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[Alex N.]

Where is everyone?

I've been MIA for 6 years so I don't know if this is the aftermath of indiepocalypse, people got too bitter because life, or lurking is back and trending. This used to be such a lively and friendly space... wtf happened?

[Schoq]

Times changed and general forum death happened (the web is only like five websites or rather phone apps now).
On the other hand other creative fields like art or music still have a couple open message boards like this alive and well. Seems like the game dev community just isn't strong enough for that though. Or maybe it's some kind of age bracket thing.
Maybe everyone's more comfortable in a cozy discord until they need to announce something and put on their public face for tweetstatok or whatever. We've pondered this in a few threads.
It's unfortunate in any case.

It of course didn't help that the owners of the website just abandoned the place and left the remaining admins without powers to do anything other than maintenance.

Derek I know you're out there somewhere paying the server bills.

[Alex N.]

Times changed and general forum death happened ...

I will be "that one guy" and say it... if those remaining would be a bit more active, no matter where Derek is, the community might grow again and be as great as it was. So it's on each of us to play our part.
"- You've been away for 6 years." I did, not saying I'm any better, but that doesn't mean the solution isn't playing our part.

Derek leaving, then people leaving soon after just shows that they weren't here for games in the first place. They were hardcore "notice me senpai" and TIG was an avenue for them to be closer to the rockstar, waiting for access back stage.

[michaelplzno]

The silver lining is that a lot of the clashes of personality that came with the old ways are gone too. I never felt comfortable till the herd thinned out a bit.

[Schoq]

The exodus wasn't because of Derek's leaving as such.
Other communities have met the same fate since. Whatever people got on forums for is largely somewhere else now. Probably mainly discord for game dev. Facebook/twitter/reddit for most other things.
At a guess.
The web is slowly dying.

[Alex N.]

I hope it's a just a momentarily set back. Old trends tend to come back and the indie space is a big deal, new and old devs will funnel back into tig eventually. Whoever is here still, should do an effort to keep it alive and going in the meantime.
It's an up-hill battle, true, but not impossible to win.
To me this space is packed with nostalgia, it helped me get through some critical points in my dev life, so I'll be here, keep the engagement going. If it's all for naught, well, at least I tried.

And if my game becomes a hit over night, then I'll have to do what all successful devs do, forget about this hellhole and get a slice of land next to notch.

[michaelplzno]

It shouldn't be a hellhole right? I mean that's my point.

[Schoq]

But honestly many people who left obviously did so with not the best associations with this place. A thriving forum like we imagine would probably have to be something completely new.
Don't know who can or would take on such a task though.
I don't know how to run a website.

[Foxwarrior]

Yeah plenty of game dev discords are lively, bustling places. For things like asking an opinion question and getting some answers where you care who's talking, or posting a work in progress gif and getting immediate spur-of-the-moment reactions, then Discord is easily much more powerful. Where forums can excel is like... if you have a topic where people have to hash it out for a while with well-reasoned arguments but eventually come to a conclusion or two that you can point people back to ten years later. But, that doesn't happen very often in gamedev, and it is still sort of possible to do it on Discord, just not as convenient.

[Foxwarrior]

Tbh the thing where posting in a thread here makes you permanently subscribed to it for the rest of your life probably significantly contributed to me not posting in many devlogs.

[Alex N.]

Tbh the thing where posting in a thread here makes you permanently subscribed to it for the rest of your life probably significantly contributed to me not posting in many devlogs.

On top of each thread, above first post is a Sun Icon and it reads Notify. If you click on it you unsubscribe from that specific thread. Click again, and you resubscribe.

Yeah plenty of game dev discords are lively

Do you have any channels in mind worth checking out, besides Game Marketeers, Work With Indies, Playing Indies and Game Devs League. The downside of a discord imo is that you can't keep it as organized as a forum. Harder to navigate if you are not staying up to date regularly. But I see your argument for the more casual aspect of discord.

[ThemsAllTook]

Tbh the thing where posting in a thread here makes you permanently subscribed to it for the rest of your life probably significantly contributed to me not posting in many devlogs.

Oh wow, that's how it behaves for you? I must have found the setting to turn this off early on, changed it, and forgot about it. There's a checkbox: Profile -> Notifications and Email -> Turn notification on when you post or reply to a topic.

[Foxwarrior]

Well, I do want it to subscribe me to some threads, I like the "Show new replies to your posts." button. But yeah, the other time I discussed this issue (a hundred years ago), nobody there seemed to know you could escape from a thread's notifications.

Game Dev League is the big Discord for casually posting wips and design problems, and talking about them, for sure.

[Foxwarrior]

Welp, nope, didn't work. Show new replies still has something for me every single time anyone joins this forum.

[Golds]

i still like posting here. I wish more people still did too. Alas, it seems places like Discord and Twitter are eating our lunch.

[Alex N.]

I always used to say that a smaller community is way more fun than a crowded one. If anyone remembers early day dota or league community as compared to the now toxic and overall unpleasant one. Maybe it's better to be less of us, or maybe it's cope.

[Capntastic]

It's not doing as good as it could

[jbarrios]

I checked out a few places before deciding to lay roots here.  A lot of these places have a a culture of negativity, and not in a constructive way.  I think they are more after a reaction or upvotes than actually helping each other.

I like it here.

[vitalash]

What did the "golden age" mean to you guys? I haven't participated much in this place, so I lack the context of what things you've gotten from here.

It seems to me that at its worst, this place is constant self-promotion and selling to each other. And at its best, for me I think it's being wholly excited for each other and collaborating on projects? I suppose game dev is a lonely craft, and this place balances that.
^{Though it's hard to spend a lot of time being excited for others without losing sight of my own project...}

How much of enjoying the present a matter of getting what you want versus accepting you already have all you need?

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. Like, what would have to change? More people? That might increase the loneliness/lack-of-connection and exaggerate problems... More events? More fun ways to interact about game dev than just Devlogs/Collaborations/Jams & Events (like a new forum with a new format)? Community attitude? Anything else?

_{Personally, my issue with Discord is it encourages high-frequency, low-quality communication. I have bad experiences with the format, and it's addictive. It feels like Twitter.}

[Golds]

The golden age was probably the 2007-2011 era, when TIGSource hosted competitions and was basically ground zero of the burgeoning indie scene. It's not quite that way anymore, but it still has a lot of value, as well containing the whole history of threads of game projects over the past coming up on two decades.

More people posting would be great, but old-school forums just simply have more friction in posting when compared to places like Discord and Twitter.