Hi Paul,
Take the following just with a bit sense of humour but I don’t believe that you get the best feedback from this community for that topic because average Acorners are a bit too old to sit on game console forums or even know which way they should hold Xbox controller in their hands. People who might be the potential target audience is probably between 10-28 old. The best feedback comes from your real target audience … but be prepared to get feedback without any filters, teenagers are just designed like this.
Some thoughts, brainstorming and questions
* There are tens of strong gaming forums/streaming sites, how have you planned to get users on your side if they have friends and working community there? This example might not be relevant but imagine to tell children that they should dump Disneyland, their friends and move to an abandoned playground where is no other kids and playground looks like after a war. Such kind of comparison is because if a user visits your current forum then there is no emotion, everything looks like my-dad-used-to-visit-such-kind-of-forums-when-he-was-young and no community. This is the target group to who it is difficult to sell 5-10 year visions what everything can be, they want it now.
* If you google gaming forums then we get all kind of results but I suggest to focus on same “old-school-style” forums like you have to get a realistic picture. Some of them have millions of post views, thousands of users and threads BUT what is most important you have to focus on recent data: 1) registred users vs activity percentage 2) how many new users 3) which kind of posts and threads gets most activity.
Based on that it is difficult for me to see nowadays a strong business model behind these platforms (specifically this target audience based) that can keep their nose on the water in the long term.
* What I see almost every day at work is if a company want to come out with a new app or platform then they try first to get cooperation and pre-deals that gives them easier access to potential users. Why these deals are important? If we are talking about business software then there is a big difference if you get 1,000 users in the next three to five years or 5,000-10,000 paying users in the product test process. No matter is it app, business software or simple gaming forum you have to find a solution on how to bring users on your platform, not one by one but in groups and asap.
NB! If we take consumer mobile apps then less than 0.01 percent of all will become financially successful. A similar story is with CRM, SaaS platforms and even if simple forums are a bit from a different category then I would like to put them in the same list.
If you can’t find solutions how to bring users with groups then what probably can happen is that those individuals who found a way to your forum they leave because they do not see the community growing fast enough and later it is almost impossible to get them back because they do not have any positive emotions that connect with your forum.
* If you decide to bring a partnership deal on the table with a gaming company to promote their products then the answer you probably get is that typical old-school forums are not from its structure “Instagram friendly”. That means a lot of negativity between users and that go over games, etc. What I mean by that is, you have to keep your eyes on the forum all the time because if we put together young blood + emotions (when you lose or 1,000 other things)…the easiest way is if you type on YouTube “Gamer rage”, “angry gamer”, etc. to understand which kind of people and fires you have to handle. There are not very many top companies who would be interested in such kind of advertising.
* Do you know which and how many gaming companies have their platforms/communities 1) under their own name 2) behind the curtains (owning partnership with third parties like) a) YouTube channels who have thousands and even over million subscribers and hundreds of thousands views for every video. b) individual communities c) collaborations with third parties and products that they use for direct users?
* One of the main questions: If you build your business model up to one company with whom you do not have any direct cooperation or agreements then isn’t it a bit risky? Even if you get users behind the platform then why would Xbox (Microsoft) management should like if the third party have such a big role over their users? For them, it is easy to put a bit more effort in their community that can swipe your traffic upside down overnight.
* I still believe that gaming industry (a bit of fact and statistics
https://ukie.org.uk/research ) has one of the best potentials where to invest time and money but for me, it is a bit risky if you build your forum up in one console like this.
End of the day these are just my thoughts without knowing your business model. Maybe I’m thinking a little bit too much like a greedy capitalist who wants to see numbers and data behind every platform and that’s why it seems a bit more like a fun project at the moment than golden goose but until you haven’t tried we all here can be like the weather podcast man or stock traders who know everything.
For me, the biggest motivation is if someone says that it is impossible to do. Hopefully same for you and you prove that I’m wrong.
All the best!
.
