Home   Help Search Login Register  

Author Topic: A sad trend  (Read 2693 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline ZapBrannigan

  • Members
  • *
A sad trend
« on: 06 Oct 2010, 10:10:13 »
Guys,
I am very worried about the future of OFPEC and ARMA 2/OA.  I first got worried when i found that people arent even replying to their own threads anymore. Each board is only getting 2 or 3 posts a day.  A search on google trends reveals that, 
*** See picture at bottom of post***

The red is google searches for "Operation Flashpoint",  The blue "Arma2",  and the orange is "Operation arrowhead"
You can easily see that while Operation Flashpoint remained popular for many years,  Arma2 and OA are quickly going to be at the threshhold for not showing results due to too low of search volume.  OFPEC has already fallen off and no longer can get results on Google Trends.  

I think that google trends is a very good way to measure peoples overall interest in something. And to me it looks like the activity in ofpec is mirroring the decline in google trends. Which leaves maybe 6 months, before all thats left is the most dedicated few of us. But the biggest problem I think, is that as more people leave, and the community gets smaller. That in turn will cause even more people to leave.  

So guys I want to take this time to tell you all. If you know anybody who games, or if you go to school, or work. Please try to convince your friends, classmates, or just the guys at the office to buy arma 2 or OA,  and introduce them to editing and ofpec.  I think if more people knew about arma2s editing side they would join the community, I think there was an initial big boom of newcomers to Arma2 who were lost because they only played the multiplayer and campaigns for a few months then quit it without ever opening the editor. So try your best guys. I think if everybody gets one person into arma2 editing we can double the size of the community. that would have a huge effect and also boost the google search volume higher which in turn would bring even more people into ofpec.


Zapp
« Last Edit: 06 Oct 2010, 10:13:19 by ZapBrannigan »

Offline savedbygrace

  • Intel Depot
  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Be swift to hear...slow to speak...slow to wrath.
Re: A sad trend
« Reply #1 on: 06 Oct 2010, 12:25:48 »
You should also keep in mind that folks use bookmarks once they have the site, so google will not come into play there. Does Google measure activity across all search engines or just it's own?

Offline ZapBrannigan

  • Members
  • *
Re: A sad trend
« Reply #2 on: 06 Oct 2010, 12:45:05 »
well, as far as I know (correct me if im wrong) "arma2" on there will include all searches with arma2 in them, that includes arma2 addons, arma2 editing, arma2 moding, arma2 servers,   anything with arma2 in it will be included.   And unless people have recently started switching from google to other search engines, I dont think it would make a difference in this kind of result.    As you can see by comparing it with ofp, there is definitely something different. There were 2 main spikes, first when Arma 2 was released, and second when OA was released. but you can see they quickly fell back down. I believe this means that even though  alot of people get the game, Most of them are not staying with it. They play the multiplayer until they get bored then stop.  

If people were editing, you would (as with ofp) see a far slower decline because people will constantly search for new addons, new missions, new scripts, new islands, and this would prop up search volume.

you also have to remember that there is no data for the beginning of ofp, the best ofp years were 2001 to 2004. I'm guessing if we could see the trend it would be way up during that time.  Even without the ofp 01-04 data, you can plainly see that arma2 after only 1.5 years is already to the point where ofp was after 5 years.   
« Last Edit: 06 Oct 2010, 12:59:14 by ZapBrannigan »

Offline Trexian

  • Members
  • *
Re: A sad trend
« Reply #3 on: 06 Oct 2010, 20:27:20 »
I was heavily into another game - Falcon 4.0 - before coming to ArmA.  That game was released in 1998, with a few official patches that lasted to 1999.  After that, the dev group was fired and predictions of F4's demise were often made.  It is still around, even though it has been absent from store shelves since about 2003 (IIRC, that was when a re-release came out called Allied Force).  It is still around. :)

In fact, people are still modding it and updating it, partly due to the availability of the source code.

I bring that up because it was a quality game, ahead of its time, and is still going.

I expect the OFP/ArmA franchise to be the same.  Even if it stopped with the most current patch, it would be very near to being the perfect game for me. :)  I would continue to play it.  And, I don't see anything on the horizon that would seriously compete with it.

As with all good things, someday ArmA will come to an end, and be replaced by something else.  Until then, I think it is premature to make any sort of prediction. :)
Sic semper tyrannosauro.

Offline Zipper5

  • BIS Team
  • ****
Re: A sad trend
« Reply #4 on: 06 Oct 2010, 20:31:22 »
Given my age group I think convincing people I know that Arma 2 is awesome, who don't already think that way (I count it at 0 so far), is an impossible task. It's simply far too difficult to convince the mainstream that the commitment is worth it. It is indeed a sad thing, but I don't think we can do much to change it...

Offline Denz

  • Former Staff
  • ****
Re: A sad trend
« Reply #5 on: 06 Oct 2010, 23:56:44 »
The OFP/ArmA games have always been a niche product. The realism aspect just isn't for everyone.
When I was purchasing OA in my local GAME store they actually tried to dissuade me from buying it, recommending "regular" run 'n' gun FPShooters instead. Idiots!

As for the search engine results, I wouldn't worry about it. Like most people I'm sure I rarely use a search engine for ArmA related searches. In fact I can remember I last used it about three or four years ago when we MD staff were trying to locate some very old OFP missions that had fallen by the way side.

There will always be a nucleus of people playing and modding for the ArmA games so as long as people keep making the missions/addons etc I'll keep playing ;)
I've got 'em right where I want 'em - surrounded from the inside!
Jerry "Mad Dog" Shriver, SOG Recon One-Zero
24/09/41 - 24/04/69

Offline hoz

  • OFPEC Site
  • Administrator
  • *****
Re: A sad trend
« Reply #6 on: 07 Oct 2010, 03:30:19 »
Just to chime in.. the download and hits stats for resources at OFPEC have been pretty steady since Nov last year and also when you review the forum stats they have also remained pretty steady.

Xbox Rocks

Offline haroon1992

  • Members
  • *
  • My life is hopeless...
Re: A sad trend
« Reply #7 on: 07 Oct 2010, 15:02:59 »
I think no-one in my country in into Editing of any of OFP,ARMA and ARMA 2 series, except me.

It's impossible to convince them to play this game....
they just think its wasting their time to play such a buggy game.

( And like every others have said, I think only 25% of the people have opened the Editor)


Even people, who've been to the editor would quickly quit playing the game.

AFAIK,
The default ArmA 2 Manual or the OA Manual didn't have the necessary facts about the Mission Editor...
they just provide something like 'you can create missions with the powerful mission editor'.

(They should instead list the fan sites at the end and provide a manual(maybe seperate) about the mission editor.)


(Old OFP has even a tutorial on how to make missions using the editor, and to say the truth, THAT SAME
tutorial was the only thing that INFORMED me that there is a big community of ofp on the internet...and it was the only thing that caused me to join these great communities.......
Before that time, I thought like "I can only find ofp on gamespot")

Regards,
Haroon1992
Very busy with life, business, and other stuff. Away from OFP for months. Not sure if I could get back onto it. :(

Walter_E_Kurtz

  • Guest
Re: A sad trend
« Reply #8 on: 08 Oct 2010, 12:56:38 »
This touches on something I've curious about for a while: what proportion of visits to / downloads from OFPEC are due to search engines, web crawlers and the like?

Clearly Google has been past since yesterday, though it doesn't seem to have assimilated this thread yet.

Offline bedges

  • Administrator
  • *****
    • OFPEC The Editing Center
Re: A sad trend
« Reply #9 on: 08 Oct 2010, 14:42:37 »
The Who's Online feature on the home page displays visitors within a 15-minute window. I have yet to see that page without at least one spider listed, usually Google.

As to the topic of the thread, the staff have been talking about this for some time. From our perspective Community activity does seem to be waning, has been for a while now even before the release of ArmA - as the graph clearly shows - and it's indeed a bit worrying, especially for a site which exists to help folks. If there are no folks to help, why have a website?  :confused:

There's no question that editing attracts a certain type of person, far fewer in number than those who just enjoy playing the games, so we're already starting with a deficit. That coupled with the effort required to produce something - especially nowadays with Arma2 - many folks just can't face the learning curve required. I count myself among them; OFP will be my limit for the foreseeable future.

However, it's not all doom and gloom. If Carrier Command comes with a mission editor and some model/island editing tools - and I think there's a fair chance it will - the Community will grow again, and interest in Arma2/OA will be regenerated by CC folks discovering the military side of the engine. It's all too easy to look at one graph and get dispirited by the implications, but it shows only a trend in the past - the future is not so easily plotted.

Offline j0e

  • Members
  • *
    • j0e's home
Re: A sad trend
« Reply #10 on: 22 Jun 2011, 16:05:43 »
@Trexian
Quote
I was heavily into another game - Falcon 4.0.

The best simulator I ever used.
I really enjoyed it and even if I moved to OFP:Res, I'll never trash it.
So will be for OFP too.

I've started hosting an OFP:Res server since some months and guys there are still ppl connecting through the in-game browser :D

Long life to both games.

Offline B2KDragon

  • Members
  • *
    • Dogs of War
Re: A sad trend
« Reply #11 on: 23 Jun 2011, 13:21:06 »
I wish to add something here.

During the last 1-2 years there has been a numerous amount of additional modificatin sites growing and evolving out there. One search in google and I can at least find something about what I want from numerous sites.

This I believe is the issue that people may be over looking, back in the OFP/Arma days. Ofpec was the only TRUE editing material reference site. I remember back in 2008 there was plenty of stuff going on.

Another issue I believe in is that there isn't much fresh new editors or scripters etc coming in anymore. Many of the missions makers/addon creators have been doing it since Arma/OFP. And as such no longer need any help.

HOWEVER, any thought of taking Ofpec offline due to this is madness. There will allways be a community to uphold, there will allways be people who need help.

I think that all you need to do is try to puch yourselves out into the community a little bit more. You know what ofpec has that no one else does? A group of people whos knowledge of BIS games cannot be matched. Anyone can argue, but some people here have over 8+ years of that knowledge.

I think, if we all think of this carefully. There is an easy solution out there to attract more people here. And help them.