Sunsetting the fontgeek forum

That's what the prime sub is for.

A couple of quid to get rid of ads would have been fine. They way they've priced it, especially with the tiers, feels more like paying for extra content, of which there isn't enough to justify it.

Also worth remembering it happened before the ashes were even cold from their forum purge, nothing like telling a large section of a community they're not really welcome anymore before going cap in hand.

Edit: or what that guy ^ said

Anyone comparing EG to the Grauniad, whether internally or externally, should probably have a word with themselves.

And there is the equation. Price vs justification.

TA is £20 a year to remove ads and give them a bit of support instead of using adblocker, which is worth it to me as alongside the news (without all that bollocks Sony and Nintendo coverage that I don't need) there's all the achievement stuff which I do use.

YouTube is £13 a month to remove ads which is a frankly absurd amount of money, but with the amount of YouTube we watch (via the xbox, no ads on pc obv.) if I earned enough that I didn't think it was an absurd amount I'd absolutely cough up.

£4 a month for no ads and some regurgitated press releases on EG and an article called "Someone should make a game about shitting on the people who made you a success", not so much.

Heh, well, indeed.  But clearly *they* think they do journalism worth a damn.

It was more I was giving an example of a written media sub that didn't give you lollipops and sodas for signing up.

But I can see we're just going to point and laugh every time there's a new EG supporter post about someone's favourite trousers, so by all means carry on.  Just feels a little bit like the guy that was shitting up the EG comments threads when they shut the forum - we're better than that.  

You assume correctly. Thanks, I'll move to some combination of more filtered feeds. I need to get around to adding the Onward March RSS feed too.

Ffs are we here again. Move oooon already.

Dunno, those seemingly still grieving for loss of EG forum seem to need support.

I have a few small insights to share:

There is/was no good time to turn off the forum. If we did it before launching subs we risked upsetting forumites and sacrificing potential subscribers. Do it after and we’d risk being accused of a bait and switch and taking money and shutting down features, so it’s a difficult spot as either way the forum was closing.

Roger has never insisted on us launching subscriptions. As Oli or someone else said recently, we’ve been chatting about doing it for at least ten years. The editorial teams are clear that they want to put a value on their work. This is an industry wide trend. If people don’t see the value that is their choice to make. But it makes us less reliant on advertising revenue, and any srs bzns person will tell you that a healthy business has diversified sources of revenue.

One other thing: the launch offering was deliberately gentle so we could see what the uptake would be purely on brand strength. And the results are good. There are lots of other incentives and benefits coming down the line for supporters, and we’re learning as we go about what people want. The editorial offering will keep getting better, I’m sure.

Also, Phattso is my hero.

Wait there really is a Roger?

It's that old thing of "If you say anything about the ex, you're just being bitter".

But nah. I wouldn't want to see them disappear. The site is no longer for me but no hard feelings about it. We're living through shit enough times already that it's not great energy to wish people lose their livelihoods. Just all seems a bit desperate over there at the minute, combined with those scenes over at EGX.

What was the reason for not doing it 10 years ago, and why was it decided that now is finally the time for subs?

This was the bombshell.