The reason this site is dying.

[Mariotroid]

No one has time anymore in their busy lives to do MFGG anymore. I wish I was around when the good old days were going on. Instead I was sick with schizophrenia and never made any good games. I wish I was around to make something really cool. But now is not the time. MFGG is dying. It's sad to see. Not all good things last forever though.

[SonicKade2048]

Try telling that to the 512 online users earlier this week

Jokes aside, I'm not too sure about that being "the reason" MFGG" is losing activity. I'd say that's only one of a few rather than THE singular reason. To take it further, that may actually be split into separate ones on its own. Some people have other sites to be on, others have real-life matters to attend to, like jobs or school, and some may have dropped themselves from MFGG altogether for something else entirely different. It's sad, yes, but sometimes people grow bored of being in the same place every day of their life (even if it's not actually every day, too).

Secondly, I know I wish for the old days to be back as well, but there's some aspects of the past MFGG I'd rather not look back on and say "I want to be there again". I'm not trying to bring back old drama, and I barely even know what kinds of drama happened before my join in 2015, but judging by pages on the wiki alone, it's probably for the better that we move on. Plus, it doesn't matter what time frame you have to be in to "make a good game". There's developers all across the globe that have created amazing and interesting video games. Look at Nintendo themselves, they've been around since 1889, and they made card games at that time, growing to become one of the greatest gaming companies ever!

TL;DR: MFGG has had some inactive moments, and those have been growing exponentially, but keep in mind that there's always the chance of new users coming in to share their great ideas. Sure, we're not having too much stuff going on aside from main site updates (at least, in my perspective), but who knows? Maybe someone can publish a hit new fan-game right here on our site. And, think of it this way: We may not have the good days anymore, but we can make great days. There were some bumps in the road, but MFGG is still alive and well, with more things to come if we just try.

now for the obligatory replies on my Jojo reference with that "great days" comment

 Twitter / YouTube / Bandcamp / Neocities / Bluesky 

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[Vitiman]

It might be more accurate to say that this site isn't dying so much as this site is already dead. You're getting like 3 or so posts a day, and submissions have slowed to a record crawl. I don't have statistics to back this up here - merely observation - but MFGG's days aren't merely numbered, they're already behind us. The site was considered in a rut back in 2016 for Christ's sake, and that was back when the forums were still relatively bustling (compare it to now) and we had a decent flow of games and sprites. We still get a fair amount of sprite submissions, and I attribute that to us opening the gates to all Nintendo properties, but I don't think it'll be enough to revive interest and activity in the site.

With that said, your comment about being too busy for MFGG rang especially true for me. I'm in college, I have part-time work, I have finances to manage and I have goals in my life I want to achieve. The internet is still a part of my life, but in a more side-lined capacity than it once was. It's rather telling that MFGG's last breath of activity and fun was towards the end of Summer/early Fall last year when all of those oldbies had a reunion. It was a fun time! But it's pretty clear that wasn't meant to stick...

I never like being cynical, especially with a community I've stuck around for almost 15 years, but forget MFGG's glory days being behind us: MFGG having noteworthy activity at all is pretty far in the past at this rate. I give massive kudos to the guys running the site these days (shoutouts to @Mors, @Evil Yoshi Toes and @Hypernova); you guys have done a lot to improve the site and are a tight group of administration, but I don't think the community is currently showing signs of respectable life.

Just because it isn't some deserted ghost town doesn't mean it's got much time left, either.

[VinnyVideo]

MFGG isn't a ghost town, but it certainly hasn't been hopping lately.

On a personal level, MFGG has a lot of members who have been part of the community for a long time. Most of us joined when we were teenagers and had a massive amount of free time. However, we got older and got degrees and jobs and (maybe) true love, and nowadays most of the longtime members have less time for hanging out online. I still check the MFGG forums most days, but posting and working on games is now a "sometimes thing" instead of something I do every day.

I think the takedown of a handful of high-profile fangames a few years ago hurt a lot. These games weren't hosted on MFGG, and most or all of them were either monetized or 1:1 remakes of official Nintendo games. However, this discouraged a lot of people from making fangames, and it seemed to cause a rise in anti-fangame sentiment on social media.

Independent forums in general have been hurting in recent years. It certainly could be worse - a lot of similar forums have disappeared outright. The Internet world has changed drastically in recent years - and not necessarily for the better - and small, nonprofit communities have had a hard time competing with bigger, commercial social networks with deep pockets. Most forums, including MFGG, were built in a time when online communication was decentralized, text-based, and desktop-first. Today's Internet is centralized (dominated by a handful of "walled gardens" like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Reddit), visual (people don't have the attention spans to read anything and prefer a medium where it's easy to consume and post images and videos), and mobile-first (people do most of their browsing on smart phones, and MFGG is still made with Windows desktops and laptops in mind).

I still think forums serve an important niche - I find this sort of asynchronous communication to be more convenient than a fast-paced chat group, and I like spending time on places with a unique vibe and a nonprofit mindset (MFGG isn't selling my data to make Silicon Valley rich). However, it's a lot more difficult to attract and retain members than it was 15 years ago.

Course clear! You got a card.

[GeneralGuy]

It's really an unfortunate sight to see such a massive decline in activity. I've been on MFGG since the summer of 2006 when I was just 15 years old, so I essentially grew up with this site and the community. MFGG used to be so fun, silly, and bustled with tons of activity every hour, so I'm not used to this place being so slow.

Every post in this thread is pretty much spot on, especially VinnyVideo's post. Most of the members of this community have either moved on or don't have time anymore to be involved with MFGG. Forums are also either losing activity (especially niche interests like Mario fangaming) or outright dying altogether due to the rise of massive centralized social media websites and other interactive services such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Discord, etc. To make matters worse, Nintendo's recent DMCA Cease & Desist notices toward many high profile fan games such as AM2R and Pokémon Uranium have severely hindered and discouraged the creation of fan games.

There's also far less desire and incentive to create Mario fan games than ever before due to the advent of Super Mario Maker 1/2, where people can easily get the satisfaction of creating and playing Mario levels. This is why I've been pushing to host Super Mario Maker 1/2 levels on MFGG's Main Site; to keep MFGG relevant and up to date with the changing times as interests shift. The recent inclusion of ROM Hacks and other Nintendo franchises besides Mario has definitely helped broaden the appeal and accessibility of MFGG. I think what we really need is both an outstanding ROM Hack and Fan Game that redefine and break the traditional gameplay and tropes.

I've done all I could by trying to get the old community back together, but it didn't really last. VinnyVideo should be doing an e-mail blast sometime soon to advertise MFGG to existing members of the Main Site and old forums, but we really need to find a way to attract new members to keep things alive. The beginning of the year (January through March) seems to be a pretty slow time of year for MFGG. MFGG's activity usually peaks from late spring to mid fall.

[Great Destination Tracks 3]

don't think so

Hullo there, I am Great Destination Tracks 3, but you can call me JC The Slug. I am a Slug.

•  I draw
  
•  I model
  
•  I animate
  
•  I exist
   
  

---

Favourite cartoon:

Spoiler

other favourite cartoon:

Spoiler

[Mariotroid]

So, the forums are dying out. The discord seems popping however. So maybe it's the place to be. Honestly, I thought I'd get a lot of flak for this saying this on mfgg. But I'm glad you guys see where I'm coming from.

[GeneralGuy]

I wish the forum admins would do more fun and zany stuff like music embeds and skin changes. Would give people more of a reason to visit this place.

[Hyper]

I have to be real. Things are getting pretty busy with me which made me feel unmotivated to do things on my PC. I have to focus on my life first before I do anything else. On the bright side, my life is starting to lighten up since I don't work in night shifts anymore.

As for the site itself. I still actively processing submissions on my phone. I've been noticing a huge decline of submissions since late 2018. The most I've seen are sprite submissions. What's depressing is that reviews aren't as common anymore. More than half of the reviews failed to abide to the rules. We'll get one game every blue moon. As Yoshbert said on his retirement post, the main site is dead as a doornail.

I have mixed feelings with the Discord server. Sure it's active but more than half of the time the discussion is outside the core of the community. I'm fine with people talking about other topics but I don't get to see much projects going around anymore.

---

Main Site | YouTube | Bluesky | My OC

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[Evil Yoshi Toes]

The forums are definitely dying and honestly there is not much we can do about it. Putting a lot more time into making the forums more lively will just be fighting what the majority of the community wants at this point. Practically all our activity now is on the Discord because that seems to be what people prefer, and we can either fight them to make MFGG what we want it to be until they get upset and leave, or we can listen to them and let MFGG change with the times. I love forums. I grew up using forums, and I like the more structured format which allows for more thought-out posts and generally keeps things on topic. But it would be selfish to try to push people away from Discord onto a platform they don't like as much just because that's how many of the older members prefer it. All the staff already has a limited amount of time to dedicate to MFGG what with our personal lives going on, so dedicating too much time to making the less preferred platform better instead of putting most of the focus on making the Discord as good as it can be would be a waste.

Our Discord is doing well in terms of activity, but the concerns about the community moving away from fangaming are certainly valid concerns. There have been efforts to guide conversations more toward fan gaming and videogames in general on the Discord which have been, in my opinion, somewhat successful, but there's no doubt that the community's general interests now are a little different from what they were in the early 2000s or even in 2013 when I became active on the forums. The people who used to be active members during the MFGG Forums' heyday are no longer teenagers who can come home from school to mess around making forum posts and working on their fangames. I didn't join the forums until 2013 and even I'm about to graduate college, so the people who were around even before then are well into adulthood. MFGG has always relied on nerdy teenagers with time on their hands to dedicate to this fun hobby, and as people grow up and their lives become more and more hectic they move on and new nerdy teenagers come in who grew up in a different setting and have different experiences. That's inevitable.

That said, MFGG's community now is not without its problems. MFGG has become a much friendlier place with a lot less petty drama, but it has also lost a lot of its focus on fangaming. Part of it is, like General said, because of Mario Maker being a more user-friendly way of creating something similar to a fangame and therefore satisfying a lot of people enough. Another part of it is because, like Vinny said, there is a huge anti-fangame wave going on in social media. This is probably what hurts the most. Youtubers and gaming articles are misinforming people by telling them that any and all fan games will likely be taken down, despite our site having existed peacefully for decades. You can try to explain to people that these games are taken down because they are remakes or because they are monetized and that there are thousands of Nintendo fan games that encounter no issues at all, but people don't care. They just want to fuss and if you get in the way of their fussing they get upset and don't listen. It's unfortunate and it has definitely hurt the fan game scene, but it's something we can't battle easily. There have been efforts made to inform people properly, especially by the MFGG Twitter, but that only goes so far and tends to only be spread among people already in the fan game community which doesn't really help us grow.

I'd love to find a solution to this problem. I think we all would. Realistically though I don't think it's something we can just solve. But whatever happens, as long as MFGG is serving as a place for people, even if just a handful, to share their passion for fan games and games in general, it's serving its purpose.

[Evan.F]

That said, MFGG's community now is not without its problems. MFGG has become a much friendlier place with a lot less petty drama, but it has also lost a lot of its focus on fangaming. Part of it is, like General said, because of Mario Maker being a more user-friendly way of creating something similar to a fangame and therefore satisfying a lot of people enough. Another part of it is because, like Vinny said, there is a huge anti-fangame wave going on in social media. This is probably what hurts the most. Youtubers and gaming articles are misinforming people by telling them that any and all fan games will likely be taken down, despite our site having existed peacefully for decades. You can try to explain to people that these games are taken down because they are remakes or because they are monetized and that there are thousands of Nintendo fan games that encounter no issues at all, but people don't care. They just want to fuss and if you get in the way of their fussing they get upset and don't listen. It's unfortunate and it has definitely hurt the fan game scene, but it's something we can't battle easily. There have been efforts made to inform people properly, especially by the MFGG Twitter, but that only goes so far and tends to only be spread among people already in the fan game community which doesn't really help us grow.

I feel that there is a pattern with Nintendo Lawsuits, I mean here's as many as I can think of.
-Mario Royale (shares gameplay concepts with SMM2)
-AM2R (remake of an existing game, remake is already being made by Nintendo)
-No Mario's Sky (I don't know why, similarities to SMB maybe)
-SMB64 (C64 port of SMB, is too similar because of this)
-Princess Adventure (Creator was selling physical copies)
-Pokémon Uranium (Possible, it's similarities to the main series combined with it's dark themes could be a bad image for the franchise)
-Other Pokémon fangame things (I'm not a Pokémon fan so I don't know why)

Overall you either have to be remaking a game, Nintendo is making something similar, you are making money indirectly off of it or you are just unlucky
The question now is how Mari0 hasn't been sued in its 8 YEAR HISTORY!!! I guess is that it never went off outside of being a novelty, while Mario Royale went viral.

Stabyourself.net account: https://forum.stabyourself.net/memberlis...ile&u=4218

MFFG main account: https://mfgg.net/index.php?act=user&param=01&uid=15484

Important
It's back

Spoiler

 

[Evil Yoshi Toes]

That said, MFGG's community now is not without its problems. MFGG has become a much friendlier place with a lot less petty drama, but it has also lost a lot of its focus on fangaming. Part of it is, like General said, because of Mario Maker being a more user-friendly way of creating something similar to a fangame and therefore satisfying a lot of people enough. Another part of it is because, like Vinny said, there is a huge anti-fangame wave going on in social media. This is probably what hurts the most. Youtubers and gaming articles are misinforming people by telling them that any and all fan games will likely be taken down, despite our site having existed peacefully for decades. You can try to explain to people that these games are taken down because they are remakes or because they are monetized and that there are thousands of Nintendo fan games that encounter no issues at all, but people don't care. They just want to fuss and if you get in the way of their fussing they get upset and don't listen. It's unfortunate and it has definitely hurt the fan game scene, but it's something we can't battle easily. There have been efforts made to inform people properly, especially by the MFGG Twitter, but that only goes so far and tends to only be spread among people already in the fan game community which doesn't really help us grow.

I feel that there is a pattern with Nintendo Lawsuits, I mean here's as many as I can think of.
-Mario Royale (shares gameplay concepts with SMM2)
-AM2R (remake of an existing game, remake is already being made by Nintendo)
-No Mario's Sky (I don't know why, similarities to SMB maybe)
-SMB64 (C64 port of SMB, is too similar because of this)
-Princess Adventure (Creator was selling physical copies)
-Pokémon Uranium (Possible, it's similarities to the main series combined with it's dark themes could be a bad image for the franchise)
-Other Pokémon fangame things (I'm not a Pokémon fan so I don't know why)

Overall you either have to be remaking a game, Nintendo is making something similar, you are making money indirectly off of it or you are just unlucky
The question now is how Mari0 hasn't been sued in its 8 YEAR HISTORY!!! I guess is that it never went off outside of being a novelty, while Mario Royale went viral.

Well Mario Royale used exact level design from SMB so it was essentially a remake with multiplayer elements.

Pokémon is handled separately from Nintendo's other franchises and they've been infamous for taking down a lot of fan projects. I can't say much about it though because I'm not a Pokémon fan either so I don't follow Pokémon fangames.

[Vitiman]

The inclination to make Nintendo-accurate fangames might be why a lot of people are afraid of their games being taken down. It's not necessarily like a closeness to Officialâ„¢ is enough for Nintendo to actually do anything (historically this has been proven false, even), but it does mean people are not as willing to have more fun with Nintendo's franchises and make sillier/more out-there things, which in turn means people are well aware that their projects can pick up steam and the wrong kind of attention.

Ultimately, I think the Nintendo Fangame Dev community needs a nice kick in the rump. I've said it before many months/years ago, but it may be in MFGG's best interest to partner up with any other struggling fangame communities. Granted... most of the big name ones are already defunct, which is a foreboding warning to MFGG's potential fate. It can happen to you guys, if you're not careful.

[Roo]

If fangames continue their slow but steady spiral into being generic, cookie-cutter clones of official products, they might as well die off for all I care. I know it's a tired topic and a bit gauche to say, but I genuinely miss the days of games like Mario Left the Cheese Out and Yoshi vs Windows, because those felt like they had an actual reason to exist. Why do we need a dozen uninspired clones of Super Mario Maker when we could just, I don't know, go play the actual thing?

Like, wow, dude, I can't believe you've made a really accurate Mario engine (for the 120th time) and a lot of high-quality Mario sprites! What are you going to do with them? Another generic platformer? With grasslands? Underground levels? Castles? Oh, you spoil us way too much.

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

[Evan.F]

If fangames continue their slow but steady spiral into being generic, cookie-cutter clones of official products, they might as well die off for all I care. I know it's a tired topic and a bit gauche to say, but I genuinely miss the days of games like Mario Left the Cheese Out and Yoshi vs Windows, because those felt like they had an actual reason to exist. Why do we need a dozen uninspired clones of Super Mario Maker when we could just, I don't know, go play the actual thing?

Like, wow, dude, I can't believe you've made a really accurate Mario engine (for the 120th time) and a lot of high-quality Mario sprites! What are you going to do with them? Another generic platformer? With grasslands? Underground levels? Castles? Oh, you spoil us way too much.

I mean you could put ANYTHING in a fangame!! any enemy any level theme, any piece of music but it's always (let's do are best to make a Mario game.

Stabyourself.net account: https://forum.stabyourself.net/memberlis...ile&u=4218

MFFG main account: https://mfgg.net/index.php?act=user&param=01&uid=15484

Important
It's back

Spoiler

 

[Yoshin]

The site apparent death is down do probably all the factors said in this thread, but here's my take for discussion's sake. A lot of the older members sure were here all the time but we were kids then. A lot of the activity from 05-10 just can't exist now because the site's demographic has shifted from kids to adults/teenagers. This is not to say there aren't kids on MFGG, but based on my limited viewing a lot of the fangames are being made by adults and teenagers. As such it is easy to see why the Discord has gotten so popular. You can just hope in at any point and say whatever's on your mind, no matter how short a thought is it. Or you can reply to someones art with a simple emoji. This more suits the more busy lifestyle of an adult and teenager. I'd love to fill you guys with info on Eternity for example but I just don't have the time to do so(or even really work on it often).


-Other Pokémon fangame things (I'm not a Pokémon fan so I don't know why)
The Pokémon takedowns are REALLY overblown, moreso then a lot of other things. Just look at pokecommunity, its got loads of fangames and romhacks just fine.

Lando Never Dies
pfp by Plasmi

[VinnyVideo]

VinnyVideo should be doing an e-mail blast sometime soon to advertise MFGG to existing members of the Main Site and old forums, but we really need to find a way to attract new members to keep things alive.

I wouldn't mind helping with an e-mail blast for the MyBB forum users if there's something for us to promote. I haven't seen any big events since MFGG Awards.

The forums are definitely dying and honestly there is not much we can do about it.

I'm not a fan of this attitude. Maybe the MFGG forums don't have long for this world? I don't know. People said this same thing over a decade ago. Whatever you believe, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. I agree it's harder when you're not growing, but there are many things we can all do to stimulate activity: Post useful content regularly, organize events, and tell friends about MFGG.

But whatever happens, as long as MFGG is serving as a place for people, even if just a handful, to share their passion for fan games and games in general, it's serving its purpose.

Totally agree with this. Mario fangames are a fairly small niche, and if we're still making people happy, we're serving our purpose.

@Roo I hear ya. I'd definitely like to see more fangames that put a fresh spin on the Mario series. Vitiman's games are another good example of this. Nintendo hasn't done us any favors by churning out a lot of rather generic games in recent years.

One other reason why fangame activity isn't what it used to be is because MFGG has been a Game Maker-centric community for the past decade, but Game Maker is no longer accessible to the majority of users here. In the past, the free version of GM was fully functional - it could export stand-alone .EXE files, possibly with a GM splash screen or a few functions dummied out. The regular paid version was just $20 or $25. Now, with GM Studio 2, you have to pay $99 to do anything (even open an existing game). The one-year license is still pretty steep at $39. That's a very reasonable price for the small-scale indie developers YoYoGames is targeting nowadays, but it's prohibitively expensive for a lot of kids entering game development. YYG's educational licenses aren't much better, and YYG makes it hard to download or even find resources for GM Studio 1.4 or GM 8.x.

Godot seems promising, but MFGG has few tutorials and resources for that particular tool.

It also hasn't helped that we haven't embraced 3-D game development.

Course clear! You got a card.

[GeneralGuy]

If fangames continue their slow but steady spiral into being generic, cookie-cutter clones of official products, they might as well die off for all I care. I know it's a tired topic and a bit gauche to say, but I genuinely miss the days of games like Mario Left the Cheese Out and Yoshi vs Windows, because those felt like they had an actual reason to exist. Why do we need a dozen uninspired clones of Super Mario Maker when we could just, I don't know, go play the actual thing?

Like, wow, dude, I can't believe you've made a really accurate Mario engine (for the 120th time) and a lot of high-quality Mario sprites! What are you going to do with them? Another generic platformer? With grasslands? Underground levels? Castles? Oh, you spoil us way too much.

This honestly

MFGG's fangames should stop trying to emulate official gameplay and instead be something unique and fun, like Let's Go Thingio! or Psycho Waluigi. Isn't that the point of fan games?

VinnyVideo should be doing an e-mail blast sometime soon to advertise MFGG to existing members of the Main Site and old forums, but we really need to find a way to attract new members to keep things alive.

I wouldn't mind helping with an e-mail blast for the MyBB forum users if there's something for us to promote. I haven't seen any big events since MFGG Awards.

Don't forget the phpBB forums, IPB forums and the Main Site. We could promote some upcoming or newly released fan games. And we could finally implement a Super Mario Maker 1/3DS/2 level database, which would attract a lot of people who still actively play and want to show off their custom levels and make fan games. It's too good of an opportunity to pass up.

The forums are definitely dying and honestly there is not much we can do about it.

I'm not a fan of this attitude. Maybe the MFGG forums don't have long for this world? I don't know. People said this same thing over a decade ago. Whatever you believe, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. I agree it's harder when you're not growing, but there are many things we can all do to stimulate activity: Post useful content regularly, organize events, and tell friends about MFGG.

this

But whatever happens, as long as MFGG is serving as a place for people, even if just a handful, to share their passion for fan games and games in general, it's serving its purpose.

Totally agree with this. Mario fangames are a fairly small niche, and if we're still making people happy, we're serving our purpose.

this too

@Roo I hear ya. I'd definitely like to see more fangames that put a fresh spin on the Mario series. Vitiman's games are another good example of this. Nintendo hasn't done us any favors by churning out a lot of rather generic games in recent years.

Agreed. We need more silly fangames like Let's Go Thingio!

One other reason why fangame activity isn't what it used to be is because MFGG has been a Game Maker-centric community for the past decade, but Game Maker is no longer accessible to the majority of users here. In the past, the free version of GM was fully functional - it could export stand-alone .EXE files, possibly with a GM splash screen or a few functions dummied out. The regular paid version was just $20 or $25. Now, with GM Studio 2, you have to pay $99 to do anything (even open an existing game). The one-year license is still pretty steep at $39. That's a very reasonable price for the small-scale indie developers YoYoGames is targeting nowadays, but it's prohibitively expensive for a lot of kids entering game development. YYG's educational licenses aren't much better, and YYG makes it hard to download or even find resources for GM Studio 1.4 or GM 8.x.

Godot seems promising, but MFGG has few tutorials and resources for that particular tool.

It also hasn't helped that we haven't embraced 3-D game development.

Can't people just use older versions of Game Maker?

[Yoshin]

>Can't people just use older versions of Game Maker?
If only, YoYo aren't great and the only way to do this is through shady sites.

Lando Never Dies
pfp by Plasmi

[justlexi93]

The members of this community have a life aside from MFGG.
I am currently employed in an online shop called 4wheelonline. I've been busy replying with the inquiries about some products like the 20 inch vision wheels, Lexani rims, jeep doors, and more.