racketboy.com

Most members here do not play retro games semi-exclusively, or even semi-regularly. Interest in this has just waned over time.

The last three years have been pretty bad for participation. There were more posts in the thread for deciding the 2016 list than there were posts collectively for the year's TR games. I think it was the same for 2015. People preferred bickering over choosing titles to actually playing them.

Then you have the TR link tucked away at the bottom of the homepage and a, frankly, quite bland choice of titles this year, no real wonder there's little interest. Maybe some sort of combination TR/Summer game challenge would work better?

What if we went with a theme - just arcade or just NES?
That way we could pick games that would either be classic/must play(again) and we can talk high scores.
I always like the games we either play together and discuss as we go or the ones we compete with a running scoreboard.

nullPointer wrote:Racketboy (even as someone who mostly just passively just follows along with the threads).

I appreciate you've been less passive lately, and more interactive. This forum needs more of its lurkers to do the same.

BoneSnapDeez wrote:Most members here do not play retro games semi-exclusively, or even semi-regularly.

We saw a similar waning of interest with Together RPG. I think over time a lot of our members have just decided to focus on whatever they're currently in the mood for and don't let themselves be sidetracked.

I agree with popo that's probably a big part of it.

Maybe regular posters like Exhum and Elkin etc should each pick a month to spearhead one game - any genre, any system whatever that they can help motivate others to play and foster conversation. I hate to see TR die so I'm behind whatever might garner community interest personally.

Sorry, this one is mostly my fault. I think I was asked last year to pick an RPG for this month, and when the time came to write up a post, I had completely forgotten. Since then it has been a combination of being busy and forgetting by the time I get home eat dinner and play with kids etc... I also had in laws from out of town staying and this past weekend went out of town for. LAN party. So one of those perfect combinations.

Mustang, I don't think the issue is that there was no TR article/thread this month... I think the issue is that it took 2 weeks for anybody to notice. That's indicative of just how much interest in TR as a whole has waned. And that's more what I'm looking to address here. If there's any ideas/solutions on how to foster new interest in TR as a community thing, then great. Otherwise it sounds like the forum majority just isn't interested in keeping it going anymore.

I like the idea of broadening the potential games for a month. it leads to less direct discussion, since we'd likely be playing different games, but if those games fell under an umbrella, we'd at least have common ground to discuss, and this could elliviate the issue of a particular game not being what people are feeling at the time.

Some ideas that we could limit it to:

Specific Console/Handheld (Downside is this being somewhat exclusive)

Specific Developers (I like this one)

Specific Genres (I know we have threads for these, but this might bring others out that would not normally post in those threads maybe? Downside is that it still succumbs to the "Not Feeling That" issue)

Specific periods of time (Games from 1987) ( I like this one too!)

I dunno, just spitballing, but as someone who reads through but rarely participates in TR, I would still like to see it go on in some form, and even participate in it in the future.

I just noticed people had been discussed in this thread -- we had a private email thread going, but it kinda ended.

I'm almost thinking they need to be quick, pick-up and play games like arcade type games or something while the involvement level is where it is.

Another idea is just to do every other month?

And... is doing a full blog post worth doing at this point? Doesn't seem to get much exposure considering the work involved for those that put it together.
We could do a more casual post in the forum and leave it at that for now unless somebody thinks otherwise....