ResetEra - sold for $4.55 million

Herdanos wrote:2 If not should we propose GRcade as the "different board"?
2i Do we even want to?

strawberry float, no.

Herdanos wrote:1 Has a movement already begun by the site users to move to a different board, much as ResetEra only began by a mass migration from NeoGaf?

2 If not should we propose GRcade as the "different board"?
2i Do we even want to?

Yes, but only if I can be a mod so I can ban all the strawberry floaters.

Herdanos wrote:1 Has a movement already begun by the site users to move to a different board, much as ResetEra only began by a mass migration from NeoGaf?

2 If not should we propose GRcade as the "different board"?
2i Do we even want to?

No, we don't want those wankers here.

Moggy wrote:

Herdanos wrote:1 Has a movement already begun by the site users to move to a different board, much as ResetEra only began by a mass migration from NeoGaf?

2 If not should we propose GRcade as the "different board"?
2i Do we even want to?

Yes, but only if I can be a mod so I can ban all the strawberry floaters.

Mods banning Mods, intriguing.

rinks wrote:

Herdanos wrote:2 If not should we propose GRcade as the "different board"?
2i Do we even want to?

strawberry float, no.

Just think of the erection points!

Herdanos wrote:1 Has a movement already begun by the site users to move to a different board, much as ResetEra only began by a mass migration from NeoGaf?

2 If not should we propose GRcade as the "different board"?
2i Do we even want to?

The only reason it worked last time is all the mods quit and dragged everyone with them.

Maybe the members will just head back to NeoGaf

What are erection points?

Herdanos wrote:What are erection points?

Yikes!

Herdanos wrote:What are erection points?

A sign that the swear filter is alive and kicking.

omg now this is jucy, I'm gonna read up after dinner when I should be doing creative things lol

Yikes. Yikes everywhere.

The member subs said this:

"As an Era Clear subscriber you can retain the cleanest possible browsing experience while taking pride in giving something back."

Incredibly deceptive

Hello everyone! We're coming up on our 4th anniversary this month

strawberry floating lol opening with that, GRcade alone is well over a decade old now and they've already sold out a community-driven initiative with some kind of "dibs in" at some point. This is something nobody here has ever considered because the entire strawberry floating point of GRcade is to take it out of corporate hands with the sole purpose of a cost/profit model and the power to suddenly end it (RIP Gamesradar, RIP Edge Forums, RIP Official Nintendo Forums, RIP Eurogamer Forums / Popcap, RIP Resetera)

I'll be forthright about one thing; we've been approached by an advertising network once (one based in bath that actually looked very genuine with reasonable policies) with the terms of a contract (12 month term so would be due to expire at whatever point anyway) remaining fully independent entity (which I did not take up), so that kind of thing is essentially a replacement of something generic like Google AdWords, but this is a wholesale sellout to what is literally an ad/content network who has one purpose: to sell as many adverts as possible and report back to shareholders.

That site is strawberry floated.

Edit: also this

MOBA operates a total of 8 global esport communities on its own platform

The userbase (essentially the database they've purchased) is going to be hoovered up into their platform eventually to make things logistically more economical and easier to track user details/behaviour etc, a new privacy policy will be introduced with mandatory tracking features or Facebook-style beacon implementation, and correlate that with whatever other aggregate data they have to package together highly interest focused ads / put a $ on each individual user that is "highly engaged". I would be incredibly surprised if this site even resembles what it is now in 12 months, never-mind 18, 24months, but it may well take up new usage over time to become something else with the same name and no-one unaware of the history would be any the wiser.

Did anyone aside from the owner know that the site was massively profitable from the advertising alone? You’ve deceptively been taking money from people on the basis it’s kept the site running. In actuality you’ve been making yourself rich(er)! How can you not be angry about that.

Regular user looking at ResetEra logo: Wait, it's all for profit?
Cerium, holding gun to user's head: Always has been

Green Gecko wrote:we've been approached by an advertising network once (one based in bath that actually looked very genuine with reasonable policies).

SWERVE: It’s a subsidiary of Future Publishing.

KK wrote:Did anyone aside from the owner know that the site was massively profitable from the advertising alone? You’ve deceptively been taking money from people on the basis it’s kept the site running. In actuality you’ve been making yourself rich(er)! How can you not be angry about that.

I have no idea if they explicitly claimed that, it was more likely an alternative way to just avoid ads. Honestly, they were quite possibly making more money from those users that would use adblock anyway, than they were from the users being served ads.

KK wrote:

Green Gecko wrote:we've been approached by an advertising network once (one based in bath that actually looked very genuine with reasonable policies).

SWERVE: It’s a subsidiary of Future Publishing.

Yeah I found it pretty funny that they were based in Bath.

My god this guy is absolutely full of gooseberry fool:

The staff will retain total independence when it comes to moderation and the day-to-day management of the site. That independence will be held as absolutely sacred, in the same way that editorial independence is treated at journalistic publications.

Unless you are on the board of that company you have absolutely no ability to say this. If the site and the community are sold outright then they can do whatever the strawberry float they like with it.

If none of the staff are formally employed, and even if they were, they have no rights, shares or voting rights and so nothing they say is binding in any way whatsoever. They have no influence. Stop lying.

It is my honest belief that this arrangement is the best way to secure the future of the site, to give it the kind of safety net that I can't on my own, without sacrificing anything that makes the site what it is. My time as the owner of ResetEra has been one of the greatest honors of my life. I would never give it up without knowing that it will be in good hands.

Honest belief? Seriously?

The site has a safety net, that's thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising revenue. Tell the truth: you can't be strawberry floated to run this site anymore, or have any responsibility for it. Don't pretend you have oversight or structures in place to retain it's identity, because you don't.

At the staff's request, and with the new owners' permission, I will continue to make myself available as a consultant in case they ever believe I can be helpful.

Ah, so you're going to be paid a ££££ hourly or day rate to consult on all the quirks and intimacies of the community that they won't necessarily be able to maintain. So there's an additional financial incentive for you. Don't present this as a good faith thing, it's a job and whoever has "stepped up" as general manager is also employed, and expendable.

MOBA Network has ample resources and a well-established infrastructure to support websites under their umbrella. Whatever the site needs to succeed in the long term, they will be able to provide. They are equipped to do this better than I can or any individual owner could. The site will no longer hinge on a single person.

So *generic video game incorporation* has ample resources.. Why why, of course they do, because the site will continue to generate a gooseberry fool tonne of advertising revenue which was already there to begin with. If you don't want to be an individual owner, seek help; this was the easiest and most profitable option.

We fit with their user-driven approach. They're not a journalistic network, they're not a game publisher, there aren't a whole lot of popular gaming sites out there which suit them. They like ResetEra and they believe in it. At the end of the day it's an investment.

If it were user-driven, this decision would have been user-driven. You therefore do not have a user-driven approach, sorry.

Why did MOBA Network want to buy ResetEra? "They like ResetEra and they believe in it." No, one word: strawberry floating ads.

Are the staff getting paid?​

The people who've been handling paid work, such as the tech team, will be making their own arrangements with MOBA Network to continue doing what they do. Moderators are still volunteers.

Well I have offered payment for these tasks in the past and we have gracious enough people that they do it for free. As for moderators, I suppose why pay them any of that 4 and a half strawberry floating MILLION dollars if you can continue to get them to do it for free for... you know, the lols.

Why is this happening now?​

In a couple weeks we'll be celebrating our fourth anniversary as a site, and that seemed like a good window to aim for. Deals like this take a long time to come together, so the process began months ago.

See: GRcade. 4 years is not a long time.

Will my personal account data be safe?​

Yes! MOBA Network is not in the user data business and never will be. They're not going to sell your data. Nothing is going to change about how your data is handled and protected.

The advertising business IS the user data business you strawberry floating knob.

Green Gecko wrote:This is something nobody here has ever considered because the entire strawberry floating point of GRcade is to take it out of corporate hands with the sole purpose of a cost/profit model and the power to suddenly end it (RIP Gamesradar, RIP Edge Forums, RIP Official Nintendo Forums, RIP Eurogamer Forums / Popcap, RIP Resetera)

Heart UK also recently shuttered some of the Digital Spy forums too (Politics and Showbiz, I think) because it was becoming increasingly difficult to police, and they didn’t want to be held liable for rumour and innuendo.

Loving Gecko's take down of all that spin