Games

As Lemmy continues to grow, individual game subs will begin to grow. Right now there are not enough users to sustain these individual communities.

Can't engage with a place that doesn't exist.

Absolutely, but it's tricky with a such a small user base. Most of the indie game subreddits didn't have a lot of activity even there. The bigger ones like valheim didn't even participate in the protest so nobody showed up here to make it, unlike gw2 and warframe that are somewhat active since they promoted this site on their subreddits.

So while I wish we had them, it might be too early, even the consolidated gaming magazines / communities don't have that much activity going on.

I'm conflicted. While I wish I could go to a targeted community for games I am playing, my experience with Reddit is that these end up being filled with shitposts and memes.

Yes, absolutely. I think smaller niche communities should be encouraged whenever possible.

Absolutely. Some exist now, but if you feel passionate about a game you can create a community for it. Someone had to start one on Reddit back in the day, so you can create one here too.

I think it depends on the game and community migration from reddit.

Deep Rock Galactic and Hunt: Showdown both seem to be picking up steam on their own communities in the fediverse.

IMO only if you plan to be active there and post content to it.

Eventually we'll get there, the only Mass Effect community is here and it's basically just the moderator and I making content lol

Keep in mind that we are only seeing rexxitors that left during the protest at the moment. Once the changeover happens and third party apps go down we will see a bunch of additional traffic and users. Might as well get the community started for when that happens! Post memes and whatnot to the gaming communities and put your community in the body text so people can find it too. Gaming is huge on Lemmy just like reddit, and we will continue growing as the problems on reddit become acute in the following days.

Yes, all of them. Like, every last one. Just need the userbase to populate them though. Start up a Starsector sub and you'll probably get like 40 people at this point. A Suzerain sub would have like 2.

I created https://lemmy.world/c/phasmophobia but doesn't look like many people are interested

Yes, please. The Animal Crossing sub was delightful and wholesome and the WoW sub had great guides. There are different genres that have different vibes and variety is the spice of life.

I know I've been enjoying [email protected] even if it's not crowded with content yet.

I think it's a bit of an if you build it they will come situation. The userbase is growing exponentially and seeding communities is the best way to continue that organic growth. I don't think the early adopter user is going to bounce when they see it's a sub with limited users and posts, they'll see a fresh start.

https://kbin.social/m/anothereden is the only game I want to talk about really, the vast majority of the time, but on the other hand, there are an extremely small number of posts there (and most are from me, testing it out and trying to promote it more heavily, so also cross-posting back to the corresponding Reddit sub).

So yeah, go for it if you want, but make sure to "manage expectations", b/c the more niche it is, the fewer posts per day/week/month/year are going to appear in it.

Reddit never got this fact, but it truly is up to the users what they want to do.

I think as Fediverse population picks up, these communities will develop organically. For example, I am now participating a lot in [email protected]. But currently, the population is small, so I also think it's totally fine posting game specific content in general gaming communities.

Communities need to be maintained and moderated by someone. If you love a game enough to do that for it here, you should consider making a community for that game. People definitely shouldn't make communities just because they think they should exist without having the time or energy to maintain them.

I guess there would be the issue that there won't be that many people if there is a community for each game. Maybe for some big franchises would be good though?

I created one for rust at @playrust (or https://kbin.social/m/playrust). I'm certainly hoping it takes off but it's been hard to find places to promote it.

Morrowind and Final Fantasy (franchise) were two of my favorite game subs. As for their communities, one is pretty low traffic and the other doesn't even exist.

Yes, I would love communities for my favorite games. I am also a fan of SnowRunner and I love the sub dedicated to it on Reddit. I deleted my Reddit account today. You don't see "enough engagement" on other communities because the number of users on Lemmy is significantly smaller than on Reddit. I actually like that aspect of Lemmy as well as Kbin. Reddit has a lot of garbage to sift through.

I would love to see one for Valheim. I’m not sure if it doesn’t exist or if I’m just not searching right.

Edit: I can see the magazine now when I search. Looks like it just wasn’t connecting to lemmy earlier this week.

Do you think a single instance dedicated to hosting all the myriad game communities would be a good idea / take off? It's something I was thinking about when I was first learning about how all this works.

I think so, yes. Made @DeusEx for this reason.

Anyone know if there is a consistent way to link to magazines/communities? [email protected] seems to be something I see, but doesn't seem to work on kbin.

Edit: Neither does @DeusEx, strange. How about just [email protected]?

Editedit: No automatic link for the latter. Maybe this is something that still needs to be worked on in kbin, and will get attention in due time.

Eventually, but how do you handle too much fragmentation? Do you make one Zelda community and discuss every game there? Or do you make a specific community for each game?

Well, I decided to just create the community! I'm not super worried about modding since it's a pretty tame game with a relatively small user base and I've got the time/commitment. Thanks for your thoughts everyone!

I'd personally start with content on more-general communities and then bud off as the userbase grows. Like, start with a "gaming" community, then split off to "roguelikes" when the traffic there gets too high, then create "CavesOfQud" when that gets too high, etc.

I wouldn't bother until the community is bigger. Otherwise you're splitting and diluting it.