Proof that MFGG doesn't need to be dead

[VinnyVideo]

I don't think MFGG will ever return to the time when we were getting (literally) a million posts every year. Honestly, that's OK! It's totally OK to have a calmer, less frenetic community - one that's a little more mature and a little more focused on our core purpose of making games, especially Mario fangames.

However, the MFGG forums are not dead! And I know we can do better than this. People will participate more if they have a reason to go here. It's crucial to have events - for example, we never seem to do Sprite Comps and Drawing Comps anymore. Those are easy to set up, and they're relatively easy and accessible to participate in. I'm sure we could come up with new ideas for competitions, collaborations, and events if we put our minds together! Even little things could help - get a bunch of MFGGers together to play an online game or watch someone stream a bunch of fangames. These things are really, really easy to do - these are probably things a lot of us are doing on the average evening or weekend. Not all of these events will be a massive hit, and that's OK - but I'm sure some of them will be a big success!

People have mentioned a bunch of different reasons why forums aren't as popular as they once were. One big reason that hasn't been mentioned yet is mobile usability. Forum software has almost always been designed with PCs in mind. However, a high percentage of Web browsing now takes place on phones and other mobile devices. Most forum systems have had a hard time coming up with a good mobile skin. While not all social media sites deliver a consistently great mobile experience, they have the advantage of an army of handsomely-compensated engineers working on making their sites and apps more mobile-oriented.

I don't want to be too rough on the current staff - I've been there, I know it's not an easy job, and I'm well aware that the salary and benefits aren't exactly amazing. However... it disappoints me to see the current staff treating the MFGG forums as an afterthought. I think it's important for all the staff members to be active and visible on the forums and to play a role in promoting this essential part of MFGG.

There's still a lot of reasons why the forums are fun and valuable - they have advantages that no Discord chatroom can ever replace. Forums are easy to search (good luck getting Discord conversations to show up in Google search results), they have creative skins and their own unique vibe, they're open source, we own them and know nobody's selling our data to make some Silicon Valley venture capitalist rich, and most importantly, their asynchronous nature makes them easier to keep up with.

Speaking to my last point, I have a full-time job and I lack the time and desire to be checking a Discord chatroom 24/7. If an interesting conversation comes up in the Discord, and I saw it a couple of days later, it would be really weird and awkward to try to resurrect a long-buried conversation. In contrast, with a forum, it's totally normal to respond to a topic a few days later.

The MFGG Discord is not my thing, and it never will be - I just don't enjoy big chatrooms full of people I'm not close to. I understand that a lot of the newer generations prefer that kind of communication, and that's OK too. But there's also people who'd rather post on a forum. I think it's important for everyone to recognize that both groups of people exist - and that both groups play an important role in making MFGG a fun, vibrant community!

Course clear! You got a card.