Anybody here noticing a dramatic decrease in site traffic and concerned about it or is it always this slow during this time of the year. I do not remember the site being this bad where 2 days of posts spread across the homepage.
PCM.Daily NFL Fantasy Football Champion: 2012 PCM.Daily NHL Prediction Game Champion: 2013 PCM.Daily NFL Prediction Game Champion: 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2021
jseadog1 wrote:
Anybody here noticing a dramatic decrease in site traffic and concerned about it or is it always this slow during this time of the year. I do not remember the site being this bad where 2 days of posts spread across the homepage.
What is going on at Daily???
Certainly there's always a massive decrease in site traffic during the offseason, especially wen Man Game is slow as well, although this year has been especially rough.
Personally, I've still been checking the site several times a day, but with nothing much going on, I just haven't posted.
Edit: What's wrong with my 2013 fantasy trophy.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
PCM.Daily NFL Fantasy Football Champion: 2012 PCM.Daily NHL Prediction Game Champion: 2013 PCM.Daily NFL Prediction Game Champion: 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2021
jseadog1 wrote:
Anybody here noticing a dramatic decrease in site traffic and concerned about it or is it always this slow during this time of the year. I do not remember the site being this bad where 2 days of posts spread across the homepage.
What is going on at Daily???
It's always a bit slow over the winter. Possibly getting slower over recent years due to a general drop in popularity of the game, possibly due to the developers seeming to prioritise developing the graphics over the play-ability and realism and general inability to release a bug free game.
"Ringo is exactly right", Shonak - 8 September 2016
Personally, I’m here to discuss cycling and these months of November and December lack in any relevant news before the real season starts, so this void inside me prevents myself from posting. Though I check the site almost on a daily basis. I’m sure even other stories/projects will have a boost in a month and a half’s time when Down Under is due.
Maybe I just haven't noticed in recent months. Nice to know that everyone checks in everyday to see what is going on. Always personally have felt like the forum was slowly dying in a way. My main reason for being here is games and off topic sports which is the strongest at this point in the year and not many people here to talk about it with
PCM.Daily NFL Fantasy Football Champion: 2012 PCM.Daily NHL Prediction Game Champion: 2013 PCM.Daily NFL Prediction Game Champion: 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2021
jseadog1 wrote:
Anybody here noticing a dramatic decrease in site traffic and concerned about it or is it always this slow during this time of the year. I do not remember the site being this bad where 2 days of posts spread across the homepage.
What is going on at Daily???
It's always a bit slow over the winter. Possibly getting slower over recent years due to a general drop in popularity of the game, possibly due to the developers seeming to prioritise developing the graphics over the play-ability and realism and general inability to release a bug free game.
Except that PCM18 is the best version of the game yet, with no real graphical changes, less bugs, less crashes and hugely better AI.
I think it’s just Winter + the MG hit a slow patch, hopefully the MG or some other initiative speed up the site again soon.
jseadog1 wrote:
Maybe I just haven't noticed in recent months. Nice to know that everyone checks in everyday to see what is going on. Always personally have felt like the forum was slowly dying in a way. My main reason for being here is games and off topic sports which is the strongest at this point in the year and not many people here to talk about it with
I definitely agree with this. I've been feeling the same way for a long while. Certainly the forum has lost activity. Yes, it's the offseason, but we shouldn't pretend the site wasn't less active overall throughout the entire year. During the Tour, this site was absolute mayhem in the past. Now we still get a lot then, but not nearly the peak we once did. Not all of that is bad. We used to go through Pedro's every 3 months. From 2012-2015 there was a lot of random spam, and everybody wanted less of it. In hindsight, I wish there was more activity these days, as it seems the decline of spam brought down some common discussion too.
Other parts of the site have been lost too, which contributes to the decline. The story section is a complete cemetery compared to 5 years ago, when everyone wanted to writing a story and get there's popular. It was such a huge platform that we could have magazines about current stories and competitions where only a fifth of all the active stories were even mentioned. Now even in the yearly awards there's maybe 3-5 for each category even really eligible.
Databases are another thing. The DB team works really hard, more than I ever could, and they release great products. But when I joined, they pumped out complete databases much quicker and with more hype. Everyone that played PCM was waiting for the EP each year. Users came here for DB's and then stayed and became active members. With Daily's DB esteem declining, that doesn't happen anymore, and I think that's a huge reason why the site has seen fewer and fewer new members recently.
And then there's other things - the lack of initiatives in general. Tips and tricks is dead. Weekly News is dead. News in general is basically dead - nothing on the front page since August. Even fantasy betting, which is probably the most active open initiative left, is extremely sporadic, rather than predictable, and MG betting died very quickly. The fantasy cycling game - again a really awesome concept, has been gone since August. Really, the only functioning thing left is Man Game, which I'm happy has continued to thrive - but even that has seen it's applications decrease considerably the last few years.
I think a major part of it is just that everybody gets busy. Simple as that. Guys like SN and Roturn have done so much for this site. They continue to do so much for this site. But they have lives and responsibilities, as do most members here. In the past, there were enough new members, young people, and collaborative projects that busy members could take a back seat for a while with the site still perpetuating activity. That just doesn't happen anymore.
I for one will be sticking around no matter what, but likewise, I haven't been able to actively contribute much with university and work. I wish Daily was my top priority like when I was 12, but it can't be. I think if anything's going to change and revive Daily, it has to start with getting more new members to the site in the first place. There are plenty of young people still excited about PCM, cycling, and building communities. They're out there. We just have to find a way to get them to the site, and show them a community worth joining once they get here.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Well since there seems to be plenty of people on but nobody doing much, and my exams are over:
Spoiler
Anyone for Mafia?
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
jseadog1 wrote:
Anybody here noticing a dramatic decrease in site traffic and concerned about it or is it always this slow during this time of the year. I do not remember the site being this bad where 2 days of posts spread across the homepage.
What is going on at Daily???
It's always a bit slow over the winter. Possibly getting slower over recent years due to a general drop in popularity of the game, possibly due to the developers seeming to prioritise developing the graphics over the play-ability and realism and general inability to release a bug free game.
Except that PCM18 is the best version of the game yet, with no real graphical changes, less bugs, less crashes and hugely better AI.
Possibly, but the damage has been done. I stopped playing the game years ago, partly due to adult life restricting my previous free time. I still play football manager which continues to be the market leader IRO sport management sims.
"Ringo is exactly right", Shonak - 8 September 2016
jseadog1 wrote:
Maybe I just haven't noticed in recent months. Nice to know that everyone checks in everyday to see what is going on. Always personally have felt like the forum was slowly dying in a way. My main reason for being here is games and off topic sports which is the strongest at this point in the year and not many people here to talk about it with
I definitely agree with this. I've been feeling the same way for a long while. Certainly the forum has lost activity. Yes, it's the offseason, but we shouldn't pretend the site wasn't less active overall throughout the entire year. During the Tour, this site was absolute mayhem in the past. Now we still get a lot then, but not nearly the peak we once did. Not all of that is bad. We used to go through Pedro's every 3 months. From 2012-2015 there was a lot of random spam, and everybody wanted less of it. In hindsight, I wish there was more activity these days, as it seems the decline of spam brought down some common discussion too.
Other parts of the site have been lost too, which contributes to the decline. The story section is a complete cemetery compared to 5 years ago, when everyone wanted to writing a story and get there's popular. It was such a huge platform that we could have magazines about current stories and competitions where only a fifth of all the active stories were even mentioned. Now even in the yearly awards there's maybe 3-5 for each category even really eligible.
Databases are another thing. The DB team works really hard, more than I ever could, and they release great products. But when I joined, they pumped out complete databases much quicker and with more hype. Everyone that played PCM was waiting for the EP each year. Users came here for DB's and then stayed and became active members. With Daily's DB esteem declining, that doesn't happen anymore, and I think that's a huge reason why the site has seen fewer and fewer new members recently.
And then there's other things - the lack of initiatives in general. Tips and tricks is dead. Weekly News is dead. News in general is basically dead - nothing on the front page since August. Even fantasy betting, which is probably the most active open initiative left, is extremely sporadic, rather than predictable, and MG betting died very quickly. The fantasy cycling game - again a really awesome concept, has been gone since August. Really, the only functioning thing left is Man Game, which I'm happy has continued to thrive - but even that has seen it's applications decrease considerably the last few years.
I think a major part of it is just that everybody gets busy. Simple as that. Guys like SN and Roturn have done so much for this site. They continue to do so much for this site. But they have lives and responsibilities, as do most members here. In the past, there were enough new members, young people, and collaborative projects that busy members could take a back seat for a while with the site still perpetuating activity. That just doesn't happen anymore.
I for one will be sticking around no matter what, but likewise, I haven't been able to actively contribute much with university and work. I wish Daily was my top priority like when I was 12, but it can't be. I think if anything's going to change and revive Daily, it has to start with getting more new members to the site in the first place. There are plenty of young people still excited about PCM, cycling, and building communities. They're out there. We just have to find a way to get them to the site, and show them a community worth joining once they get here.
Yeah, new members is going to the best thing for us. I agree with the decline in the site. The admins work hard, but I never see them around much anymore because like you said they likely have lives and things to keep them busy. I just never understood why it's a bad thing to allow someone else who WANTS to keep the betting section alive do so, or post weekly news do so, and so on.
The DB team is still a strong part of Daily and I will always respect that. There are always going to be dedicated members which is great but it's that time to bring in a new generation of users in whatever way possible. The site has just been loading slower in general for reasons I am not sure of, not am sure even the admins know why.
I rarely see more than 5 members logged on at once anymore, and we used to have many many people. Things like the PCM.Daily song competition, Survivor, Big Brother, etc that simply can't happen anymore because there are not enough members dedicated to the forum to make it happen. If it does happen, it's likely the exact same members which makes it less fun.
As far as the mafia comment, I am down for another season, but we have to get the numbers so maybe it's best to post in old mafia thread and garner who would be interested in playing. I think together we can make Daily thrive again with a little bit of work.
PCM.Daily NFL Fantasy Football Champion: 2012 PCM.Daily NHL Prediction Game Champion: 2013 PCM.Daily NFL Prediction Game Champion: 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2021
I think the main issue is somewhat related to whats already been said about new members. But more specifically its the core of the site. I remember when I first joined most members were around my age, probably 15-20. There were older members in Uni and younger members too, but for the most part people in that age range have a lot more free time than people 23+. Im not sure what it is, but I think as the game has gotten older its not really brought in the younger players like it used to. Now most of us are older, have jobs/careers or are busy and taking our studies more seriously.
I think the general outlook on cycling has maybe gone down in the last few years too. Froome and Sky basically have a monopoly on the Tour right now and people will lose interest or find that boring, atleast to the casual fan. With Lance I feel it was different because he was truly a global superstar. He was the face of American athletes and he wasn't even in one of the "Big 4" leagues in north america. Also because of his story, people outside of america cheered for him too.
Then we've got the actual issue of the game. Since Steam has come out, and basically been the place for PC gaming with the way the platform works and how easy it is to see reviews I think theres been less buyers each successive year. Cyanide have always had a decent building block to work with in the game around 2006,07,08,09 but the game has just never really gotten better. I think after 2009, the best version is 15 and 18. The rest are all pretty bad and the reception of that can stay with the game/company longer even despite how much better the 18 version is for example. Even after playing 18 I went back to 08 and noticed how much better and more fun the AI is. Plus, you dont have to join the site to download dbs anymore, theyre all already on steam and its as easy as clicking subscribe and then clicking a check mark in game. No more joining a forum to ask how to install a db cuz you cant figure it out. (Im guilty of this)
In general the PCM community is seeing less and less DB's (by all communites) put out every year, there are less historical dbs, and I remember when a new shirt irl came out, there would be 4 or 5 shirt makers all racing to make it in PCM format the fastest, now theres barely any "competition" on things like that. As well different communites made differently featured dbs. PPDB would make massive dbs, Daily's were smaller but always great quality, and usually communites like the Portugal and France ones would kind of adjust the conti teams so there would be more french of Portuguese teams for example. Now theres only a few dbs to chose from and they basically each have almost anything you'd want in a db and theres hardly a difference between them.
Obviously these are just my observations though, and not facts.
In terms of young, new members, I think a lot of young new players to PCM end up at PCMWorld because it has a very strong precense on youtube, has a leading DB on steam (even though Daily probably would have much better stats if we managed to release something) and PCMWorld is using the new medium of Discord.
I think once that trend started and then there are less initiatives because less people are here to play them, then less people see initiatives to join on the site (I definitely stuck around in the first place because of EPIC), so people are less likely to return to the site after getting their question answered or downloading a jersey, stage or DB.
If we really want to bring new people to the site, we might need to increase our precense on other things, like Steam Workshop or YouTube, even perhaps something like offering the winner of a La Flamme Rouge stage making contest to have their stage created in PCM or holding a jersey/stage making contest against another forum like ale Gruppetto or even PCM World (though incidently I’m banned from there), but without the Daily DB being the primary thing attracting people to the site (no discredit to them though, the guys who have put effort into working on it at points are awesome) nobody is actually going to come if we don’t have another method of bringing people to the site.
It’s not like Daily’s really close to dead though, MG and ICL are still going strong, there’s still a few jersey makers and stage makers plus great stories with regular updates, RTG and 21 are awesome start-ups, mafia sounds like it’s going again (I’m in! ) and there’s probably a bunch of things I’ve missed because I just woke up and can’t think.
Anyone wants to talk real cycling news and stuff, just drop into the News threads cause i've been really into the real world new stuff lately and helping try to explain what is actually happening out there
(and if anyone else was ever actually bothered by womens cycling i'd be all over a 2019 Womens cycling thread in a heartbeat, but when it's just me what's the point in posting here?)
Steam Workshop support takes away a fair bit of traffic. When you can get your db and updates from the storefront why would you google for them? That was always, and still is, the big reason people discover Daily.
The site USP, to my eyes, these days are user projects like the MG and ICL (and a little bit real world cycling chat with 90% actually normal and nice people without crazy fanboy views). In those areas the site is still thriving as good as it has been three years ago.
As the previous main userbase of ~five years ago grows up they get busier and less involved with Daily. Where that used to be replaced by new users looking for DB's and finding a community, those potentials are now being siphoned away by Steam, Youtube and other areas before they need to find Daily. That's why things are less populate, less active old users and not the same stream of new ones.
And that's not even talking about PCM's sales numbers and active userbase, which i honestly think has shrunk lately after a string of dissapointing games and increased competition in the sports management game market (eg. i've played probably 1000 hours of FM in the last 2 years compared to maybe 50 of PCM because one is good and one isn't).
As for the mention of some other site initiatives: Tips & Tricks, hard to add more when the game doesn't progress itself. Weekly news, hard to write when there's not much happening and i went to monthly for a little bit and still struggled for content. Betting, lack of time from admins to keep it so heavily up-to-date (if you want i'm sure we could set up some way to help like we did with the MG betting). Fantasy Game, real life in the way of admins. [I know for me, i've just started a brand new job which is totally messing with my timing and ability to run things or contribute]
While I have never been a big poster (think this is my first post in this thread), I have been a pretty persistent user since 2011 and have also noticed the drop. Generally I agree with the reasons stated.
I think probably the key ones are the game popularity itself, the PCMDB losing consistency and the loss or slow down of a number of long time active members. I also think the fact that modding has probably become easier through Steam decreases activity on sites like this.
The one thing we should all be doing is trying to answer questions on the general forum about the game. For me the answers I got to my first few questions glued me to the site and to the game.
Recently I have noticed that questions often go unanswered. I think when that happens we lose a chance to cement a new user. There used to be a few super members who responded to all these kind of things, we don't have that now so it seems like every experienced member needs to chip in.
Never thought I'd say this, but should trek be an admin?
With summer and some fairly major computer problems mafia and a new post in Carbon Throne, my MG HQ, or my story will likely have to wait until after Christmas for anybody interested in any of those - mostly just the first one I guess I'm just on mobile and not much time anyway so will mostly just comment on my MG races and such... if they ever come
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
Just stopping by to say hello to all the folks here...not really having time to read Daily daily, hell not even weekly, you probably should call the site PCM Monthly to fit my frequency.
Btw. SKY killed cycling as Cyanide is slowly killing PCM, so here you have my two reasons to not follow those two things so much as i did (ofc my work, my new university study i started and my family has nothing to do with that).
But i have read SKY could end? Holy shit, that could bring me back
Avin out...nice Holidays people of Daily, as i will most likely log in again only in 2019.
Though I check the site almost on a daily basis. 
I’m sure even other stories/projects will have a boost in a month and a half’s time when Down Under is due.
) and there’s probably a bunch of things I’ve missed because I just woke up and can’t think. 
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
