as SotL has outlined very well on the community, allow me to share a story about a community that did do as he said, and the current aftermath. this was probably 8 years ago now, i joined a site that was dedicated at making PSP homebrew. that site's community was absolutely amazing, mods were fun, people enjoyed talking, having fun, etc. for nearly 5 years this went on, many of the core members had stuck it out each day, and talked/hung out. sadly, over the years, the scene had begun to fade away, the psp wasn't as popular as it once was, so we were greeted less and less by new people. less new people, and other members slowly fading away left the site with only it's core members(probably 30-40 of us). the mods were also getting sick and tired of dealing with the owners, the owners were only there for the ad-revenue, and didn't seem to care about actually improving the site, and nurturing the once thriving community. so, one day, the mods got together and formed a new site. alot of us migrated, some stayed at the old site, thinking we were overreacting, some simply left us all. so here we were on this brand new platform, mods had the power to improve things, etc. we got some new members over time, for about the next 2 years, things continued like always. eventually though, we knew we were being stagnant, the site's gaming focus didn't really take off like the mods had hoped, the community was still very tight-knit, but we weren't really getting any new people to join. one of the mods was running a site of there own, it had pretty much no community any more, but it's front page hits were very high. so the mods got together, and deceided to pool the resources, our community, with his site might bring in a refreshing new pool of members. This worked early on, but over the last couple years, pretty much all the core members have vanished as well. i still pop in about once a week now, but it's pretty sad to think we went from this massive community, down to...well nothing. So what i'm trying to say is that yes you can have a tight-knit community survive these things if handled right. well that community stick around forever though? who-knows.
I disagree with this statement, those users existed before Yoville came around, and will continue existing after Yoville is gone, they will simply find something new to pour their time into.
I am one of the "die hard" Yoville players. At 54, I have never before, nor will I ever again, find a game that I enjoy like Yoville. Truth is, I will probably never even look again. If you haven't played this game, and experienced the social aspect of it, you may not understand what is involved in the relationships formed, friendships bonded. It's more than a bunch of avatars. We have gotten to know eachother on a personal level. I met a woman on Yoville that I found had all the same interests, etc. that I do in our real lives. Yoville was the vehicle that started a great real friendship. We talk daily on the phone now and keep up on eachother's childrens, families, jobs, etc. She's like my BFF that I should have had closer to home, but would never have met if not for Yoville. We have cheered together at births of grandkids, we've cried together over deaths in the families, we've given advice on everything from laundry to love to career paths... She lives 3000 miles away and yet, we can talk about anything and everything like we've known eachother our entire lives.
This community is so tightly knit that when someone in yoville has news to share, we all share it. Several of the members have met in real life and even married because of this game. Inside the game, we celebrated one such wedding by hosting a "yo-wedding" complete with gifts given to the happy couple and all. We've done the same as we mourned the loss of one of the first ever forumers who had contributed so much and started the "Wishlist Thread". She was stricken with Cancer and we all kept tabs on her throughout her ordeal. She said once that the people in the game brightened her days even at the end when she no longer could enjoy getting out with her own real life friends and family, she could still go to a yo-party somewhere and for that brief time, she could feel somewhat normal again. We all got together at one location on the server and hosted her funeral and memorial with her entire real life family in attendance. Her grown daughter thanked us at the end and told her that she never really understood what her mother had seen in this game until that moment.
As SotL pointed out, this type of thing happens in alot of games with strong social interactions. I can't even imagine the shitstorm that well come when blizzard drops WoW, I imagine alot of close relationships have been formed in that game.
I am one of the VIP members who is getting ripped off in this deal. The membership is a monthly charge. I understand business and realize that like all things in life, this costs money to keep it going so I figured it was my fair share to pay to play. However, the agreement on that is we pay a certain fee, we get 20 yocash a week and 2 new hair styles per month on average (that's 18-20 yocash each). There have been no new releases in the last few months and though I have gotten my weekly yocash, I have not received all the hair I was promised. When the glitches started, and the events tab broke, and this was shut down, and that was broken, etc., we started all asking on the forum for some honest answers about what was going on with the game and if it was on its way out or what. WE WERE ASSURED THAT THEY HAD GOOD NEWS!!!! YOVILLE IS HERE TO STAY!!!!!!!!!!! So we continued to pay our monthly premiums, and yesterday got the blaring news that we've been paying to keep a game going that they are closing.
Even worse, they want to do something "special" to their loyal Yoville players so they are offering us "special packages" on 3 of their other games. These are games I would NEVER play. Ironically, I am forced to pay for my yocash through facebook credits, yet they aren't refunding through those same credits. They're keeping the money and hoping I'll take up poker. No thanks. If I'm gonna play poker, I'm gonna be sitting at the table with a nice bunch of guys, sipping a cold one and I may even have a cigar!!!
That is pretty shitty of the devs to leading you guys on like that, and their might even be some legal recourse in that they kept you paying with blatant lies about the continuation of the game. However i still stand by my opinion that a devs shouldn't be forced to continue maintaining something indefinitely.
as SotL has outlined very well on the community, allow me to share a story about a community that did do as he said, and the current aftermath. this was probably 8 years ago now, i joined a site that was dedicated at making PSP homebrew. that site's community was absolutely amazing, mods were fun, people enjoyed talking, having fun, etc. for nearly 5 years this went on, many of the core members had stuck it out each day, and talked/hung out. sadly, over the years, the scene had begun to fade away, the psp wasn't as popular as it once was, so we were greeted less and less by new people. less new people, and other members slowly fading away left the site with only it's core members(probably 30-40 of us). the mods were also getting sick and tired of dealing with the owners, the owners were only there for the ad-revenue, and didn't seem to care about actually improving the site, and nurturing the once thriving community. so, one day, the mods got together and formed a new site. alot of us migrated, some stayed at the old site, thinking we were overreacting, some simply left us all. so here we were on this brand new platform, mods had the power to improve things, etc. we got some new members over time, for about the next 2 years, things continued like always. eventually though, we knew we were being stagnant, the site's gaming focus didn't really take off like the mods had hoped, the community was still very tight-knit, but we weren't really getting any new people to join. one of the mods was running a site of there own, it had pretty much no community any more, but it's front page hits were very high. so the mods got together, and deceided to pool the resources, our community, with his site might bring in a refreshing new pool of members. This worked early on, but over the last couple years, pretty much all the core members have vanished as well. i still pop in about once a week now, but it's pretty sad to think we went from this massive community, down to...well nothing. So what i'm trying to say is that yes you can have a tight-knit community survive these things if handled right. well that community stick around forever though? who-knows.
I disagree with this statement, those users existed before Yoville came around, and will continue existing after Yoville is gone, they will simply find something new to pour their time into.
I am one of the "die hard" Yoville players. At 54, I have never before, nor will I ever again, find a game that I enjoy like Yoville. Truth is, I will probably never even look again. If you haven't played this game, and experienced the social aspect of it, you may not understand what is involved in the relationships formed, friendships bonded. It's more than a bunch of avatars. We have gotten to know eachother on a personal level. I met a woman on Yoville that I found had all the same interests, etc. that I do in our real lives. Yoville was the vehicle that started a great real friendship. We talk daily on the phone now and keep up on eachother's childrens, families, jobs, etc. She's like my BFF that I should have had closer to home, but would never have met if not for Yoville. We have cheered together at births of grandkids, we've cried together over deaths in the families, we've given advice on everything from laundry to love to career paths... She lives 3000 miles away and yet, we can talk about anything and everything like we've known eachother our entire lives.
This community is so tightly knit that when someone in yoville has news to share, we all share it. Several of the members have met in real life and even married because of this game. Inside the game, we celebrated one such wedding by hosting a "yo-wedding" complete with gifts given to the happy couple and all. We've done the same as we mourned the loss of one of the first ever forumers who had contributed so much and started the "Wishlist Thread". She was stricken with Cancer and we all kept tabs on her throughout her ordeal. She said once that the people in the game brightened her days even at the end when she no longer could enjoy getting out with her own real life friends and family, she could still go to a yo-party somewhere and for that brief time, she could feel somewhat normal again. We all got together at one location on the server and hosted her funeral and memorial with her entire real life family in attendance. Her grown daughter thanked us at the end and told her that she never really understood what her mother had seen in this game until that moment.
As SotL pointed out, this type of thing happens in alot of games with strong social interactions. I can't even imagine the shitstorm that well come when blizzard drops WoW, I imagine alot of close relationships have been formed in that game.
I am one of the VIP members who is getting ripped off in this deal. The membership is a monthly charge. I understand business and realize that like all things in life, this costs money to keep it going so I figured it was my fair share to pay to play. However, the agreement on that is we pay a certain fee, we get 20 yocash a week and 2 new hair styles per month on average (that's 18-20 yocash each). There have been no new releases in the last few months and though I have gotten my weekly yocash, I have not received all the hair I was promised. When the glitches started, and the events tab broke, and this was shut down, and that was broken, etc., we started all asking on the forum for some honest answers about what was going on with the game and if it was on its way out or what. WE WERE ASSURED THAT THEY HAD GOOD NEWS!!!! YOVILLE IS HERE TO STAY!!!!!!!!!!! So we continued to pay our monthly premiums, and yesterday got the blaring news that we've been paying to keep a game going that they are closing.
Even worse, they want to do something "special" to their loyal Yoville players so they are offering us "special packages" on 3 of their other games. These are games I would NEVER play. Ironically, I am forced to pay for my yocash through facebook credits, yet they aren't refunding through those same credits. They're keeping the money and hoping I'll take up poker. No thanks. If I'm gonna play poker, I'm gonna be sitting at the table with a nice bunch of guys, sipping a cold one and I may even have a cigar!!!
That is pretty shitty of the devs to leading you guys on like that, and their might even be some legal recourse in that they kept you paying with blatant lies about the continuation of the game. However i still stand by my opinion that a devs shouldn't be forced to continue maintaining something indefinitely.
Pretty much sums it up. Its all about greed and taking advantage of the consumer. Maybe that's why FarmVille works - we are all sheep!
Ohhhh...boy "TapFish 2" is out
Tap...tap - chaaa-ching$