Rebranding?

[BabyHeadCrab]

Hey my dudes,

So traffic... is what it's at. The people left, true loyalists. What if there was a way to redirect, to reinvigorate interest in gaming software and bring some folk back, along with some new blood.

Open discussion.

 

[Mythos]

Glad to randomly bump into this as I was stupidly having thoughts of rebooting Metrocop.net now that I've learned a bit more about coding. Thanks for indirectly putting some sense into me.

Seeing as it's ValveTime's second rebranding (after Halflife2.net, if I recall correctly), I'm not sure how well another change in direction would work. What do you have in mind?

If it was me, here's what directions I think you can take:

• Seeing as you have been a Valve-focused community for so long, I'd say you can easily broaden your scope to talk about all the digital game stores, such as GOG and, of course, Epic Games Store. That said, how interesting that could be is anybody's guess;
• Likewise, since you've focused so much in recent years on the tech Valve has been experimenting with, particularly VR, you can sort-of-seamlessly just become a site about VR or experimental games, even focus on indies a bit. I'd see that as being potentially more interesting for a gaming site;
• Since Valve games are mostly FPS's and that's pretty much what the Valve community followed for a while, I guess you could also just become a site focusing on Valve-like games and shooters. I'm thinking of games like Metro: Exodus, which scratches the same itches as Half-Life but with a far bigger crowd now, and Borderlands, which is clearly going to have a resurgence with 3 being announced tomorrow;
• Last and certainly least, you could instead -narrow- your scope and become a site about, say, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which is still ridiculously popular. It stinks of a bad idea to me, though, but still, it's an idea.

I'm sure you already have something in mind, though.

I'd argue that, the broader you go with it, the more generic a site you'll end up having and I'm not sure how long that could last. At the same time, pivoting the site's themes is a big risk. You risk losing the entire identity and being left with nothing, rather than a niche.

One last thing: I'm not sure Valve doesn't have an audience anymore. Look at Tyler McVicker (Valve News Network). His videos and following are huge and he covers exactly the same subject. The difference is, he's getting leaks (whether they're real or fabricated, I couldn't tell) and people love hearing about stuff they shouldn't have access to. Valve has a big mystique thanks to their constant silence and that's something Tyler's leveraged to make a living.

Also, I never visit here (oops), but if you want to exchange ideas, email me: metrocop.blog AT gmail.com. I doubt I can be of much use in practice but I'm up for talking, at least.

EDIT / PS: It doesn't help that you stopped doing videos two years ago. I hate it, too, but video is now the center of the interwebz. That's why something like VNN succeeds while ValveTime slowly withers away.
Best of luck.