2017, 07:18:21 pm
I know it's been almost a year since this topic started, but it still doesn't seem to be improving much. Do any of you think... we will continue to have the same members and segabits will just merge into another site?!
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Tad on May 02, 2017, 10:46:25 am
It's up to Barry what happens to the forum, but if he wants them to be more active, I think the best course of action would be to make the forum it's own thing that talks about gaming in general. Sega and Segabits could still have it's sub category, but opening the forum up like that could do wonders and also bring more traffic to the main blog.

The big issue for that mind, is more time for promoting and designing etc would be needed to run the new forum.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Spock on May 03, 2017, 04:45:41 pm
It's up to Barry what happens to the forum, but if he wants them to be more active, I think the best course of action would be to make the forum it's own thing that talks about gaming in general.

Barry hasn't even been online since April 30th. It's sad really. I know SEGA doesn't release too many things as of late, but I think if more people found out about this site they would use it. It's definitely not going anywhere though. As far as merging with another website, it's entirely up to the admins.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Barry the Nomad on May 03, 2017, 10:04:33 pm
The forum isn't going anywhere and there are no plans to merge it. George and I, and other forum members, have just been busy with life, other site stuff, and the Discord which has been VERY active. Discord doesn't replace the forums, but it sure has shown itself to be another great way for the community to chat and keep in touch. I check the forums nearly every day, I just don't post here daily.


Also worth noting that when the site started, it was the comments and forums. Now, it's Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Discord. As far as all of those, SEGAbits is pretty much top dog in terms of followers and discussion in every one but Facebook (a certain other site bought likes). The social playing field has expanded and as such, there are more people but they are spread out. Forums are becoming an older, less popular method of interaction but they are not going anywhere.


The idea of merging with a general gaming site was something Nerds tried with The Kartel and that was a disaster. Different communities suddenly had all these new people who didn't like their focus or didn't share how their community interacted. It was a mess.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: George on May 03, 2017, 10:17:13 pm
Well forums have been dying out in most sites due to other stuff, we have been busy updating the front page and all that. I had some ideas on how to integrate the front page and forum but it isn't as easy since it takes a lot of work.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Tad on May 04, 2017, 11:03:07 am
I have noticed it on other sites too, so it does seem social media like twitter and facebook has taken over that space for the most part. It's a shame, but it is what it is. I personally pefer to stay unknown while I troll George ;)
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: crackdude on May 04, 2017, 11:54:50 am
I feel the SegaBits forums is the central core of the community. If everything else fails, we will always have this place to call home.

That being said, most of the active member discussion is going on in Discord. I highly advise the ones of you that haven't joined yet to do so!
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Spock on May 04, 2017, 08:22:23 pm
I mean, If you guys wanted to just give me a link to you Facebook profiles, I would be more than glad to add you as friends. I think maybe I will tell more people about this place and we can have more discussion. I think it has improved in the past couple of months, but it is kind of dead. Not sure what the hype about discord is, but if there are so many members there, then why don't they post here too? Do any of them not know about the forum section?
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: crackdude on May 05, 2017, 08:35:02 am
I mean, If you guys wanted to just give me a link to you Facebook profiles, I would be more than glad to add you as friends. I think maybe I will tell more people about this place and we can have more discussion. I think it has improved in the past couple of months, but it is kind of dead. Not sure what the hype about discord is, but if there are so many members there, then why don't they post here too? Do any of them not know about the forum section?
It's mostly the same people, but it's much easier, more accessible and instantaneous to talk there.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: CrazyT on May 06, 2017, 04:23:57 am
I feel like im becoming a dinosaur
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Nameless 24 on June 11, 2017, 10:57:30 am
No and I am not a grill either.

I think Nameless was the only other girl on this website, but she has not posted in a long time. That's why I think I am the only girl left here.

I lurk here now and again but things have gotten in my way like life and other stuff mainly.

I guess I don't go online that much now. I perfer to blast through games and do other hobbies I guess. That and I closed myself off after bad experiences online for the last 2/3 years (includes every place I visit haha).

I think I follow that Puyo fan from here who is also female but I just read what she puts as they tend to find the best gifs to steal/borrow.
Title: Re: Ghost Town
Post by: Shun-Di on July 03, 2017, 10:14:22 am
I feel like im becoming a dinosaur

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etztSC46bOY

:)