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29/12/2017 at 17:28 #80161
Rhoderic
MemberI currently use four websites to get “general” news about the miniature gaming hobby/industry: The Wargames Website, The Miniatures Page, Wargame News and Terrain, and Tabletop Gaming News. If there are further websites I’ve missed, I’d be grateful to know about them.
For me, the ideal state of affairs would be for TWW to be the primary news portal for all “indie” manufacturers and publishers in the miniature gaming hobby scene. That’s not to say I expect manufacturers and publishers to use TWW exclusively, mind. As we’re evidently growing in membership, visits and general significance/notability/renown, hopefully more manufacturers and publishers are coming to see the benefit of maintaining a line of communications with their customer base through here.
TMP isn’t what it used to be, as a community or as a news portal, and I won’t go deeper into that subject, but unfortunately some manufacturers and publishers are still locked in to the line of thinking that it’s the one place to post updates. I say “unfortunately” because I’m slightly afeared this may be acting as a sink to the whole indie miniatures gaming hobby.
Wargame News and Terrain is somewhat erratic and eccentric in its approach to publishing news, but even so it fills a lot of gaps and it’s fairly active, so under the circumstances I’m grateful it exists.
TGN really only covers the “shallow end” of miniatures gaming (i.e. the more hardsell, “glossy/chrome” type products and manufacturers/publishers) but it, too, fills some gaps, even to some extent for the part of the hobby scene that I define as “indie”. Another issue with TGN is that the miniature gaming news are intermingled with boardgame, card game and RPG news, although personally I don’t mind as I have a fairly ecumenical attitude to the culture of gaming and I like to have my finger on the pulse of tabletop gaming overall (even if miniature gaming is and always will be my true home).
29/12/2017 at 18:57 #80166Radar
ParticipantAgree with you that some manufacturers still see TMP as the great wargaming behemoth that it used to be. Again no commentary required on that one.
There are quite a number of manufacturers I would have expected to advertise/post news here that don’t… I wonder why not?
29/12/2017 at 19:56 #80169PaintingLittleSoldiers
ParticipantI follow TWW mostly as I know of most suppliers I need already and new ones are often mentioned on blogs that I follow. Most rules I gave picked up recently are due to posts here ( Crom, NWG etc ). I never followed tnp as most people here never heard if it until recently.
29/12/2017 at 20:37 #80172Ivan Sorensen
ParticipantI mainly use this site and Google +.
I think a lot of manufacturers of mini’s rely mainly on Facebook these days.
29/12/2017 at 20:39 #80173Not Connard Sage
ParticipantI mainly use this site and Google +. I think a lot of manufacturers of mini’s rely mainly on Facebook these days.
^that.
Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.
29/12/2017 at 20:51 #80176Who Asked This Joker
ParticipantTMPs traffic has slackened I’ve noticed. I suspect the advertisers that are still there are on contract and may or may not renew at the end of their term.
TWW is a well setup place with friendly members. I really do enjoy reading the posts here but often don’t reply if only because I’ve been retty busy as of later. The indie bit is a a big draw for me. Which follows into the next point.
TGN does seem to only cater to main stream big production gaming. It does not interest me. Those sorts of games are not really my cup of tea.
I don’t know anything about WGN&T. It might hold a bit of interest for me. I’ll have to check it out!
John
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
--Abraham Lincoln
29/12/2017 at 21:19 #80178Steve Johnson
ParticipantTWW and any info via the Pendraken site. A lot seem to use Facebook as already mentioned, but as I don’t do Facebook I rely on the aforementioned sites.
30/12/2017 at 00:10 #80184kyoteblue
ParticipantTWW and Facebook.
30/12/2017 at 01:19 #80185Etranger
ParticipantLead Adventure Forum (LAF), especially for 28mm. http://www.lead-adventure.de/
30/12/2017 at 01:23 #80187Darryl Smith
ParticipantTWW and my blogs.
TWW, and the various manufacturers I am interested in. I have all but stopped going to TMP. Only occasionally to research a subject here and there.
Buckeye Six Actual
https://checkingmy6.blogspot.com/30/12/2017 at 04:07 #80195Bandit
ParticipantThe only website we pay for advertising is TWW – that probably speaks for itself. We participate in basically any forum where we see customers or potential customers participating – a business has to go where the customers are – where we see an intersection with our product, but the only forum we participate on in general is TWW. That’s entirely because of the atmosphere here – it is good.
Facebook is a big elephant. We don’t pay to advertise on Facebook currently, but we do post announcements to a wide variety of groups there.
Game companies have a big problem in reaching potential customers. On the usual suspects a news posting might get around 200-300 views. On Facebook it might get 3000-5000 views. While views are not website hits, and website hits are not sales, it is like hockey: there is a relationship between higher views and higher sales.
Cheers,
The Bandit
30/12/2017 at 08:36 #80201Rhoderic
MemberFacebook. *Gnashes teeth*
Facebook. *Gnashes teeth some more*
30/12/2017 at 09:08 #80204ian pillay
ParticipantI like many use TWW, it fills my needs. As for other forums outside of Facebook pages, then Beasts of War has some interesting articles every now and again, however it is aimed at the Chrome / GW / Warlord gamers. Don’t think I will find any reference to Neil Thomas on there…..
Tally-Ho! Check out my blog at…..
http://steelcitywargaming.wordpress.com/30/12/2017 at 09:22 #80206Mike
KeymasterI have given up on FB pretty much.
My issues are:
The FB homepage is filled with all manner of content, TWWs homepage is just gaming news.
My Angel Barracks FB business page has 785 followers, but FB will not show content I post there to them all, it’s algorithms ensure that not everyone who has asked to be shown news, sees it; it will ‘hide’ news from many of those followers.
TWW does not ‘hide’ news on its front page from viewers, nor will it purposefully fail to inform people of new replies when they have subscribed to a topic in order to get you stump up cash.Gaming businesses can pay to have adverts appear in peoples timelines, but for AB it costs about £24.00 a news item.
If I do one a month that is £288.00 a year compared to the £60.00 a year here.
Also the FB adverts are not targeted solely at gamers, so you are paying to reach people that quite possibly could not care less.There are millions of FB users, only a teeny fraction will be my target audience.
TWW has a mega teeny fraction of the users that FB does, but they are all my target audience.As David noted, you can reach a lot more people on FB by posting to a lot of groups.
But having been in a number of 6mm groups myself, I found it annoying to see the same people posting the same news in a number of groups.
It felt like I was being spammed.
Forum content also shows up a lot more in Google searches than FB content.
If you are going to try and search for something online, the chances are you will go to Google, and in doing so, your forum content will be listed and the FB content wont.
And so on….I have had Traders cancel their advertising as they say they get more hits from FB.
Looking into the last one as an example however, in two years of being on TWW they never sent in a banner, posted in the forums and never submitted a single news item?
Their FB activity however was much more frequent.
So it is no surprise that TWW provided less traffic…Another common reason for people not using TWW is that it is not as busy as they would like.
I have stopped replying to this with my standard answer though now, which is that if everyone who said it was too quiet, used it themselves, it would be heaving..
You can lead a horse to water and all that…I can’t help wonder if people have become jaded with the forum concept for some reason and because of FB’s popularity, see that as being the only place to reach lots of people?
Forums I find are much better for conversations than FB, better for fostering community and better for long term relationship building, as well as being a specific tool for a specific job.
But than I would be pro-forum I guess, it is how I put food on the table!😃
30/12/2017 at 09:35 #80208Deleted User
MemberI don’t make my living through the hobby…….luckily, because I’d probably starve. It seems to me, though, that any one selling anything to do with gaming should use a range of venues.
i’m clearly old fashioned and prefer forums. TWW is my one stop shop. I hear bits from WD3 and various plastic figure forums/sites. TMP is not quite dead yet so I glean a bit there. As I work with kids, I was told not to participate in Facebook years ago and have followed that advice since.
Donald (in Japan at the moment and taking a brief break from skiing to check up on what’s happening. Snow is great this year. Be back in a few days).
30/12/2017 at 09:40 #80210Rhoderic
MemberI can’t help wonder if people have become jaded with the forum concept for some reason and because of FB’s popularity, see that as being the only place to reach lots of people?
Then, of course, there’s an anti-FB crowd, including myself, whom they won’t reach if they limit their presence to FB.
If at least there was a channel through which news items posted on FB get relayed to outside of FB by third parties, I’d be content.
30/12/2017 at 09:49 #80211craig cartmell
ParticipantI generally spin across TWW, TGN and Wargames, News and Terrain every day, along with a few choice forums such as Lead Adventure. I have not been on TMP for months. I find it very claustrophobic.
As for FB, I run several closed groups, including ones for our own games and a few related ones. I am also a member of quite a few manufacturers and designers FB pages. It is what it is and there is no point in grieving over it as small fry like us will never change it.
I am a member of the Beasts of War backstage and a regular listener to the Meeples & Miniatures and The Veteran Wargamer’s podcasts.
Of all of these I find Meeples and TWW the most informative.
30/12/2017 at 13:34 #80243irishserb
ParticipantMost of the “useful news” that I find comes from forum posts. I have pretty narrow interests, so a lot of the news from most places that I frequent passes me by. The only place that I’ve actively checked hobby news in the last couple of months is TWW. I used to frequent TMP regularly, but have largely faded away from there. I find Facebook to be a pain, with far too much garbage to sort through for the useful content.
Other places that I get news, generally from forum posts, are WD3, Post Apoc Wargames Forum, and the Starship Combat News Forums. Not news sites by any means, but they fit my needs and interests. I also still subscribe a few Yahoo Groups, and get E-newsletters from a few manufacturers that are of interest to me.
30/12/2017 at 14:04 #80244OB
ParticipantYes I have signed up for a few manufacturers newsletters too. Some offer a discount if you do so!
I don’t do Facebook.
I’d agree about TMP I think its dying on its feet.
OB
http://withob.blogspot.co.uk/30/12/2017 at 15:26 #80250Bandit
ParticipantA couple things of note I did leave out of my post above:
• We also maintain a Yahoo Group for rules specific discussion. I am personally not a big fan of Yahoo Groups, however, they are again a space where customers are and therefore, a place we should be. There is also a benefit to an e-mail discussion group over a forum: that there is e-mail traffic when there is e-mail traffic, it naturally ebbs and flows but periods of less activity do not turn off participation. With a dedicated forum, if there is not traffic, potential participants may assume there is no one visiting the forum and will not bother to post. This is very unfortunate as a forum is often more accessible to new users.
• We also maintain a mass mailing list where we send out announcements about products, sales, website updates, etc…
• Putting Facebook in context: One of the primary reasons we share via groups in Facebook is expressly because of the points that Mike made: 1) Paid advertising may hit the demographic but that doesn’t get specific enough to vet interests. 2) Facebook’s algorithms don’t hide content posted on one’s official page, but it does de-prioritize it below things that have been viewed more times, liked, commented on, etc… and from the standpoint of the person trying to get their message out, this is effectively the same as hiding. 3) We simply accept that posting to many groups could come across poorly to some who are members of multiple groups, but this is the cost of trying to get the message out, one can only use the tools they have unfortunately, by posting to several groups and causing thousands to see our posts, we increase the likelihood of reaching the customer who wants to hear from us. We also limit how often we post to such groups and make a very conscious choice to vary between content that relates to our products but is not explicitly an advertisement (i.e. AARs and game photos) and explicit advertisements (i.e. did you buy our awesome new product yet????).
• Conversion rates: i.e. “I saw your advertisement and then I visited your website/joined your mailing list/bought something”.
Conversion rates ‘per capita’ if you will, are highest (in our experience) from: 1) Our mass mailing list, 2) TWW, 3) Other forums, 4) Facebook – in that order. We can’t track conversion rates from the Yahoo Group, so I can not comment where that falls amongst the other four. Conversions are important to consider because they can be achieved different ways. Via Facebook, the way one gets conversions is to get the largest pool of people to see something. Via TWW, the content matters most (in our experience), while far few people see our post on TWW vs Facebook, the number of purchases that originate on TWW is higher. Same with our mailing list and other forums (as noted above).
In the end, as Ochoin correctly concludes, businesses must go where customers are and benefit from using a wide variety of channels.
Conversely, some channels necessarily must be ignored because their return is too low and the resources (time) they require is too great. There are many, many wargaming related forums. Some are *very* low traffic. When we post an advertisement or AAR online, between forums, mailing lists, our website, and Facebook, one can assume it takes 1+ hours in most cases. Maintaining accounts on several more forums and then posting on those as well increases that time. Thus, if a forum has had six posts in 2017, we are not likely to post there ourselves based on the cost/benefit analysis. While people may incorrectly perceive this about TWW, there is quite a bit of traffic here frankly, and other similar forums are objectively on the decline.
Cheers,
The Bandit
30/12/2017 at 18:31 #80262Mike
KeymasterThere are quite a number of manufacturers I would have expected to advertise/post news here that don’t… I wonder why not?
When I mail companies, quite a few if not the majority of people, are not aware of us.
31/12/2017 at 00:39 #80295McKinstry
ParticipantI use TWW for most conversation and interaction but still scroll TMP and LAF to keep up. I also check Wargamer and Strategy Gamer for my PC stuff.
The tree of Life is self pruning.
31/12/2017 at 08:52 #80307Ian Marsh
ParticipantI can’t speak for everyone, but I have simply stopped advertising on wargames news websites because they simply do not generate enough traffic from paid-for advertising. Fighting 15s receives substantially more traffic from Google searches, and then TMP’s Manufacturer’s Directory, which does not cost a bean. After that come odd mentions on forums.
I recently pulled my last advertising from wargames magazines owing to distribution issues.
None the less, business is booming. 😁
Ian
Fighting 15s
www.fighting15s.com31/12/2017 at 09:32 #80308MartinR
ParticipantI don’t visit Wargames sites to read hobby news, I tend to pick up recommendations for things of interest from my pals at the club, on FB or via blogs or discussion groups. I also gave up on glossy Wargames magazines decades ago, which is a shame as they were such a big part the hobby in the 70s and 80s.
Just a symptom of the market fragmentation synonymous with globalised capitalism I guess.
I enjoy the discussions on the various fora, TWW in particular is very civilised, and I still find yahoo groups useful, particularly the persistent files. I think I get my greatest pleasure from wargaming blogs, it is a rich and varied world and people go off in all sorts of interesting directions, although I am sure there are aspects of the echo chamber.
"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke
31/12/2017 at 15:25 #80339Rhoderic
MemberFighting 15s receives substantially more traffic from Google searches
I’m saying this more in regard to news updates than to advertising, and I’m not asserting this makes a large enough difference for your purposes, but it might be worth pointing out that whenever I want to visit the Fighting 15s website and my browser doesn’t remember the URL from the previous time, I type “fighting 15s” (so as to Google it) and click my way to the website through Google. It’s slightly more convenient and less likely to turn out erroneous than typing “fighting15s.co.uk” or “fighting15sshop.co.uk”, and I might not be 100% certain that those are the correct URLs, anyway. Thus, Google gets the credit for sending traffic your way, but that should not be taken to mean Google was how I found about Fighting 15s or got the motivation to visit it, because it wasn’t. It was just my relay. I do this with a lot of websites that I don’t visit on a very regular basis, and I suspect I’m not alone in acting that way when navigating to websites.
As it happens I’ve known about Fighting 15s (and have ordered from you) since well before TWW existed, so when I first became wise to your business it was probably via TMP (again, a long time ago), LAF, some other minor forum, some blog or some magazine, but the salient point is, it was through some channel/platform that nowadays could just as well have been TWW. Google, it wasn’t.
I notice that even now, your signature here on TWW doesn’t have a hyperlink, so if I was a new hobbyist finding out about Fighting 15s through this thread, I’d probably Google it to make my way there, and thus Google would “unfairly” get the credit.
Just a friendly observation, mind
31/12/2017 at 15:47 #80344Phil Dutré
ParticipantI am not actively scouting for wargaming news. I almost never click on a news item. I have amassed thousands of figures and dozens of rulesets over the years, and I have enough material to keep myself busy for the next couple of years. So I don’t care that much about the “news”.
I pick up “news” through blogs, forum discussions, magazines (subscribed to WSSS and MW) and one big con I attend (CRISIS). If there’s something that catches my eye, I might to look up the company’s website directly.
Perhaps this has to do with my age (51) and number of years in the hobby. I’ve been gaming since the early-eighties, and I’ve seen many hypes come and go. By now, I know what I like and don’t like in the hobby, and I am much more relaxed about new releases and new hot-rulesets-of-the-week. In my gaming group, we follow our own schedule. I regularly buy new rulesets, but when we will play them, they will probably have fallen out-of-fashion already. E.g. I still have to play my first game of Frostgrave, and I have a “new” ruleset called Maurice lying around as well. I want to try “Sharp Practice, but I didn’t find the time yet to play the 1st edition (which I bought). Now there’s a 2nd edition already 🙂
31/12/2017 at 16:12 #80345Angel Barracks
ModeratorI must admit I too use Google to find my way to sites that I have been to before.
I don’t bookmark them as I am not a regular customer of any site really, expect maybe Black Hat where from I get my paints, but even then I still rely on browser history or a Google search to get me to the site.
But again, Google was not how I initially found out about the sites I use most regularly, it was from forum use.Just had a quick look and it seems over 60% of Google searches that lead to my site are people looking for Angel Barracks, with the rest a combination of 6mm, sci-fi and so on.
31/12/2017 at 18:14 #80356Ian Marsh
ParticipantFighting 15s receives substantially more traffic from Google searches
I’m saying this more in regard to news updates than to advertising,
I don’t publish news on any wargames website either. Targeted forum posts and my own news page are more effective. News posts on wargames websites are in effect advertising, because no editor of a wargames website edits them for publication and for two sites at least you pay to post them through trader/supporting membership. Paid-for editorial is advertorial BTW, not news. 😁
I innocently assumed that the web address and contact email in my profile details on TWW would appear – but they don’t. They do on Lead Adventure, which is my usual haunt. TWW is only an occasional check-in.
Google, BTW, outperforms the next highest source (TMP’s manufacturers directory) by 20 to 1, and TMP’s directory outperformed advertising or news posts when I did them by 50 to 1. Referrals from news posts that have appeared on TWW, TMP, Beasts of War, and TGN were disappointing. Paying for advertising or for the right to publish “news” is therefore not cost effective.
Ian
Fighting 15s
www.fighting15s.com31/12/2017 at 23:21 #80376Gone Fishing
ParticipantAs my main passion is 54mm, none of the sites mentioned above really cater to what I’m looking for. It’s the problem of being a niche within a niche, I suppose. Having said this, I still check TMP daily – there are still many good people there, and though it saddens me to admit, questions posted there still tend to get the most conversation going. I agree, though, that it is withering.
LAF is quite wonderful, though hugely focused on 28mm. I’ve picked up some wonderful information there. Honestly I love it here at TWW, though I think the site is still a-birthing, and it will be interesting to see how things develop over the next year or two. The knowledge base here is very deep, and I love that.
I don’t do Facebook (though I have no problem with those who enjoy it). Google can be incredibly helpful.
01/01/2018 at 02:28 #80379Deleted User
MemberHonestly I love it here at TWW, though I think the site is still a-birthing, and it will be interesting to see how things develop over the next year or two. The knowledge base here is very deep, and I love that..
Absolutely.
As for the knowledge base at TWW, if you need a product, someone here will refer you to one or more relevant manufacturers.
I realise this doesn’t earn Mike advertising dollars though which are needed to keep the site open…..quandary.
Donald (at Narita airport)
01/01/2018 at 02:57 #80380Mike Headden
ParticipantThe bulk of my wargaming info, these days, comes from either TWW or the Pendraken Forum, both of which I find friendly and informative.
On Ian’s point on ROI of paying for web presence I’d say that the difference it makes to me (and I may be a minority of one!) is in the type of spend rather than necessarily amount spent.
If I see regular “we have a new range/ a new set of figures/ a sale/ a demo of our rules” or whatever I’ll often go, look and buy on impulse. If there’s a decent website but no regular posts (or at least no posts where I’m looking) I will find the site but only go if I remember they have a range that might fit a project I’m working on.
Fighting 15’s is a prime example of the latter. I had long planned to do NW Europe WW2, either 1940 or 1944. I trawled sites looking at 10mm/ 6mm and 3mm alternatives and spent months dotting backwards and forwards working out what I wanted, needed and could afford and settled on 1940 period 3mm O8 stuff. Worked out a spend, spread over a number of months and was eventually ready to go ahead and buy the stuff from Fighting 15s when I spotted news that another company had released 15mm figures I was interested and the spend for Fighting 15s moved a couple of months into the future, then I decided my lead mountain was quite big enough so there was another gap of several months until I changed my mind once again and started buying 3mm Germans and Brits for 1944. The money for medium bomber air support and a beefing up of the tank components of both forces vanished of to Brigade Miniatures recently as I saw here that they had a sale on.
So Fighting 15s got the bulk of the money I’d intended to spend with them without needing to advertise themselves, just a a slightly different time.
There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data
01/01/2018 at 08:58 #80384Mike
KeymasterI realise this doesn’t earn Mike advertising dollars though which are needed to keep the site open…..quandary.
More than just keeping the site going, the family is fed by TWW money, after server costs are paid.
The Traders make up the bulk of the revenue, but they are more likely to come the busier the site is, so in that aspect all posts are good.
Linking to companies is good, if they know their stats they will see themselves mentioned here and hopefully come to check it out!01/01/2018 at 12:39 #80391Grimheart
ParticipantAs others above have hinted at these days there are many different avenues to take with internet advertising / news which means the old days of just looking at one or two forums and a handful of manufacturer sites are long gone.
Personally I use a mixture depending on what is available and what I am interested in!
- Wargames Forums, mainly TWW (the only one I actually post and subscribe to), LAF and TMP (only for news checks as banned ofc!)
- Manufacturers forums or sites like Pendraken, GHQ, Baccus and a few others get a flyby regularly.
- Facebook groups, pretty much essential for things like Warlord Games “Exterminate” and Dropfleet Commander. Even if you are “allergic” to FB you can still do what I do – sign up providing basic info only, add either no friends or just immediate family (I have just wife and daughter as its an easy way to share pictures, links and info) and then “follow” useful FB groups without sharing any personal info.
- Google searches used occasionally for news but mostly targeted when looking for something specific
- Wargames magazines very occasionally bought although I am thinking about subscribing to one or two again this year to see how it goes.
I dropped yahoo groups a few years back as most died a death anyway.
Its a very fragmented information world right now and a small advertisers nightmare I would think.
Interest include 6mm WW2, 6mm SciFi, 30mm Old West, DropFleet, Warlords Exterminate and others!
01/01/2018 at 13:38 #80398Guy Farrish
ParticipantI presume hard copy magazines must still be big players despite the net. They are still going and magazine production ain’t cheap and publishers need profits. How long that will continue is another matter. But for now I can only assume they remain a serious part of the mix.
After that it looks Balkanised to me.
I am not on Facebook so have only the haziest view of volumes. I do visit open sites when directed there occasionally but find the format irritating and the effort rarely worth the insights delivered. There may be gold behind the membership walls, but I doubt it and I’m not prepared to jump through the hoops required to find out.
When all is said and done you are flitting from one niche bubble to the next, unless and until one particular page becomes essential for a period, game or interest. If it has, I have so far managed to live without it.
I used to frequent Yahoo Groups a lot, less so now, but still occasionally – again they are one interest groups and keeping a check on several is time consuming and a tad irritating, but the format is less ennervating than Facebook.
Blogs, yes, but I don’t get ‘news’, I get thoughtful pieces about all sorts of things, analysis (Whirlwind’s ‘Heretical Gaming’ has been a great find thanks to his posts here) and entertainment.
Forums/fora(?) I pop into several but I spend most time here on TWW. Yes I get ‘news’, by which I take it we mean who is selling what new items, here. I also get much of what I used to get through the hard copy magazines which I rarely buy these days (and feel immensely guilty about admitting for some reason) but with more interaction and faster feedback, which I guess is one of the selling points. The tone here is a major selling point. I am happy to pay for it.
I have enjoyed and been active on several manufacturers’ forums, some now almost moribund, some still going, but they obviously tend to be focused on their products and again this splinters attention and subjects. You can obviously talk about ECW, ACW, Napoleonic and Ancients on a manufacturers site if they produce those figures but it is harder to turn around and say, ‘actually there is a better way of doing this campaign than using X Y or Z scale figuers’ if those are what they produce. I’ve seen it done, I’ve seen people get snotty about it.
I don’t think there is ONE killer ‘portal’ any more, if ever there was (Military Modelling c 1970?). Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Depends who you are and what you want. It’s harder work keeping up and probably harder work keeping a site/magazine/forum going profitably, but communication overload and dwindling attention spans are probably not going to make it any more unified or easier in the near future. I wonder if hard copy will die or will digital subscriptions keep them going a while longer? I find the Facebook v forums debate difficult because I am not a social media person and reading the majority of Facebook posts is as baffling to me as the need to keep texting and sending pictures of lattes to each other. Baffling not because of their complexity but because of their banality. So I find it difficult to imagine Facebook killing forums but then I couldn’t see why anyone would want to be continually at the beck and call of the world with a mobile phone. Put your shirt on Facebook
02/01/2018 at 11:51 #80451Ian Marsh
ParticipantSo Fighting 15s got the bulk of the money I’d intended to spend with them without needing to advertise themselves, just a a slightly different time.
I just advertise myself differently. 🙂 Turning up from time to time in an appropriate forum works wonders. The whole 1/600 (3mm) thing is best done through posts on the two specialised Yahoo! groups. The big thing, however, is gamers who post pictures of their projects, which excite customers because these posts show what can be done; project posts tend to be more durable than here today, gone tomorrow news items.
Ian
Fighting 15s
www.fighting15s.com02/01/2018 at 14:36 #80465Grimheart
ParticipantI am kind of puzzled by the anti Facebook posts to be honest, and I passed 50 a few years back.
Its hardly more difficult to sign up for FB than any other forum or website and if you dont like giving personal info then don’t, just make it up like I do.
Having the ability to snap a pic on my phone and then share with my family, or share with a hobby page, with just the touch of the screen is pretty cool imo.
I dont currently use any of the other social media apps (twitter, snapchat, etc) but thats mainly because I have not found a real use for them at present and sharing personal trivia does not appeal to me. However I try and keep an open mind on any possible future uses.
Our technology and the way society communicates continues to change so regardless of age I do think its better to try these things out and see what works for your own purposes rather than just dismiss them without trying.
Interest include 6mm WW2, 6mm SciFi, 30mm Old West, DropFleet, Warlords Exterminate and others!
02/01/2018 at 15:02 #80470Autodidact-O-Saurus
ParticipantThe big thing, however, is gamers who post pictures of their projects, which excite customers because these posts show what can be done;
^^ This ^^
I don’t keep up with industry news at all. I simply don’t care. If I get involved in a project, then I’ll research the companies that may have something useful for the project. Not the other way around.
The only wargame site I participate in is TWW. I may still have an active account at LAF and I know my account at TMP is long, long aslumber. I occasionally browse both of those sites. I rarely find anything on TMP of interest (and to be honest, TMP has a lot of extraneous static which annoys me). There’s more of interest for me at LAF but I rarely find enough inspiration to log in and comment let alone post anything about my projects. I check TWW multiple times a day to keep up, though I go straight to the forums and pay no attention to news items.
I do click from blog to blog to blog following posts of related genres. And as Ian Marsh says above, if I find a user project that inspires me, I note companies that provided figures or rules, etc. That’s the most effective advertising, as far as I’m concerned. True, unsolicited customer testimonials. I don’t use any other type of social media.
Self taught, persistently behind the times, never up to date. AKA ~ jeff
More verbosity: http://petiteguerre.blogspot.com/02/01/2018 at 17:45 #80498Darkest Star Games
ParticipantI also visit Tabletop Fix, as they occasionally have stuff from distant niches that I don’t hear of in other places (as well as the standard fare from the usual suspects)
"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."
02/01/2018 at 19:59 #80530Phil Dutré
ParticipantI am kind of puzzled by the anti Facebook posts to be honest, and I passed 50 a few years back.
Oh, there are plenty of reasons to stay away from FB, and none of them have to do with age or user-friendliness. 🙂
02/01/2018 at 22:34 #80548Guy Farrish
ParticipantYup!
(although try following a coherent conversation on a busy FB page).
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