Community survey - PLEASE VOTE

[Digital]

So, as the topic says, I am seeking feedback from each of you, this wonderful community. The feedback from this survey helps me to get a sense of what you guys are interested in. Up until now I have been shooting in the dark on providing an experience that I have hoped fills your guys needs and interests, however I want to do better.

Your feedback is very important, and unless you wish to comment with specific input, your votes are confidential. There are obviously no right or wrong answers, and this poll is only used to give me insight into what this community wants as a whole.

[Cadence]

@Digital thanks for your hard work. I'm grateful to be part of this community and can't wait to see what is in store for it.

[Aminirus]

Awesome. This site is amazing already and it'll be exciting and interesting to see what lays in store for it

[Hare]

Seconding what Cadence said. Also, it's interesting that there are questions bring brought up here regarding whether TGL should be more of a virtual pets / SIMs focussed site or more game dev in general... I am not sure if it would help from a marketting or advertising standpoint to narrow down the focus (I'm not very knowledgable in that area). I also don't know which would be better for the site. As long as we can still talk about browser games/virtualpets/sims then I'd be happy with whatever direction TGL goes in. Whatever would be best to help the forum grow and prosper.

[kami]

22 hours ago, Hare said:

As long as we can still talk about browser games/virtualpets/sims then I'd be happy with whatever direction TGL goes in.

Echoing this  

I think I'd be fine with the forum branching out to like-minded games, like Tamagotchi or other pet care games. If it fits the theme, I think it could work. Plus I'd be totally open to hearing about pet care phone apps

[Nate]

You know my views on this, but I'm going to voice them here so they are public too.

I think it should remain as TGL, dont rebrand etc. Currently the discussion topics on here are 80% virtual pet site, and 20% other game genre development discussion.

I think keeping the focus on virtual pet sites is a good thing, however being open to expanding to other genres as more people join could also be on the table as a possibility in the future.

On behalf of everyone (most people - except for the 3 people who find other members of the community here at TGL "okay" [jokes btw]), we know you will steer us in the right direction, and we support whatever you decide to do

[N_E_Wunn]

I joined this site because I thought it might be more broad based. I occasionally visited VPL, I assume most of the people who were there have migrated here, given the questions about whether that site will ever return.  Looking at the numbers for the first two questions I have to chuckle. On one hand the results say this site should remain solidly VPS/Sim, but just as solidly it should not be rebranded to focus on VPS/Sim. Huh? 

Purely a personal observation, but I think that pet games are fairly limited and that the audience for those games will cannibalize other games. When Marapets crashed recently, a number of players left and joined other sites, such as Neo, Subeta and Flight Rising. All of these have had "oops" moments causing players to abandon ship. It is my belief that players are less devoted to individual sites than the owners might hope. When I look at the sheer number of people playing those games I realize the audience is limited; I'm not sure interest is growing. 

As a marketing professional, I understand it is very difficult to create a new brand and entice people to flock to it. That is why most companies use line extensions or borrowed interest to attract users, examples: Pokemon GO and Mario Run. Familiar names and characters require little effort to "educate" potential consumers (as opposed to creating an entirely new universe). Also, the two examples (albeit not pet games) are attempts to capitalize on the growing popularity of mobile devices. "New" is important to consumers, also. Look at how often new versions of familiar franchises are released to great fanfare - COD, GTA, Mario, Pokemon, The Sims ... When I look at pet sites I see a lot of fragmentation. Even Disney took the bold move to abandon Club Penguin and create Club Penguin Island so they could capitalize on mobile. (This when gaming computers are growing like mad, but typical Disney miscalculation. They will be crying when VR/AR becomes a thing.)

I know people here think I'm negative. I apologise. But I see a lot of people who want to build their little pet game and invest so much in it. It makes me sad, because I've been among the alpha and beta testers on several sites, including Flight Rising. And I've seen more failures than wins.

So what's my point? I think for this site to grow it needs to expand its focus beyond beyond something so narrow. Perhaps there are non-pet people who might find what TGL has to offer is interesting, engaging and something to build on if the door is opened wide enough to embrace other interests. Think outside the box and stay open to more ideas.

[Anoua]

You shouldn't voice each question to be answer OR give a neutral response for each one. For instance on the first question I don't like either answer. I like a primary focus on pet sites but also like the option to have more general focus too. 

And I didn't think TGL didn't any increases for those listed responses, but I HAD to pick one, even though I would have left it blank at this point things seem to have a good balance. I enjoy the contests and such, but don't think there needs to be more.

I also wasn't sure on the adoptables question. I don't need more, but more isn't a problem either.

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I don't think there should be any re-branding but like what is currently set. Overall seems like a good name and allows the general to make sense and not be so limited which can pull in a wider audience. 

[Digital]

13 minutes ago, Anoua said:

You shouldn't voice each question to be answer OR give a neutral response for each one. For instance on the first question I don't like either answer. I like a primary focus on pet sites but also like the option to have more general focus too. 

Although I would have loved to offer a neutral response to each question, my experience is then I would have had an overwhelming neutral response to the survey. A lot of the questions can be interpreted also differently in order to allow inferential analysis, or to allow me to pose them in different more targeted context later on to the community.

[Anoua]

On 5/30/2017 at 11:20 AM, Digital said:

Although I would have loved to offer a neutral response to each question, my experience is then I would have had an overwhelming neutral response to the survey. A lot of the questions can be interpreted also differently in order to allow inferential analysis, or to allow me to pose them in different more targeted context later on to the community.

I can understand the reasoning, but I think forcing people into boxes isn't necessarily an accurate representation either. Of course it's not really too big a deal in this context anyway, probably at least close enough, but guess I just wanted to get my opinion and lack of agreement with the ones I mentioned out there.  

[Digital]

21 minutes ago, Anoua said:

I can understand the reasoning, but I think forcing people into boxes isn't necessarily an accurate representation either. Of course it's not really too big a deal in this context anyway, probably at least close enough, but guess I just wanted to get my opinion and lack of agreement with the ones I mentioned out there.  

I appreciated and took your opinion to heart! As with everyone's else when I analyzed the data in the results. I always appreciate opinions and input!