Hey everyone.
I hope you enjoy NeoGAF as much as I do. Our community has made it through a lot over the years. We had a rough patch a while back, but were able to rebuild, and it’s a fun and lively place again, focusing on the games, with a common sense guiding principle.
I’ve been here for over 22 years and counting, and I’d like to continue running NeoGAF for many more years to come. But there’s an ongoing problem: the powers that be changed their algorithm some time ago and we lost upwards of 90% of our ad revenue for an identical amount of traffic. It’s always been tough to monetize forums, but right now is about as tough as it’s ever been for GAF since we have a huge post history that requires a lot of server power to keep it all integrated, as well as a lot of traffic that takes up resources every month without much coming back in.
As a result of the ad revenue issues it’s become a challenge to maintain the site, I’ve had to slow down active development and pursue other avenues professionally as well. It’s also not viable to compensate our dev team properly without revenue coming in, so I’ve paused many of our internal operations. You’ve probably noticed that the momentum we had with all the new features and improvements has slowed, and some existing features have stopped working outright. Now you know why.
This whole development purgatory is really not my preference. I’d rather focus my attention primarily on GAF and continue building it back up, keep it a great place to hang out and talk about the latest gaming and industry news, and get back to actively developing it.
It’s a predicament. Are you guys and gals open to supporting NeoGAF a bit more actively? We have a lot of users, but most people adblock and only a tiny fraction of members get Gold subs. We could put up some affiliate links that would support the site without an out of pocket cost, if they would be utilized by our members. And I’m open to discussing any other options as well.
NeoGAF has always been independent, and over the past two decades I’ve shrugged off the many attempts by publishers and big corporations to control the site via their acquisition offers and other deals. But with that stubborn neutrality and independence comes a different set of challenges, like the one we’re currently facing. To keep moving forward we’ll need to construct some additional pylons.
If you enjoy using NeoGAF, let me know of any ways you’d be down to support the site’s continued existence. I'd love to get back into full swing, revise the site design for 2022, fix our features and add new ones, and continue building. Thanks.
Edit:
Per your requests, we've implemented a Patreon page here:
www.patreon.com
I hope you enjoy NeoGAF as much as I do. Our community has made it through a lot over the years. We had a rough patch a while back, but were able to rebuild, and it’s a fun and lively place again, focusing on the games, with a common sense guiding principle.
I’ve been here for over 22 years and counting, and I’d like to continue running NeoGAF for many more years to come. But there’s an ongoing problem: the powers that be changed their algorithm some time ago and we lost upwards of 90% of our ad revenue for an identical amount of traffic. It’s always been tough to monetize forums, but right now is about as tough as it’s ever been for GAF since we have a huge post history that requires a lot of server power to keep it all integrated, as well as a lot of traffic that takes up resources every month without much coming back in.
As a result of the ad revenue issues it’s become a challenge to maintain the site, I’ve had to slow down active development and pursue other avenues professionally as well. It’s also not viable to compensate our dev team properly without revenue coming in, so I’ve paused many of our internal operations. You’ve probably noticed that the momentum we had with all the new features and improvements has slowed, and some existing features have stopped working outright. Now you know why.
This whole development purgatory is really not my preference. I’d rather focus my attention primarily on GAF and continue building it back up, keep it a great place to hang out and talk about the latest gaming and industry news, and get back to actively developing it.
It’s a predicament. Are you guys and gals open to supporting NeoGAF a bit more actively? We have a lot of users, but most people adblock and only a tiny fraction of members get Gold subs. We could put up some affiliate links that would support the site without an out of pocket cost, if they would be utilized by our members. And I’m open to discussing any other options as well.
NeoGAF has always been independent, and over the past two decades I’ve shrugged off the many attempts by publishers and big corporations to control the site via their acquisition offers and other deals. But with that stubborn neutrality and independence comes a different set of challenges, like the one we’re currently facing. To keep moving forward we’ll need to construct some additional pylons.
If you enjoy using NeoGAF, let me know of any ways you’d be down to support the site’s continued existence. I'd love to get back into full swing, revise the site design for 2022, fix our features and add new ones, and continue building. Thanks.
Edit:
Per your requests, we've implemented a Patreon page here:
Get more from NeoGAF on Patreon
creating the best video game community on the internet.
www.patreon.com
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