MFGG Expansion Discussion and Brainstorming

[Evil Yoshi Toes]

Hello, everyone. As you may have heard, we are heavily considering expanding MFGG to encompass Nintendo franchises as a whole! This is an idea that has been bounced around for many years now, and the staff thinks it's about time it's made reality. It's no secret that MFGG activity has been on the decline for years now, so a broadening of our demographic could be a tremendous help in reviving and expanding the community. We want this transition to involve not just staff, but the entire community. Any opinions and ideas you have will be taken seriously, so feel free to share them here.

Right now, there are a couple of big issues we are trying to figure out, and we'd love your ideas on them:

• A new name. Of course if we expand our franchises, we would have to come up with a new name. The obvious choice would be Nintendo Fan Games Galaxy, but seeing as having "Nintendo" in our name could cause issues with the company themselves, it may be best to come up with something different. Right now our best idea, which comes from Vitiman, is "Fangame Disk System." I quite like this name. Share your opinions on it and feel free to suggest name ideas of your own.
  
• Which franchises to focus on. The current idea is to only focus on Nintendo franchises, but it is possible that we include non-Nintendo IPs as well. It might not be a good idea to include IPs that are radically different from Mario, but similar franchises like Megaman are a possibility. I think Mario, Zelda, Kirby and Metroid could be a good range while still keeping to one company's IPs, but if you have other ideas please do share.
  

We do have plans to reach out to other fangaming communities that are struggling just like us, the main one that comes to my mind being Zelda Fan Game Central, to see if they would be willing to join forces to serve a mutual interest.
Use this topic to share your ideas and to discuss this transition in general. Community input is highly valued. You each help keep this place alive, so we want you to be happy with the changes we make.

[TawPawNaw]

Hmm, I remember Gatete trying to do something similar. He made a discord server named 'Fangame Factory' which was basically a discord server which focused on any fangame.

[Copperama]

I think this is definitely the direction the site should be going in, I think a lot of people wanted this for quite some time now.
Mario fan games is quite a specific subject for a website this day and age. Merging these similar interests would expand traffic tremendously.
And to be honest, a lot of games seemed like it just had Mario pasted in it somewhere to qualify to be hosted on the site, that or Mario was a small part of a larger fan game with other characters.

And yes, SUPER leave Nintendo's name out of the title whatever you decide to name it. Nintendo's priorities for what they try to manage is not fan games, but specifically remakes and things that average consumers could mistake for being official Nintendo projects. As long as you make it clear it's not official in the name, you should be fine in that regard.

[VinnyVideo]

This is definitely something to consider. Fewer people are making fangames these days, and it's harder to sustain interest in a community that focuses on a single franchise. Many other fangame sites that focus on other franchises have died out. For example, MFGG used to be affiliated with two Metroid communities, but both of them folded. Because of that, there might not be any active fangame site focusing on certain fairly popular franchises, and the new "Expanded MFGG" could help fill that niche.

Course clear! You got a card.

[Alexandra]

One thing one might want to consider is discoverability. I found MFGG back in... 2007 or so? by searching for something like "Mario fan game". Fangame Disk System is a fun name, but if you do go for that, you might have to do some search engine optimization.

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[Honey Saucer Gengar]

I think we need a new name for it. How about Nintendo Fangaming World? The FDC was a hardware add-on.

I have the Thunder Dragon Statue. Also, I'm not gay

[SilverVortex]

I think we need a new name for it. How about Nintendo Fangaming World? The FDC was a hardware add-on.

as much as i would like to agree with you, that'd get us taken of the internet faster than you can say "DMCA'd".

[Honey Saucer Gengar]

How about Franchise Fangaming Central?

I have the Thunder Dragon Statue. Also, I'm not gay

[SilverVortex]

How about Franchise Fangaming Central?

not bad.

[Syaxamaphone]

How about just Fan Game Galaxy?

My games | My twitter | My stream | Sprites Unlimited

[Damarioman]

How about just Fan Game Galaxy?

I'd like to second this motion.

[OssieTheOstrich]

I actually like the name "Fangame Disk System", it really fits the Nintendo theme. Plus, who doesn't love old/obscure Nintendo hardware.

Also, just for clarification, we will rebrand ourselves after the release of lumaSMS/MFGG3, correct?

List of projects I eventually plan to finish after the indefinite hiatus is over, assuming I don't abruptly cancel them:

Spoiler

Mario's Rather Unusual Trilogy (Mario's slightly unusual Boss Rush (Completed), Mario vs. Some Unusual Foes (In development), Mario's VERY Unusual Final Frontier (In development))
Sonic's Foray into Random/Unusual Zones (spin-off of Unusual Trilogy, in development)
Angry Birds Slingshot Frenzy (In development)
Super Mario Flashback: Really Good Edition (In development)
Super Hilda DX (In only conceptual phase)

Yes, I am aware that I have about 6 or so fangame projects currently in development at the same time. And yes, I am also aware that all of this is very ambitious.

+ List of projects I'm helping out with in some small capacity during my hiatus:

Spoiler

Super Mario Bros Dimensions 2 (as a spriter, only for Mario's sprites)
MFGG Community Fangame Project 3 (as a spriter)
WordGirl ReWired (as a artist)

[Evil Yoshi Toes]

Also, just for clarification, we will rebrand ourselves after the release of lumaSMS/MFGG3, correct?

The plan was to do it sooner, but the vision will probably not see its full potential until MFGG3 due to the limitations of the current hardware. In the meantime we talked about just doing whatever we can to make it work with the current software since MFGG3 will take a while and this change needs to happen sooner than later.

As for names, I'm personally liking both Fan Games Galaxy and Fangame Disk System the most so far. I think they both get across what we are for pretty well without causing too much potential trouble. Fan Games Galaxy makes it a little more clear that we are MFGG transformed, though I do like how Fangame Disk System references game hardware and gives us a more game-centric aesthetic we can go for.
I like the point that was brought up about search engine optimization, because that'll be a very important thing since our name will have to get less specific.

[Honey Saucer Gengar]

Fangame Disk System will probably get us sued because the FDS is a Nintendo IP

I have the Thunder Dragon Statue. Also, I'm not gay

[Vitiman]

Fangame Disk System will probably get us sued because the FDS is a Nintendo IP

If that was the case then FamicomWorld.net would be in a lot more trouble than we would ever theoretically be, since the word "Famicom" is right there in their name which is a more direct violation of Nintendo's copyright than Fangame Disk System would be. I suggested the name because I found it cute, but I do agree we would have to kick our SEO into high gear should we choose that - the name on its own is just vague enough that it could cause confusion, but I suppose that comes down to personal preference.

Fan Game Galaxy is also a fine name! That would work just as well too, and it seems like an obvious choice.

[Roo]

I will have to say that I love the acronym MFGG, so I'd be sad to see it go. How about "Massive Fan Games Galaxy"?

Ye Olde MFGGe Jamboree | supra binyot lande | My Dumb Art Blog

[OssieTheOstrich]

Why not we combine the names suggested to "Massive Fangame Disk System Galaxy".

List of projects I eventually plan to finish after the indefinite hiatus is over, assuming I don't abruptly cancel them:

Spoiler

Mario's Rather Unusual Trilogy (Mario's slightly unusual Boss Rush (Completed), Mario vs. Some Unusual Foes (In development), Mario's VERY Unusual Final Frontier (In development))
Sonic's Foray into Random/Unusual Zones (spin-off of Unusual Trilogy, in development)
Angry Birds Slingshot Frenzy (In development)
Super Mario Flashback: Really Good Edition (In development)
Super Hilda DX (In only conceptual phase)

Yes, I am aware that I have about 6 or so fangame projects currently in development at the same time. And yes, I am also aware that all of this is very ambitious.

+ List of projects I'm helping out with in some small capacity during my hiatus:

Spoiler

Super Mario Bros Dimensions 2 (as a spriter, only for Mario's sprites)
MFGG Community Fangame Project 3 (as a spriter)
WordGirl ReWired (as a artist)

[Thunderbro]

Well, I mean the point of the previous suggestion was to keep the acronym "MFGG".

The power of teamwork will eventually pull us through

[Alexandra]

I will have to say that I love the acronym MFGG, so I'd be sad to see it go. How about "Massive Fan Games Galaxy"?

I agree, and that is a fun name

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[HylianDev]

I will have to say that I love the acronym MFGG, so I'd be sad to see it go. How about "Massive Fan Games Galaxy"?

I'm so torn ;_;

I think fds is a fun direction to go in, but bad seo & branding if I'm honest

I don't think we can continue to call the whole network mfgg when we expand, for obvious reasons

but I really want to see the mfgg name preserved!

my proposed solution has been to split the network into different "sites" a la tVGR, which shouldn't be very hard to do at all via the new software

(and if I'm honest even tcsms could feasbily be modded to do it, though I'd rather not look at that duct taped tower too hard)

how this would work is: different domains (zfgn? metroidr? etc) could point to the same server at mfgg.net and would load up the mainsite code, but in the code we could see which domain you're visiting from, and show you mario/zelda/metroid content based on that. it would be a two-phase process in the backend: give submissions & etc a column that identifies it as a mario/zelda/metroid submission, and then use php to decide which submissions & etc to load based on what domain you're on

Hylian's day job, little did we know, was saying controversial things on the internet.

you fool!!!! you fixed it wrong!!!!

Bibby Team