Let’s Get These Forums Started (Again)

[Laddie13]

Hello!

I’m Laddie and I’m an Associate Editor at Playstation Universe. I’m a big fan of forums, and have many years of experience moderating them, including the official Respawn Entertainment forums. Unfortunately, forums are kind of a dying breed, this one included, but I’m here to attempt to bring some life back to the PSU forums.

I know some of you have been here for a long time, and while I don’t expect these forums will ever be as populated as they once were, I’d like to see this community once again become a cool place to hang out and discuss gamer stuff for veterans and new users alike. Eventually I would like to start a PSU game night, where our readers and the fine people here get together for some casual online fun. I’ll be posting links to our biggest and most newsworthy stories in hopes of generating conversations, and perhaps we can even do a few giveaways.

I’m a relatively new staff member at PSU (since March of 2018), but I truly believe we are the best Playstation site there is. I’ve been gaming almost all of my life, I really don’t recall a time before I called myself a gamer, I always say, I was born with a controller in my hands. Growing up I didn’t have many friends that shared my gaming passion, so online forums became a great place to meet like minded people, so this project of trying to get the PSU forums going again, is truly a labor of love.

If you have any suggestions, ideas, or anything else that you would lie to see here, please comment below.

 

[Shingo]

Good luck with that sir, I started weekly uncharted 4 MP events for 4 weeks same 4 people only join. It was half dead back then.

 

[Vyse]

The only way I see PSU being active again is for people to aggressively share the news posted on social media but to also give people a reason to comment. In other words, you can get lots of people to view PSU articles, but whether they stick around to comment is a different story; if they don't see community members posting, they might think no one will be around to read and respond to them.

As for the forums, who really knows? I think it needs a hook, like what NeoGAF/ResetEra has with industry insiders. Maybe since the site calls itself PlayStation Universe, we should have more PlayStation-centric news and opinions, retrospectives and rumors, and not so much what Xbox did right or wrong this week.

Or we can just operate like we usually do and hope next year's E3 will be the turning point for PSU.

 

[Laddie13]

PSU itself is doing quite well, we’re reaching more readers than ever, it’s the just the forums that need help. Reddit, Discord, and other social media have really killed forums like these ones.

 

[Shingo]

Or we can just operate like we usually do and hope next year's E3 will be the turning point for PSU.

tired of hearing same shit every year.

 

[NoUseMercenary]

Would love to see the PSU forums revived. I think the website's SEO has a huge problem and possibly why web traffic has fallen so low. Also, the rise of social networks has killed much of the forum activity. Even Neogaf doesn't have the same numbers it used to.

 

[TidalPhoenix]

Move to Discord. Instead of us trying to keep a dying social media platform alive, why not move with the times and jump on the Discord bandwagon?

 

[Shingo]

Move to Discord. Instead of us trying to keep a dying social media platform alive, why not move with the times and jump on the Discord bandwagon?

finally a reasonable offer. I would love that.

 

[TidalPhoenix]

*watches the tumbleweed*

 

[Shingo]

*watches the tumbleweed*

A classic for psu for years...

 

[TidalPhoenix]

Traffic has dropped through the floor.

It's over

 

[NoUseMercenary]

Traffic has dropped through the floor.

It's over

It could recover if they spent some time/money on proper SEO. A basic search for something like "PlayStation News" and PSU doesn't even come up in the first 10 pages of search results. That's horrible.

 

[TidalPhoenix]

Yup,. We have one last shot at this, The PS5 launch coupled with the Sony Playstation forums closing down gives us our last opportunity. Unfortunately most of the admins are gone. Fiji still visits and Brandon too from time to time, but it's really just me doing the modding (keeping spam bots at bay). I've seen an increase in traffic since they closed the PS forums down.

 

[Shingo]

Yup,. We have one last shot at this, The PS5 launch coupled with the Sony Playstation forums closing down gives us our last opportunity. Unfortunately most of the admins are gone. Fiji still visits and Brandon too from time to time, but it's really just me doing the modding (keeping spam bots at bay). I've seen an increase in traffic since they closed the PS forums down.

no one will re visit a dead place mate.

 

[NoUseMercenary]

Yeah, well forums aren't as popular as they once were. People have either moved to places like Reddit or they're on Social Media. Also, people use other mediums now for gaming like Twitch and Discord. In order to survive, you have to change with the times and evolve.

 

[billm0066]

I own a tesla model 3 and tesla forums are quite busy. Official ones and third party sites. Personally I dont visit much because theres been very few games recently ive been interested in. lou2 is coming out tomorrow and its the 1st game I bought since red dead.

 

[Shingo]

I own a tesla model 3 and tesla forums are quite busy. Official ones and third party sites. Personally I dont visit much because theres been very few games recently ive been interested in. lou2 is coming out tomorrow and its the 1st game I bought since red dead.

well I also play less but the community here was the main reason for my daily visit.

 

[PBM]

It might pick up again when the PS5 comes out, but it's probably just going to die out again.

 

[Cuguy]

It might pick up again when the PS5 comes out, but it's probably just going to die out again.

It might, console releases are a big deal, but I am not sure it is enough to generate a ton of traffic. I sure wish it would tho

 

[TidalPhoenix]

We're getting more new members of the past couple of months. If you do want the site to increase again then replying to them would be great. Otherwise they just tend to hear from me

 

[Cuguy]

true, but gotta have fresh stuff to talk about.

 

[Ghost]

It would be nice to see this place alive again. It's so sad to see it's dead now, like really dead. The writing was on the wall ages ago though and the shiny new forum was just too little too late.

 

[aimnifro]

I will love to be part of any great gaming active community. I hope this forum becomes best in the whole world with too much activity.

 

[Shingo]

It would be nice to see this place alive again. It's so sad to see it's dead now, like really dead. The writing was on the wall ages ago though and the shiny new forum was just too little too late.

nice move mate. You just shaked up all the fingers on you elusively

 

[Xraein]

This is sad

 

[TidalPhoenix]

Stop lamenting and get posting. Fresh stuff?? You know the PS5 and Xbox Series X are releasing this year right? You can still post about all the stuff we used to, new games, great gaming deals, etc. Go into the Xbox forum and start a fight

You can't wait for everyone else to do something to make it great again before you decide to get back involved

 

[PBM]

It would be nice to see this place alive again. It's so sad to see it's dead now, like really dead. The writing was on the wall ages ago though and the shiny new forum was just too little too late.

Oh my gosh, you're alive.

 

[NoUseMercenary]

Let’s do it! We’ll need to PM all the forum alumni as it’s the only way to contact people email. Let everyone know the forums are coming back with revamps coming in early 2021.

PS...I’m in Vegas for my honeymoon until November 7th, so I’ll be somewhat limited on the forums for the next week.

 

[Ghost]

I tried to reply to your PM but the site was having issues. This is what I wrote:

"I don't know dude. I spent years trying just that, through PS3 era, at the launch of PS4 and past that. We may draw in a little bit of traffic but the case is now, as it was all those years ago, that sites like reddit, neogaf and twitter are where people go these days. The only way this forum could thrive again is by becoming more than just a forum, but a place to share gaming experiences; this dream would require plug ins and I don't think we'll get anywhere with that given the RIP state of this place. I don't mean to be a debbie downer, I admire your wish to rekindle this place, it's just I spent over half a decade trying...if you have a vision you think may work, if it seems it may, I'll do what I can but I don't hold much hope."

That's jaded as fuck but it's where I am now. The new software was too little and WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too late.

 

[NoUseMercenary]

@Ghost - Yeah, I'm aware of the forum bugs and I have the site admin working on it as we speak. Basically we had to upgrade to the latest PHP version and it fucked a bunch of stuff up. Private messages and even forum registration is down. Overall, PSU will be getting a face lift going into 2021. The staff is just catching up on PS5 stuff (reviews mainly) and then we'll be moving attention into improving the overall site layout, functionality, SEO, etc.

I agree that traditional forums are practically dead. However, we could look at adding features to make it more modern like Twitch streams, Discord, and what not to give it more of a modern touch.

What are some ideas that we could incorporate to modernize the forums? Do we get rid of the php forum template all together and go with something like Discord? Or are there cool new plugins that other sites use that we can incoporate?