The Death of Final Fantasy Forums

[FinalxxSin]

I was on a different forum, and it was about the activeness of that respective forum. A member of the site posted this response:
"Social media is generally pants. You can't discuss much. I don't really like it. These kind of places (forums) are great, even if we don't all agree

I don't understand why popularity is down."

This was my response to the above comment:
"It's a mindset thing. Back then, when forums were still big, I'm sure more people were trying to look for a permanent place to call home and grow close to other people. While there are still people like that today, I feel the number of people that just want that quick fix are far more. Want to just post a status update? Twitter can fix that. Imo they aren't interested in getting to know other people. They aren't interested in having a deep conversation and possibly learning something new. They just want to stay on the "go-go-go" train. When something gets old, hop on the next hot topic to make a comment and move on. Rinse and repeat."

Even as an outsider looking in, I can get the feeling that some of you are close on the level of family. Some of you share your ups, downs, and tribulations with each other. While I won't reach that point, I do admire to some degree the ones that are capable of doing that. It got me thinking, with quick and easy to access Social Media seeming to be so dominant, are forums in general doomed unless they are a huge one like NeoGAF? Is my viewpoint flawed? Is this just a phase that will eventually pass? It also got me thinking of FFXV. I am fully confident the title will be very successful, but I'm starting to doubt it would make a 180 turn on FF related forums due to outside factors I didn't consider before.

 

[ZaXo Ken'Ichi]

I think that's generally a fair assessment. I do think there will be small upswings every once in a while in the popularity of forums, and maybe a large one when people finally start to get tired of social media. I don't think they'll ever be hugely popular again, nor do I think they'll ever disappear forever.

The one thing I'd ad to your response, is that I think social media is the preferred place for 'conversation' like that, because it's a lot easier to shout black and white statements, and then just let the chaos ensue, ignoring any other viewpoints. Social media is more of a place to share your opinions and ignore those of others. It's a place where it's super easy to pretend that people you disagree with are stupid, evil, or even nonexistent. Since forums are inherently more nuanced when they're well managed, the people who just want to be loudmouths can't often find stable places to be a loudmouth without facing resistance. So they avoid forums and flock to social media.

 

[The Witch]

I actually think yes. I've been an active member at the cloudxaerith forums since 2008, it was pretty active and probably one of the oldest active ff forums around. but with the rise of tumblr and twitter i feel like forums have become obsolete for a lot of reasons. one big problem i always had with forums are the cliques and the "im the boss" mentality. it feels less like fun and more like a work place. i understand there's gotta be rules, but sometimes fear of biased admins/mods can really alienate a person. so they turn to a place where they have the power--twitter and tumblr. they get to still interact with the fandom but they don't have to worry about the 'overlords' watching and telling them what they can or can't say.

that's why i prefer places like twitter and tumblr now. i still like the "togetherness" of forums, but every forum i visit is practically dead. for whatever reasons, people have moved on from forums.

 

[Davey Gaga]

Forums grew in popularity around the same time things like MSN are early social media popped up; I think part of the reason such a big group of people stayed here is because we all became good friends by continuing to chat on MSN etc. So, I am not so convinced that social media is the death of forums. Reddit is essentially an enormous forum and thrives like never before.

The most active parts of our forum have never been the Final Fantasy sections. We started here in 2006, which is (I think) when Final Fantasy XII was released - that's a lot of titles already released. So, we spent ages chatting to like-minded people about games we played when no one else at school or work had. That was our generation - the people, like us, talking in threads like this one. 10 years later and we have a whole new generation popping up on the internet who have never had any great requirement for a niche forum, because the entire internet is their forum, and being a geek is cool, so everyone talks about this now.

Couple that with the fact there hasn't really been many big, main title releases in the last 10 years (XIII, KH2 and XIV, which attracts a slightly different base), and you find we have less to say about Final Fantasy on a forum and move to chatting more about ourselves and life - which is easier, and more likely to attract attention, on Twitter than on FFF.

So, yes, I agree that social media is "taking our customers", but I think the customers are not looking for what we offer quite as much these days.

It is for these reasons I have always felt that the forum could do more to try and use social media is the "main" platform, using it to attract readers and members. Develop a strong news team so people have a reason to visit the site - use Twitter to say "Everything you need to know about E3!" and get people here. You supplement social media with the forum, whereas, now, we occasionally tweet things we're doing on the forum. We have, what, tens of thousands of members registered, but about 60 followers on Twitter? I think that's working against us. We have always been one of the original forums but if it's a question of taking an active approach to being a strong pillar in the gaming community then I think we need to change our gameplan a bit.

Didn't intend on starting a huge suggestion rant but there we go. :dave:
Mitsuki

 

[Shu]

I don't believe the question was "Final Fantasy" Forums, I think the question was about forums in general.

1) Yes forums are the lower form of communication for most, but it still supports the idea of community.
2) If you want communication Facebook did it best. They took everything from Twitter and upped it, including relationship / work / images yada yada.
3) Final Fantasy Publication on the CMS for this forum is excellent.
4) There are already many other ideas we are spinning including a new affiliation.

The issue is not forums, the issue is the ease of information. People don't come for a final fantasy forums at first just for a community, they usually get it due to a question about a game.

The real issue with "Final Fantasy" is the jprg culture has died down quite a bit.

1) Final Fantasy Releases are slower than they used to be.
2) The quality of games has changed and so has the player base.
3) MMOs came out. What's the point of being on a forum when your community is a game you are playing.
4) Single player games are few and very far between. Those that love it have Online networks like PS4 network or X - Bone networks to pal around on.

Anyway I think forums will come back personally, but marketing is the strategy.

 

[FinalxxSin]

...

The specific aspect of it did refer to Final Fantasy based forums, but you are you also correct that the question looked at the overall status of forums in general. While you are fully correct that marketing is a key in getting a forum to become more active, I have to question if the audience pool is large enough in the first place. Sure a form of media could attract the average joe, but I think what the community here would like to see would be more members with not only an interest with Final Fantasy, but can also bring knowledge in other departments. I personally believe too many of those very type of people aren't very much into social media. I believe they buy their game and enjoy it in peace.

 

[Shu]

The specific aspect of it did refer to Final Fantasy based forums, but you are you also correct that the question looked at the overall status of forums in general. While you are fully correct that marketing is a key in getting a forum to become more active, I have to question if the audience pool is large enough in the first place. Sure a form of media could attract the average joe, but I think what the community here would like to see would be more members with not only an interest with Final Fantasy, but can also bring knowledge in other departments. I personally believe too many of those very type of people aren't very much into social media. I believe they buy their game and enjoy it in peace.

Yea I got you. All very valid points.

I think creating a fan base in general and keeping it interesting is a super hard thing to do. I mean Square / Square Enix has created many of these games, and without derailing many other great jrpgs back in the day.

Since this is merely about Final Fantasy, I think SE does a poor job sometimes of keeping people attached to the series. I also think the demographic of players has changed and from a personal stand point, people's attention spans are really lacking to sit down a play a story based game.

Most Final Fantasy Players I know started on 10. Going backwards for them is not even a desire. Talking about it, they are instantly lost. I think it's a shame, but most of the times, the re-release of the games are what bring folks back to talk about the series in general.

Now forum dynamics of a Final Fantasy Forums. The meta has changed man. (Hipster tone). Take this forum for example, the people that started on here were from the average age of 17-20. I was 22 in fact at the time when this forum started. Everyone started knowing and playing the series and being able to talk about it with passion. The years rolled on other releases occurred.

I think two games had a negative impact on a lot of people's perception on SE's new drive for Action RPGs. The action took away from the story telling and the games themselves sort of second guess SE. Though we still have/had similar talking points and debates.

Now other spin offs include community members leading new ideas to the community. I think some things that used to frequent this forum were quizzes that many people enjoyed. We've noticed statistically that people are less inclined to RP as well, due to the hours that are put in to a good story come from planning, not straight from the hip. Most people rely on Youtube videos and such to kind of corner the market to get their stories told, because it might have a convenient image or video.

And not from an Admin standpoint, but from a member of this forum since 2006 standpoint, I think revitalization of a community takes not just staff anymore - but the members as well.

You mentioned other departments, by that did you mean games or.. media relations? If by games, I think anything RPG related will be spoken about here. Granted First Person Shooters might not, but I've heard folks in the past on this here forum have meet ups. (granted mostly in the UK).

I think with Kupo net, it would great to see some folks even if it is in "New York" . Ha, just messing, but seriously it would be good to say hello.

I would love to hear some suggestion or ideas, but since this is more of "Do I think Final Fantasy style forums are on their way out." I've heard it before, and yes lower traffic, but Nah. I think it's hard to hook the community into staying when there are other games on the market that are releasing at a higher frequency, but hopefully you guys are very welcoming in terms of reaching out to the newer forumers.

Final Fantasy after all will be 20 in 2017. So I hope by then we can grow the community a bit for a big "Hoorah!"

 

[FinalxxSin]

Since this is merely about Final Fantasy, I think SE does a poor job sometimes of keeping people attached to the series. I also think the demographic of players has changed and from a personal stand point, people's attention spans are really lacking to sit down a play a story based game.

Most Final Fantasy Players I know started on 10. Going backwards for them is not even a desire. Talking about it, they are instantly lost. I think it's a shame, but most of the times, the re-release of the games are what bring folks back to talk about the series in general.

You mentioned other departments, by that did you mean games or.. media relations? If by games, I think anything RPG related will be spoken about here. Granted First Person Shooters might not, but I've heard folks in the past on this here forum have meet ups. (granted mostly in the UK).

You have made quite a few valid points. I agree it is difficult for Square to keep a good number of people interested since development times have become much longer as time has gone by. The people that you know that started with X and don't really care to play past titles is interesting. It seems those people are in the same boat I am in a sense. Like me I started off with 8, but I have never touched any Final Fantasy before 7. I agree with you that re-releasing those titles could help remedy that wall some, especially if the game was to get a remaster/remake. Regardless of my experience with the FFXIII trilogy, there is no denying that the series didn't click well in the west as viewpoints became very divisive. When I was addressing other departments, I was referring to areas like "What's Your Mood", "What Are You Currently Listening Too", and some of the other non-game oriented aspects of the forum.

Keeping a forum active is a group effort. You have that 100% correct. As much as I'd like to provide a decent suggestion, there is no black and white answer to it as each situation is going to be unique.