The Future of Weight Gaming

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My only concern would be how sustainable it would be in the long term as one reason we are where we are financially is due to the over reliance on a few generous donors who could no longer afford to continue keeping up such support.

The modern digital goods creator economy is based upon a few number of high dollar supporters. This is true across the board – mobile gaming gatcha whales, onlyfans, taylor swift tickets, etc.

There’s some interesting history/sociology of why this is occurring – the digital economy inequities mirroring the rest of the economy.

Nevertheless, a lot of the most successful creators today find a way to offer options to a few members of a community that are willing to pay way above than the average person. Whether that is VIP backstage tickets to Taylor Swift’s concert, infinite tips on Twitch/OnlyFans, or high rolling for gatchas.

Au contraire from being unsustainable, going further in that direction could become more sustainable.

Only when things are finally at a point where he literally cannot keep this up, do people speak up, only to tell him that this is a horrible decision and how it will “kill the site” or that “you should have asked for money”, which, every time he has posted about site needing income nobody would even look at it anyway…

An system that would allow members with the wallet to pay for something of value to them, even if it is just cosmetic or honorary – would definitely be preferable than crisis-response.

I recognize that Grot already created a Patreon. Perhaps adding a $500/month (or something way higher) tier, you may be surprised on who might go for that.

Sidenote: “Patreon” chose their name as a reference to “Patrons of Art” from the Renaissance – incredibly families that single-handedly paid for artists to live and work, like how the Medicis sponsored Michelangelo

Another edit so I don’t hog posts:
Here are a couple of articles / blog posts about monetization for the modern creator economy:
Creator Economy 2.0: What we’ve learned, why it’s hard, and what’s next at andrewchen (from prestigious VC firm)
Ever feel the world isn't fair? Maybe it is a power law...

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A forum with no users does solve the moderation and cost problems, that is very true.

I don’t mind though really. If you want to try something new that’s better for you, you go for it.

The wiki is probably useful no matter what happens.

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Please understand, when I say that this will kill the forum that is not saying that the current state of affairs is preferable. I’m literally just stating that the only reason people come here anymore is to follow the existing project threads or post their own, and so splitting them off will mean nobody uses the forum.

Basically, it’s a waste of money to run the forum at all at that point. I’m not saying that keeping things going as they are is a desirable alternative - I actually think the forum is basically so far from its original intended usage at this point that, if Grot doesn’t want to deal with moderating other peoples’ project sales-listings, he really SHOULD sell the site outright to someone else for monetization and start a whole new forum up elsewhere. Because nobody else is using this site right now for anything else. But I don’t think that’s a good thing, I think it’s an unfortunate effect of the fact that everybody has to monetize their hobbies to justify them nowadays and a few early movers made it big once upon a time several years back.

What I’m saying about this is simply that the WeightGaming forum as it presently exists doesn’t have the content to survive outside of people posting projects. If it is to survive, it needs effort put in to promote the content which Grot wants to see versus merely the excision of content which is proving troublesome. Speaking as someone who has spent a lot of time in earlier years moderating forums and subreddits, you cannot moderate your way to the content you want to see. It has to be cultivated, which is an active process, until such time that it is self-sustaining. If all you do is remove the stuff you don’t want to be dealing with, all you get is silence. And that’s not worth the hosting costs, especially since it’s coming out of pocket.

Given that people are MAKING money off this place existing, and it isn’t Grot, I do feel as if there is a clear and obvious imbalance here. Time and money is being given to give other people a place to make money, which is… kind of nonsensical on its face. But this shift isn’t going to bring about any major changes in the forum environment other than to empty it. I don’t see how that does good for anybody, since you’re still going to be paying for hosting presumably.

Basically? The timeline is off. You are throwing the only meaningful content still on the forum off of it without having anything else waiting in the wings to replace it with. You need to have plans for how to cultivate the culture you want to exist here before you slice off what presently does, or else everybody is just going to splinter off anyways to where they can do what they currently are, as far as posting sales-listings and marketing to customers, and what remains will be a money-pit with no real point for its existence.

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Trying to shift to the wiki definitely makes sense as a survival/cryosleep strategy while you’re in dire straights. I would be sad to see a drop off on the forums, but it’s not worth your stability or health

Genuine question: was putting a banner with fundraising targets ever tried? I’ve only been here since 2022, and only intermittently at that, so maybe I missed it. But it seems like banner posts are getting a lot more eyeballs and engagement than the financial statements, and having a progress bar might incentivize people to keep the site funded. We’re gamers and chub fans, we like to see number go up

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(This was part of what I was going to say on the open letter, but I couldn’t think of a way to tie all my thoughts together. I do feel it’s still relevant to this though.)

One thing I would do in if I were in Grot’s position, regardless of what decisions are made on the future of this site, is close my DMs. The image of being open to all and welcome to hearing all ideas, all of the time simply isn’t worth the constant harassment and brigading by self-righteous arseholes looking to get x topic or developer banned. Other than asking for help with login issues (which I assume all goes through Discord anyways, which I’ll get to), I can’t see any reason why any admin would need to be DM’d that couldn’t instead go through the report system. Is it a perfect solution? No, but I believe it would at least put a stop to most of the direct harassment.

Of course, I don’t know the specifics behind the scenes, what other reasons people have for DMs, or even if this brigading only comes through DMs and not the report system. My naivety has been on display multiple times in the past, so please correct me if I’m assuming incorrectly. I’m also not on any other social platforms, so I can’t comment on those.

As for Discord, it has a Message Requests feature, where you can choose to accept DMs from other people or ignore them without that user ever knowing. Any future messages they send simply won’t be received. So accept the DMs from the users locked out of their accounts (or whatever other legitimate issue they have), and ignore those on some pathetic crusade. And in the edge case that one of the harassers then gets locked out of their account? Tough shit, they shouldn’t have been so horrible and immature in the first place.

And now, specifically considering this thread? Yeah, closing DMs has gone from a strong recommendation to a complete necessity, even if only temporarily. If all of the harassment explained in the open letter was happening without this hot-topic thread (44 replies in 4 hours, yikes), I don’t even want to imagine what’s going to happen now.

I might comment on my own thoughts about this directly, but only if I can think of alternative solutions of my own. As a general reminder to everyone, it’s very easy to say “this is bad, this needs to be better”, but if you don’t provide any other ideas, no other actions will take place. Thankfully at least we have seen some of those as I’ve been writing this (I’m very slow at writing, I know).

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I don’t know who could critisize your thankless job-- I do not mind as long as you are happy. I see no return from burnout and commend your path forward in greater life. To have kept going as long as you have!~ it is an honor in your presence.

Alternate places may well pick up to fill the vaccum, the exact shape of things not clear yet.
（╹◡╹）

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This is a cap wasnt suppose ro be a forum a free platform not like whit list forum i like content creators tho post this stuff aswell not a game dev but a lurker aswelll played some games that i liked it alot aswell and help others as walkthroughs through game but do you gonna do main owner

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I wish I’d been able to come back sooner, concerning financing and personal health:

I can match that $500/month, if it’s deemed feasible then we can take care of it.

For personal health, I know how awful burnout is and how it can sometimes be best to leave everything behind for the sake of your loved ones. If you decide it really is best to sell or close the site, then I support it. This should be a hobby, not a legacy. Please, please do what’s best for yourself.

If you do decide to sell or otherwise transfer ownership, then somebody hit me up to help tackle hosting costs.

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Regardless of any other circumstances (and believe me, I do empathize here), you need financial support to keep this site running, no matter what form the site takes moving forward. It’s obvious the current trajectory isn’t sustainable. And the kind of people you need to reach to make this happen – outside of a couple crazy generous donors – are not going to read or engage with detailed financial statements that occur maybe once a year. That’s just the truth of the matter – this is basic human nature, and it’s a bastard like that.

People need calls to action to support the things they care about, period, much like what’s happened here in the past few hours. Whether that involves more significant incentives for Patreon memberships or straight up asking for help, no one’s coming to the rescue if they don’t know, at a glance, the site needs help to stay afloat.

And Keyfarer is right – there is clearly no shortage of people willing to pay to support creators here, and anyone with two brain cells to rub together can tell this site is an integral part of that pipeline. Obviously these costs don’t remain static, but the $500/month difference is 50 users paying $10 each. If this is really all it takes, I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is to pitch in.

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51

Having a banner with the current funding status would be really helpful, since it’s really hard for regular users to tell how that looks. Ao3 and Wikipedia are both really good at that, with generating funds to keep their businesses running.

Just a short message like X of Y monthly cost met, Z months funding secured, maybe?

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As a long-time diver, I feel it’s time for me to speak something. If the site undergoes such radical changes going forward, it could lead to a complete collapse. Perhaps gradual, incremental changes would be better. I know absolutely nothing about running a website, so I hesitate to voice my suggestions, which might be unrealistic. Maybe discussions among others could yield some useful advice or sponsorship opportunities.

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I’m with Keyfarer 100% here. These changes to the forums seem risky and underbaked at best, and site-killing at worst. I understand that burnout and stress aren’t really problems that you can solve by just throwing money at them, but considering that most of the issue here seems to be financial, I think it’s more than feasible to raise enough money each month to entirely support the site without having to take from your own pocket, Grot.

Full transparency here - I’m in a similar situation to Key. WG makes up an important piece of my income, and I’d be more than willing to pitch in to keep the doors open on the projects category. I’m planning on launching a new game here relatively soon, and I can guarantee that the amount of traffic that I’d lose from not being able to add it to the projects category would massively outweigh any financial contribution to the forums that I could make.

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maybe I’m the weird one but I don’t really see how this could “kill the site”. if I understand it right the wiki would let you browse games as they come out so it would still be a good place to look for new stuff and such that is coming out. I basically only check on new projects and if it is something that looks interesting then I add it to my list of games to check out.

my only real concern would be that good old and finished projects would sorta get buried quicker since discussion is what keeps a project “on the front page”. a way to find popular games easier would probably be helpful. like if you can give likes to wiki pages and you can search for something with x or more number of likes or new pages with comparatively many likes (like how hot/trending pages is usually done). I guess even word/edit count could work as some sort of metric since someone needs to care enough about the game to write a bunch for the wiki (though it would be an easy system to game)

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The BYO is interesting considering I have Patreon & Ko-Fi

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People don’t like change, and the wiki is not exactly ready for every type of person. There’s going to be some that simply back out because the wiki does not meet the standards in comparison to before the shutdown of projects. I can speak for the people when I say I pretty much always go through the projects, and when the games are then sorted in alphabetical order, with no distinguishing tags, my brain melts into a tasty soup because I have no idea what I am in for, and I need to check every single game, and my higher order decides to stop functioning.

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I’M NOT A WEBSITE DEV AND I DO NOT MAKE GAMES, TAKE WHAT I SAY WITH A GRAIN OF SALT

whether or not this is the way to go i don’t know and it’s not to say that all of the ideas presented are specifically bad ones, but at least to me and some others (especially key) there are a few better ways of going about doing this kind of thing to help alleviate costs before basically gutting the project section and basically killing dev projects that barely have time to get off the ground. what confuses me and i won’t lie kinda raises a red flag is the last bit about picking losers and winners, that to me at least recognizes the fault in this plan, now sure there would be scammers or projects that have less than the “ideal” quality on here (not fully sure what that even means but eh) but in the case of some devs on here who may need this to help push off that project i don’t think its entirly fair to essentially write them off, i don’t think the plan is all that bad and boosting the wiki is a good idea in concept but it does feel like in the long run if this is the plan the forum goes with things will be 1000 times worse

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I’m having a very hard time understanding this whole thing, so let me get this straight

The forum will no longer be useful, only acting as a place to discuss things rather than showcase projects

The wiki is where all of the games will be, making it much more difficult to comment on a project

Smaller devs will have an even harder time making ground

But at least we get Steam for fatties

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Does WG have an official discord?

There is functionality for thread channels and while it’s not as good as this - it would at least fill that functionality of finding newer content/updates better than the wiki would in its current form.

And it is free, or at least pretty cheap? I don’t believe any forum-ish functionality is locked behind server boosting.

I don’t really want to pile on here cause it seems like you’re having a rough week, the news is kind of disappointing, but I hope whatever happens makes things go easier for you.

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My gut reaction was this sounds like a good, solid plan. Having taken some time to think it through, and read the comments of others I have a bit of a different view - sort of how you suggested people’s feelings on the plan may jump back and forth. While at its core, I still think its a decent plan that I’m interested to see how it works out - I think perhaps a more nuanced approach would serve better.

Though - if I may I’ll start off with a question: What’s the difference between Projects and Curated Projects, and why are the curated ones more complex to move?

Whilst I understand the reluctance to rely on big investors - it seems logical to me to take up the kind offers of @Keyfarer and I’m sorry but I’ve forgotten who the other person was. And that’s on top of more modest donations. The idea here isn’t to make a profit per se. Its investing in this community. Its not fair that is something that falls solely on Grot’s shoulders and its clear that small potatoes aren’t going to keep the lights on, so to speak.

I do like the idea of the wiki in general terms - though from the sounds of things it needs work to be in a properly viable state. I don’t know much about Wikis and editing them so won’t really dwell on that side of things.

I recognise the concerns that other have about “gutting” the project section and to some extent I share those concerns. My project isn’t all that popular and only garners a few comments so not too bothered about that side of thing - even though it would be nice to have more feedback and discussion of my project (but that’s a tangent and not really something anyone can do anything about besides).

But like many others - the Projects section is how I’ve found many great and/or enjoyable games in this niche genre. It would be a shame to see that go away.

I don’t know how the finances play into things with regard to what content is available on the forum - I might be misunderstanding that but the way I read things is there is an implication that more categories means more cost?

But as to the burden of moderation - now, I don’t know how feasible this is with discourse - but from a pragmatic point of view might I suggest topic creators be granted moderation rights to their topic(s)? Or even just in the Projects category. Will some people abuse those moderation rights within their topic? Possibly. But if its restricted to a single thread the fallout from that would be negligible, bordering on nil - for example: in my own project thread someone makes an anti-AIGC comment - no further context, no discussion of the game or its merits. I just delete it as not adding anything meaningful to the discussion. Does that bother anyone if we shift the onus of moderation of content relating to particular projects to the creators of those projects?

Its not a perfect solution I admit - but when a large portion of content requiring moderation is within the project space it could help a lot.

I’m going to have to have a think about suggestions/ideas to encourage further discussion away from the project space and help foster more community spirit.

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I just can’t see this community doing anything but emptying out completely if the forums meaningfully cease to be the thing that they are now.

And I hope that yall can see the really crucial error that you made in allowing AIGC onto the site in the first place. You destroyed a lot of goodwill. I can’t imagine how much more money would be on the table here if you hadn’t allowed this problem to fester, and fracture your community.

Obviously the existential financial threat that this site now faces wouldn’t have gone away, but I think it’s very obvious that it would have prevented the moderation issues that you’re currently dealing with.

but the way things are, I really have to wonder if the site will exist AT ALL a year from now if you don’t SERIOUSLY reconsider your plans to destroy the one good thing that weight gaming has going.

And if you do decide to take community money, I think you have to make it extremely clear that its unwelcome from AI devs. I can’t think of a single move that would restore more of my faith in this place than you taking a stand in the face of considerable financial vulnerability.

Now, I recognize that I don’t know the opinion demographics of the people who have emerged from the woodwork, willing to fork over money to keep this place running. Maybe at this point you DO have a financial interest in keeping AI on the site, but if that’s the case, then it shifts from being a problem of RIGHT NOW and kicks the can down the road to the at this point inevitable bursting of the AI bubble. When the tools that your benefactors need to keep their money flowing turn to dust, and skyrocket in cost to keep functioning locally, what happens to this place’s finances? They go right back in the toilet, and we’re faced with the same death knell, just. a year or so from now instead of today.

And like I and so many others at this point have said, functionally eliminating the thing that makes the community what it is will spell doom and FAST. I know for CERTAIN that I would log off at the end of that 6 month grace period, because the thing that the site IS to me will cease to exist at that point. The incredible amount of effort that keeping a wiki current, moderated and functional enough to serve even a FRACTION of the purpose of the forums as they are now is goodwill I don’t think exists. you’d have to have a sizeable group of volunteers to make it even look presentable, adding screenshots, writing descriptions of games, and so on. And under no present circumstances do I see that materializing. We still deal with forum topics that have 0 screenshots of gameplay, I don’t know in what universe you think the forums exist in that the incredible work to make a wiki presentable no less functional in a forum shaped vacuum will just magically materialize.

And what’s really funny is that I might have been willing to put some of MY time into the wiki to make it good if you had taken a stand on AI. But you’ve burnt up my goodwill.

Frankly, I struggle to see any future for this community at all with the way things have been consistently mishandled, even if you DO accept more money from your users.

The only path out of this that seems at all likely to me, and even so only marginally, is that you accept the support of your userbase that DOES exist, ban AIGC from the site, work VERY hard on those other revenue streams you’ve discussed and fucking PRAY. that your attempt to right the ship actually rebuilds trust.

Its a hail mary, but the current intended course of action is the functional equivalent of pointing a loaded shotgun at one of your feet, saying “I’m going to pull the trigger six months from now” and hoping for some reason, that you’ll be able to walk normally afterward. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Unless the aforementioned storefronts you mentioned are coming in the IMMEDIATE future, I don’t see the forums surviving being effectively shut down, even if you promise that it’s going to be temporary.

If you don’t seriously revise your plan of action, when that 6 month migration period ends, I’m going to personally archive the parts of my presence on this site that I care about, and then delete everything else, and log out.

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