64Digits; a dying community

Posted by NeutralReiddHotel on Sept. 6, 2009, 11:19 p.m.

In the beginning, there was Flash. Anybody that wanted to make a simple game had to go through the hell of learning how to use this program. Many were miserable.

Then, came Mark Overmars. He saw the problem of the lack of a simple-to-use game making program. "Let there be games," he said, and Game Maker was made.

He saw how there was virtually nobody that knew of this amazing new program, so he found a way to people to know. "Let there be the Game Maker Community," he said, and the GMC was made.

As many new game developers the ease of use for Game Maker, and saw the potential, they also made many great games. However, with this, also came many new users who just wanted to make Super Mario Bros. clones. The GMC was split in half, one half being the intelligent, the other the stupidity. The intelligent still had a problem with the many Click the Ball clones, and made their own new community, called 64Digits. Many lulz ensued, and everyone in 64D was happy. The intelligent breed expanded, and amazing games were made.

However, everything good eventually comes to an end. 64Digits was often seen as superior, and new GMC members that also wanted to be seemed as intelligent joined 64D. The intelligent breed then realized that no matter where they went, stupidity was going to be a problem. At first, they just tried to live with it, but eventually they started leaving the site. Little by little, stupidity was taking over 64D.

Many, many years later…

Very few of the intelligent breed stayed in 64Digits, in hope that one day, the original members were going to return, and rid 64D of stupidity once and for all, to make it how it first was. Why would they stay for so long though? Well, the stupidity breed was starting to mature and get smarter. Maybe not as much as the original members were, but good enough to be tolerable.

At long last…

The few remaining original members realized that the first members were never coming back. They settled with the new breed made by the first stupidity breed, which weren't bad at all, but nothing in comparation to the original members. Since the first members that made 64D what it was were no longer there, the remaining and the new breed did not see the point of even staying in 64D. They too, started fading away.

The ending…

The maximum total members per day was 5, blogs stayed on the front page for days, if not weeks. Game Maker activity was dead, many even thought of changing the focus of the site to see if it would lead to new members and a new community, not realizing that 64D was doomed when the original members, dedicaded Game Maker users, left.

Comments

Rusky 15 years, 3 months ago

Phoenix was funny. I like watching things fly out of the site when it goes down and/or gets hacked. XD

Polystyrene Man 15 years, 3 months ago

Pretty much.

Rez 15 years, 3 months ago

Hey cool that dabridge guy made a blog, maybe 64D isnt so bad.

Toast 15 years, 3 months ago

*COUGH*OLDFAG*COUGH*

This is fairly depressing. I just want to be a part of the one last cool, "intelligent" Game Maker community that could easily return to awesomeness with a lick of paint and inviting in the right kind of users. I loved the debates, the noob trolling, the things interesting people had to say. And there's plenty of interesting people out there.

Sad y'all have to be so elitist.

F1ak3r 15 years, 3 months ago

Thank-you Toast.

I don't like all this "dying community" melodrama. We survived GearGOD, we survived two extended periods of downtime, and I'm sure the site also survived plenty of bad stuff before I came along. Every time something bad has happened in the past, people have left, people have cried "64D is gonna die!", and drama has generally been perpetuated.

And what of it? We're still around. The site hasn't gone down. Sure, we're experiencing some inactivity, but we still have a few active staffers, and we haven't disabled user registration. This site can be fixed, and the community can be revitalized. It won't be the same as it was, but nothing ever stays the same for very long. That's just life.

Here's the solution I propose:

1. Fix uploading and game submissions.

2. Have another contest. Remember the three game contests we had last year? Those were great. Or Poly's music contest. That too was pretty awesome.

3. Maybe stop worrying about expanding the focus of the site. Just because we only have official channels for GM-made games and examples doesn't mean we somehow can't do other stuff too without making a godmin spend an undue amount of time recoding the site.

4. Hunt down Juju and get the community game on the roll again.

NeutralReiddHotel 15 years, 3 months ago

Guys, this is a story. Don't take it too seriously…

Josea 15 years, 3 months ago

Yep. And considering summer is the year's peak activity time, this site is going downhill.

Acid 15 years, 3 months ago

Also, cocks

Arcalyth 15 years, 3 months ago

F1ak3r every downtime and every hacking has brought a decreased amount of activity. Since the last dowmtime, I haven't seen more than 6 active users at any given time

it's dead.

SteveKB 15 years, 3 months ago

i want a competition