The New Generation of 1Emulation

[Keith]

I personaly feel the best way to grow as a site during this time is through your community. The community is what will make your site grow and expand your popularity. I agree with the above post about expanding the forums to cover more of what the community wants and to make yourself standout from the rest. Right now the emulation news scene is pretty saturated and a lot of people have their favorite sites. Its hard to gain new people to your site with news coverage alone which is why I said the community is the key. I know a lot of sites that rely on news alone and they don't get the amount of coverage they deserve and one of the main reasons for that is they do not offer anything more then just news.

 

As far as community goes here at 1Emulation I think its great and has a lot of long time vets who keep it going strong. 1Emulation already has a strong base to grow from and I think GameCop gets down on himself too much. Its not easy trying to make a site popular especially in an old scene like emulation. A lot of sites have come and gone because they didn't reach the popularity they wished for. I put my own site through hell and back trying to grow and become more popular and I did reach some nice success but I can relate to how GameCop feels. You put a lot of hard work in a site and you do the best you can but it doesn't seem like anything changes no matter how hard you try. I wish I had the answers and explanation why some sites are very popular while other sites get little attention but are better sites. One example I can use is sites such as NGEmu (not trying to knock them but they fit my example). They almost never update their news and their content is out of date yet at the same time they are a very popular site. Some of it comes from their strong community base, popular hosted sites such as ePSXe and PCSX2 and from reputation. What makes NGEmu more popular then 1Emulation? I really don't know and this is where some frustration comes from. You can make a site better then one of more popular sites but not get the same or better results.

 

On the other hand I have seen 1Emulation grow leaps and bounds over the past year. 1Emulation used to have very little emulation coverage and only a handful of hosted projects. Over the past year the news coverage is spot on and you guys now host some really nice projects. I think you are going in the right direction and shouldn't let the goal of being popular ruin your fun of running a great site.

[Weirdy]

speaking of ngemu

 

I usually lurk/post for help with psx emulation

[Agozer]

I have to agree with most of the stuff that Madman said, especially about IRC, the current state of news posting and our "target audience". We've come a long way, and things have improved tremendously, but sometimes I keep thinking "Are we trying a little too hard, and for who?".

[Keith]

Yeah that is what I was saying too. I think GameCop is a little to hard on himself and sometimes lets his strive to be better and his frustration ruin his fun of running 1Emulation.

[Weirdy]

...but sometimes I keep thinking "Are we trying a little too hard, and for who?".

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I've always wondered that myself; I have yet to receive an answer

[Madman]

My point. It should be fun for the "advanced" emugamer to come here, and for the team to add content.

Building a community is the key. And additional value. While the community will grow due to the people the additional content will draw here.

 

Emulation as a site topic has the downside, that the only news are about emulator updates. No more games coming up you could cover, no more rumors. The key question is, what makes emulation our hobby ? Is it the emulators themselves or is it the games ? If its the emulators, cover them in endless news on the mainpage, if its the games, push the news into some sidemodule, and focus on the games. Im sure it will be more fun to add long-lasting content to the site than news that are due in a week or two.

 

1emu has a lot more potential than my former site, due to the team working on it. I was on my own, while here a team has formed that is interested in emulation in the long term, not just a few people who try it out some months and then move on.

 

Im justing making suggestions, its your site and you people should decide which direction to take now as you found the site being "unpleasant". But you should do your best to make working on the site fun for you and not depressing. People will note the difference soon.