BumbleKing Forums are closing

[DaddlerTheDalek]

It's a new year, and with it comes changes. The BumbleKing Forums have been plugging along for ten years, and I believe they've run their course. When I started the forums, they were meant to be my place to interact with my readers about my work. At the start, it worked like a charm. But as time went on, and online interactivity evolved, the forum format showed its limitations.

Today, there are many more and better avenues. There's the regular updates to the main page, http://www.BumbleKing.com. There's the biweekly podcast, BumbleKast. There's my Twitter account, @IanFlynnBKC, and the Facebook channel, http://www.Facebook.com/BumbleKing.

My focus is now on spreading my creative wings, finding new work and starting new projects. Maintaining the forums has become a second job I can't properly attend to anymore. This isn't a snap decision either. It's been one I've been thinking hard about for the past couple of years.

I want to thank all the users over the years who made this place so much fun and creatively challenging. I want to thank you for the kind words, both posted publicly and shared in private. I want to extend an especially heart-felt thank you to LBD_Nytetrayn, Dub and Kureejii Lea for all their hard work in moderating the forum, covering for me and each other when we had to be away, and for helping me make the right decisions in administrating the forums. I also want to thank JCfreak and Toby for their help as well.

I'm not going to yank the rug out from under you all, though. I'm giving everyone time to exchange contact information, save your favorite posts, and get one more word in edgewise. The time table for the forum shutdown is as follows:

Jan. 2016 - Forums remain active. No new accounts will be opened. No name or titles changes.
Feb. 7th 2016 - Forums are closed. No new posts. The forum will remain up for archival purposes.
June 30th, 2016 - The forums, and their many buggy, conflicting databases, will be erased from the server.


Kyle and I will be doing a BKC-exclusive Q&A-fest on the BumbleKast. You can submit your question for the show here: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=8616

Thank you again, BumbleKingers. I'll be seeing you on all the other avenues!

source

Well. That's a bummer.

[Lynchenberg]

Mark my words, SMS will close down next, then probably the comics at some point.

[Prince By-Tor]

As long as there are fans there will always be Sonic. We are the real owners of the I.P.; not Sega, Archie or anyone else. We as fans need to quit going to these dry holes for content; quit being consumers and start being creators and actively make our own universe. If all we cared about Sonic is the official sources that SoJ has given their blessing to and are hanging on every syllable from Bumbleking or the next crappy game then you might as well forget about it anyway and go elsewhere. If it's dying then leave it alone and let it die.
As for me, I see the Sonic community, especially the SatAM community as healthy as it's been in over a decade and will not die as long as we don't let it. Again, we just need to quit going to these dry wells and their poisonous SoJ mandates expecting water. We need to dig our own well.

[Lynchenberg]

I'd like to believe that, but there's so little activity here.

[Prince By-Tor]

That's because sites like this cater to the official sources, which is the Archie comic and the Games, which are very wanting and dying in and of themselves.

They need to cater to original work instead and share ideas rather than running to the dry well that is Archie and SoJ.

[Neon Black]

It really does sound like he's just closing the forums due to the zeitgeist of online culture at large, and not necessarily anything to do with the state of the Sonic franchise. There are a lot of natural reasons for that shift: almost everyone these days has some kind of social media presence or another, so registrations etc aren't really required for online groups like that. It's also a lot more convenient to keep tabs on discussions when you're on the move via social media, and more folk these days aren't trying to participate in discussions at home on their computer, it's happening in their lunch break on their phone etc.

There's a great deal to hate about this change; discussions on social media are too ephemeral, moderation practically doesn't exist and the low barrier to entry means lots of low-quality contributions. On the whole though, it seems that isn't enough to deter folk from moving that way, so that's the way it goes, just like people migrated from BBSs to forums in the late 90s and 00s.

Can't really comment on the state of the Sonic fandom - it may well be doing well for itself these days, but I'm quite comfortable admitting that I, and I think most of the SatAM corner of the fandom - is way, way out of touch with the bigger portion of the fandom. After all, lots of us people who grew up with SatAM and 16-bit Sonic are now old enough to have kids, kids who might be Sonic fans themselves. But their experience of the franchise and the fendom won't, and can't possibly, have anything in common with ours.

I agree with Prince above that fan content is the best way to keep the 90s generation of the fandom alive; reminiscing doesn't cut it and the official sources have long since moved on from us, reinventing and readapting themselves to suit the market they exist in. After all, their target demographic still falls in the 5-15 year-old bracket, and most of us haven't been in that demographic for a long, long time.

[Lynchenberg]

I have no doubt the broader Sonic fandom, and even a comic book will continue on in some form, but as you yourself expressed Ian, it will have very little to do with Sonic as we know it. Either the comic will be cancelled, but eventually replaced by another Sonic periodical, or this one will eventually phase out the few SatAM elements and characters that remain. I suppose fan projects are one way it may live on, but without an official focus, I don't think it will bring in many new readers. Even then, new SatAM fan fiction is virtually nonexistent and the even the fan art is disappearing. And in terms of current or future fan content, existing fans tend not to read fan fiction as they grow older. Most of it tends to be of low quality, so they have moved on to other things. The fan community seems to be drying up here, and before I left FUS due to poor treatment by members (not the staff, who were lovely,) it seemed to be on the lowdown as well. I think we're in the twilight of SatAM fandom. Miracles could happen, but I've seen other franchises I've enjoyed get to this point as well with no Resurrection. Even Ben Hurst himself was saying the same thing ten years ago, and the fandom at least had the Archie comic going for it at that point.

[Prince By-Tor]

Can't really comment on the state of the Sonic fandom - it may well be doing well for itself these days, but I'm quite comfortable admitting that I, and I think most of the SatAM corner of the fandom - is way, way out of touch with the bigger portion of the fandom. After all, lots of us people who grew up with SatAM and 16-bit Sonic are now old enough to have kids, kids who might be Sonic fans themselves. But their experience of the franchise and the fendom won't, and can't possibly, have anything in common with ours.

I agree with Prince above that fan content is the best way to keep the 90s generation of the fandom alive; reminiscing doesn't cut it and the official sources have long since moved on from us, reinventing and readapting themselves to suit the market they exist in. After all, their target demographic still falls in the 5-15 year-old bracket, and most of us haven't been in that demographic for a long, long time.

Thanks Neon!

I too cannot speak for the wider Sonic fandom; not even my son really knows much about Sonic outside of SatAM.
Initially though SatAM was aimed at a wider demographic, more like Don Bleuth's early films; something there for everyone. And most of the American Cannon in the early 1990s was aim this was, including the games; it really was before the ESRB started dividing age groups of games. SoJ on the other hand has been aiming at that younger demographic and have thus alienated the original fan base for "new, younger fans."
Personally, myself and many, many other SatAM fans wouldn't want it SatAM to grow up with us; it was fine the way it was and how it was aimed. There are some in my age demographic who rolled their eyes when I stated that I do work in the Sonic fandom, until I showed them SatAM and then they got what I was up to.

I have no doubt the broader Sonic fandom, and even a comic book will continue on in some form, but as you yourself expressed Ian, it will have very little to do with Sonic as we know it. Either the comic will be cancelled, but eventually replaced by another Sonic periodical, or this one will eventually phase out the few SatAM elements and characters that remain. I suppose fan projects are one way it may live on, but without an official focus, I don't think it will bring in many new readers. Even then, new SatAM fan fiction is virtually nonexistent and the even the fan art is disappearing. And in terms of current or future fan content, existing fans tend not to read fan fiction as they grow older. Most of it tends to be of low quality, so they have moved on to other things. The fan community seems to be drying up here, and before I left FUS due to poor treatment by members (not the staff, who were lovely,) it seemed to be on the lowdown as well. I think we're in the twilight of SatAM fandom. Miracles could happen, but I've seen other franchises I've enjoyed get to this point as well with no Resurrection. Even Ben Hurst himself was saying the same thing ten years ago, and the fandom at least had the Archie comic going for it at that point.

I can say without a doubt that we, the early fans of not just SatAM, but the games of the 1990 are what is keeping the Sonic property afloat for Sega; we're the ones who buy the nostalgia merchandise and are mostly the ones who buy the new games (albeit for our kids out of some nostalgia). The new 5-15 demographic could care less about Sonic and his bunch; he's a mascot who's attitude is way out of place 25 years later and is now for the most part considered "safe hate" amongst the current crop of video gamers and they could care less about the IP. The more Sega spits on us the quicker they will lose money on the Sonic franchise.
And as to what I've seen the fan art and writings are still there and are not fading; you just have to stay away from the stuff inspired by the current Archie direction; and if the Archie comic ends that art will end with it. SatAM is not dying; especially if we do not let it. As I said before; those people are just going to that dry well that is "official" expecting for things to change. In the end with those artists we need to give them constructive feedback and ourselves keep up creating all we can.
Again, we need to quit being consumers and being like Oliver Twist begging for scraps from Archie and SoJ and make our own; create, critique one another and give feedback/constructive criticism.

[Lynchenberg]

I love this place, because no one is here, so it's the perfect place for me to socialize. I can post and post and post and feel like I'm interacting with people, but because no one's actually here, I don't have to deal with the pain of my inevitable rejection.