I'm sorry but are you just plain retarded? Go to rmxp.org and then tell me that the indie game scene is dead.

honestly it's possible he's right. we've all known this.

BUT!!!

I would say when a gw member really surprises us with something that is KIND OF NEAT, like Barkley, or what I know of Faceless, or even something like USG which has the single funniest plot twist in any game ever, it does give you this hope that maybe...maybe we can be something...

of course this could be the last thrashings of a dying behemoth etc make a reference to something but idk we all came here because we had at least a cursory interest in games so I think giving it a fair shot is worthwhile.

when we talk about gw dying we don't talk about an actual decline, I don't think the forums will ever stop being paid for, but we're talking about drawing in members and this means we either

-need a mainsite
-need to approach friends and people we know

THERES A REASON NO ONE DOES THE SECOND.

hey alex
hey man whats up
well i've got this cool forum you should check out.
whats it called
gaming world
you're not invited to my wedding anymore.

yeaaaah but how? we have the community section bu thow much of a draw is THIS ONE GUY

HE WROTE SOMETHING ABOUT COLLEGE?

I mean if you have a theory really I'm interested because we've addressed this paradox a lot in the past and basically settled for 50/50. we're also not attracting RPG makers but game makers in general.

i agree with jorge, tbh.

it would be nice to move away from gamemaking in general but gw really has no other specific focus.

the worst thing is.

I had this brilliant idea of just slowly shifting the focus and having regular reviews, interviews, music, movies, and of course games but indie ones and they wouldn't even be focal. we'd have catchall topics in the form of series and lists, for instance some staffer could volunteer to do something ridiculous like go vegan for a month and write about it, basically just eventually a site that you'd always want to read.

then I saw a bunch of goons idly mentioning the AV Club as a good review site, clicked, and I swore so loud my mom thought I had fallen over because it was EXACTLY my idea.

we've had this discussion a thousand times and I don't see the point. gw can't abandon indie gamemaking because a lot of us here are still into it (even if we've moved on from rpgmaker and the whole g&d crowd) and because we need it as a draw to bring in new people. nobody is gonna find the site and then sign up just because someone wrote an article about college or facebook. that shit is there so that the mainsite doesn't bore us all to death like it did in the past when all it had were chrono trigger rips and badly written rpg articles.

who, exactly is still really in to indie gamemaking? and even if they are, is GW really where they go to get advice or information?

would anyone even care if the entirety of the g&d and gamemaking crowd just disappeared from this site?

gw is not dying
death can only occur within a flawed conception of life.
gw is in good health
attracting members can suceed  by why try for users of rpg maker e.t.c when they are now in the minority the message board has evolved a mainsite should reflect this

most of our new people are going to be google hits not recommendations. the problem with being general interest is that on the grand scale of message boards we'd be on the 80th page of general interest forums, whereas we'd be a lot higher for rpg maker stuff

the thing about GW's 'evolution' is that the forums evolved without the mainsite. we need to develop a broader userbase so that activity is sustainable before we start changing things that would threaten our stability (once you drop below a certain population extinction is inevitible)

edit: i wrote this before you.

lemme wax a bit philosophical I guess.

first off obviously the purpose of getting new members is selfish because we do not want just NEW MEMBERS; we want some type of interesting members. in ten minutes we could boost gw's audience a hundred members by making it a furry website. just pointing out this is not about new members, this is about, for lack of a better term, sustainable members.

let's use Velfarre as an example. I'm using Velfarre because our interests, while not opposite, certainly don't overlay. I read all sorts of books, listen to all sorts of music, have cancer, have some political interest, and watch few movies. I post about these things. Velfarre seems to get constantly sick (she cannot eat Totinos), enjoys a lot of weird fringe nerd culture like Doraemon, Lazytown, and Hitchhikers Guide, I don't think I've ever seen her post about music or non-obscure comic books, and I bet she watches more movies than I do. but we are both members who will post a lot, simply because she, and I assume almost anyone who posts in a forum called General, enjoy GENERAL discussion. we all have specific interests, but we also enjoy talking about a variety of subjects. the problem here is that you create a forum almost of dilettantes, which is why it's not sustainable as a mainsite; how jarring would it would be if the mainsite went from articles about obscure strategy games to Top Chef to John Grisham novels (someone's looking around their rooooom!!!)? and who would go to this site? of course, once you're part of it, this kind of shotgun approach works well; it's why What's On Your Mind, despite having the highest ratio of bullshit posts to normal ones, is one of our most popular topics, and why AM which is, what, less than six months old and basically 50% my topics about THINGS I SAW TODAY, is some people's favorite forum.

but let's take someone like Heath. Heath is possibly ex staffer and G&D mod Ciel, maybe not, I don't know. but all Heath seems to post is one kind of post; something mocking G&D. occasionally Heath ventured into 9/11 but mostly only to mock G&D more.

and even that could be okay, except Heath was one of the primary people who made fun of Konix for being slightly irritated someone took a private sprite without asking.

this kind of member might stick around, might not, but I speak for myself and a few others when I say I don't want him around. half of G&D and almost all of that stupid WE'RE ANTI G&D (ITS ALL WE ARE) crew is so absolutely boring and one note and just depraved of genuine thought process I don't want to read what they have to say! these have somehow become VERY DUMB PEOPLE. Velfarre makes kind of boring posts too but at least she displays a fucking spark of a neuron firing and that's not meant to be an insult to Velfarre but to the people who just DON'T.

and when I say this I don't mean they don't share my opinion. someone like Bled I often don't agree with, but Bled is still a sustainable member because while I think he can be really really dumb a lot he's not intrinsically dumb like some of these people.

so the two assumptions I think GW6 is relying on are as follows.

1. if we attract real gamemakers or people who at least want to be legit gamemakers instead of dudes who are still using RM in the exact same boring way as everyone else and obsess over "realistic dialogue" and then quote Star Wars EU novels, as signified just from their creativity, they will be salvageable actual members.

this is a dangerous assumption but not as bad as the next:

2. some percent of these members will be attracted to the GW community and style outside of just gamemaking and stick around.

these are the two assumptions I think we're working on, and they aren't the strongest, but honestly as Konix has said, we've talked about this a lot and it's basically our last shot! GW can have a theoretical infinite lifespan but if this fails it's pretty clear we have to go back to a drawing board and make it INTELLIGENT FURRY PORN DISCUSSION SITE or something.

cast a wide net and club all the ciels, this is pretty much what we do already! we're nasty to the kk4's that arrive from HOW TO ASSASINATE THE PRESIDENT searches but keep all the dietcokes or whoever. like with the whole gamesmaster jasper incident. that probably would've been a better analogy.

also it's fun having a bunch of weird people comming through occasionally.