Post by Stormslegacy on Jan 21, 2018 23:37:01 GMT -5
Dear Community,
I'm sure other people have noticed the quiet around here, so lets' talk about it openly.
There will be a couple more breeding seasons, but if the response remains as low as it's been, I'm going to have to stop by the end of the year. I don't want to! If people haven't bred by next September then the interest is too low to continue. I'll put the game on a hiatus until I figure out what to do. I'm going to try to be more active on social media in the next year and I'm enthusiastic we can turn this around but I can't do it alone. I am open to publicity suggestions, referral ideas, newbie contests, starter gryphs, revealed sales, confirmed species, someone running an rp event where I provide prizes etc. As a forum admin, I can see that we actually have numerous visitors daily, so that's not the whole issue! We had an awesome winter's gift exchange and other community happenings, so I don't want this temporary slump to define us <3
I'm going to admit, it's disheartening for this to be the second season with so few entries, low response rate to contests...I really want to keep this going, but I can't afford to spend time on it if no one is participating. We lost some of our most active players all at once to real-life stuff outside the game but a game like this really does require a community to work, and I'm at a loss how to better engage people without investing so much time that it's not sustainable for me. I've worked extremely hard to up my quality while keeping the small sculptures affordable, I've tried making contests with real prizes that gained no entries, and after 3 years I'm worried my time might be better spent on other projects.
The new gryph species has been sculpted and will be in one of the releases listed in the shop soon. I also wanted to release a new demon next season.
The future breeding seasons are as follows:
March/April
June
September
If in that time, I get less than 3 breedings a season on average, September will be the last breeding season, unless for some reason sales of eggs is steady. It's a pretty low bar so I do think we can meet it!
This is my commitment, I'm not going to up and quit before then. This is my promise that I'm giving it a year to turn around before that decision comes. I check this forum daily and will continue! I'm giving a year's notice of my thoughts, so that there isn't any private speculation that the game will just fade away. I just want to be frank, because I'm sure folks are starting to wonder.
If for some reason this is not a temporary slump, in the future I would honor breeding "commissions" on my personal art page if I do, so no worries that your gryph loses breeding value, but the registry and site would left to expire and no new random gryphs will be made. It would also be subject to a waitlist, just like all other commissions. I would nto allow for custom gryphs. The breeding mechanics would remain the same in case we reopen at a later time.
Sincerely,
Stormslegacy
I'm sure other people have noticed the quiet around here, so lets' talk about it openly.
There will be a couple more breeding seasons, but if the response remains as low as it's been, I'm going to have to stop by the end of the year. I don't want to! If people haven't bred by next September then the interest is too low to continue. I'll put the game on a hiatus until I figure out what to do. I'm going to try to be more active on social media in the next year and I'm enthusiastic we can turn this around but I can't do it alone. I am open to publicity suggestions, referral ideas, newbie contests, starter gryphs, revealed sales, confirmed species, someone running an rp event where I provide prizes etc. As a forum admin, I can see that we actually have numerous visitors daily, so that's not the whole issue! We had an awesome winter's gift exchange and other community happenings, so I don't want this temporary slump to define us <3
I'm going to admit, it's disheartening for this to be the second season with so few entries, low response rate to contests...I really want to keep this going, but I can't afford to spend time on it if no one is participating. We lost some of our most active players all at once to real-life stuff outside the game but a game like this really does require a community to work, and I'm at a loss how to better engage people without investing so much time that it's not sustainable for me. I've worked extremely hard to up my quality while keeping the small sculptures affordable, I've tried making contests with real prizes that gained no entries, and after 3 years I'm worried my time might be better spent on other projects.
The new gryph species has been sculpted and will be in one of the releases listed in the shop soon. I also wanted to release a new demon next season.
The future breeding seasons are as follows:
March/April
June
September
If in that time, I get less than 3 breedings a season on average, September will be the last breeding season, unless for some reason sales of eggs is steady. It's a pretty low bar so I do think we can meet it!
This is my commitment, I'm not going to up and quit before then. This is my promise that I'm giving it a year to turn around before that decision comes. I check this forum daily and will continue! I'm giving a year's notice of my thoughts, so that there isn't any private speculation that the game will just fade away. I just want to be frank, because I'm sure folks are starting to wonder.
If for some reason this is not a temporary slump, in the future I would honor breeding "commissions" on my personal art page if I do, so no worries that your gryph loses breeding value, but the registry and site would left to expire and no new random gryphs will be made. It would also be subject to a waitlist, just like all other commissions. I would nto allow for custom gryphs. The breeding mechanics would remain the same in case we reopen at a later time.
Sincerely,
Stormslegacy