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Hey cool I get to talk about something I know:
Forums are expensive. The only way to really host one and survive is to do one of four things:
1) You’re crowdsourcing the cost of some other source of information (call centers, support ticketing systems) through mass viewership. https://twitter.com/TeemoMVC/status/1386067820103016449
Forums are expensive. The only way to really host one and survive is to do one of four things:
1) You’re crowdsourcing the cost of some other source of information (call centers, support ticketing systems) through mass viewership. https://twitter.com/TeemoMVC/status/1386067820103016449
2) You turn your forum users into people who buy products at a significantly higher rate, or brand advocates of some kind. Bonus of SEO traffic referring back to your main business driver (for IGN/Gamefaqs this is overall site traffic that turns back into ad money).
3) The data you provide is of high value to the owner (basically how most social media works). For forums, this is kind of a secondary benefit.
4) Let community, as a whole, absorb the cost through donation drives and such.
4) Let community, as a whole, absorb the cost through donation drives and such.
Fighting game forums don’t really do the first and the third. What value would your data provide to anyone besides say, market research for Capcom, really? The second and the fourth is the only way to go. There would need to be massive sponsorship deals, advertising, etc.
Would make for a pretty bad community IMO since it’s not like SRK is a “brand” that can make you say, buy more fighting games. They’re not making money off the fighting games.
So really, the last is the only option. You have to monetize through fundraising, merch, etc. This was the approach SRK chose to –some- degree along with just having ads. You would need to find a way to maximize community monetization. EVO would need to have donation drives.
In the end though, if that doesn’t work there’s really no clear “business model” for SRK (and I use the term loosely, it only needs to make back server costs) outside of asking for lots and lots of money, and why most hobby forums eventually fail no matter how good the intentions
There’s only so many ways you can turn posts into dollars, and hobby communities are terrible at it.
For enterprise companies though? They're incredible at it.
For enterprise companies though? They're incredible at it.
