07-27-2021, 09:48 PM
There are a lot of different events and circumstances that contributed to the the demise of traffic and activity on MFGG's forums. Some of them are the baffling decisions made by the administration here. The first one is abandoning the IPB forums. Right off the bat you have lost a lot of people because: a) they don't feel it's worth the effort of making a new forum account, and b) people who don't even know about the new forums. But that wasn't enough. So afterward we have the second thing that really killed the MFGG forums: The Split. Where the MFGG administration actually wanted to kill the activity on the forums by making it strictly about fangames. So the community is fractured even further. Making Mario fangames is a niche interest, so you want things to be as inclusive and accessible as possible if you want a lot of activity. Speaking of niche, MFGG failed to capitalize on expanding our growth by not including ROM hacks and non-Mario fangames sooner. In fact, we still haven't included a Super Mario Maker level database on the main site, A huge missed opportunity that would have skyrocketed activity here and introduce that demographic to fangames, which gives them far more creative control and customization than a level editor.
Another thing is that nothing fun happens here anymore. There hasn't been any Sprite, Drawing or Minigame competition here in ages, and the new admins don't do any fun stuff anymore like randomly changing the forum skin and embedding music. Coins have absolutely no use, so there's not much incentive to earn them by doing the things that would make the forum more active. There needs to be an appealing incentive and exclusive reason to use the forums over something else.
Another thing is that nothing fun happens here anymore. There hasn't been any Sprite, Drawing or Minigame competition here in ages, and the new admins don't do any fun stuff anymore like randomly changing the forum skin and embedding music. Coins have absolutely no use, so there's not much incentive to earn them by doing the things that would make the forum more active. There needs to be an appealing incentive and exclusive reason to use the forums over something else.