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Discussion ResetEra has been sold to M.O.B.A networks

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Twinsen

Twinsen

Moblin
For 4,5 million dollars.

Popular gaming forum ResetEra has been acquired by MOBA Network for $4.55 million.


MOBA Network, which owns fansites for several large properties such as Dotafire.com, Smitefire.com and Leaguespy.net, announced the acquisition on Thursday.

The deal, which includes $3.55 million upon closing and a further $1 million which is to be paid by December 31, 2021 will see the brand acquire a user base of over 55,000 members.

In the announcement, it was confirmed that the operational team that runs ResetEra will “continue to moderate and engage with the community and work with MOBA Network on future product development.”

Björn Mannerqvist, CEO of MOBA Network, said that “we are very excited and proud to welcome ResetEra.com – one of the world’s largest gaming forum and community brands – to our growing number of brands.”
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www.videogameschronicle.com

Popular gaming forum ResetEra acquired by MOBA Network for $4.55 million | VGC

The forum was founded in 2017 following the demise of NeoGaf…
www.videogameschronicle.com www.videogameschronicle.com



This forum has really been made at the right time.
 
I was part of a pretty popular retro gaming forum called NintendoAge and they were bought out by a corporation at some point as well. Their press release had the same language as this MOBA capital firm. "Everything is going to be the same" "No drastic changes" yada yada. A week after they changed the domain name of the site and merged it with an existing forum they already owned, effectively killing the database and making a bunch of critical data and history gone forever. Not saying the same thing is going to happen here but I'm weary whenever there is corporate meddling and profit goals that have to be reached. They have to earn back that 4.5 million somehow.
 
Lady Bow said:
They have to earn back that 4.5 million somehow.
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Someone in the Era thread pointed out they paid $80/user when the site is only making ~$12/user annually. They're not gonna get the type of returns a company owned by seven different VC firms exists to create without rocking the boat pretty hard.
 
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Does the timing suggests that the exoduses in the last year or so, affected the traffic of the site?
It has been documented that trolling, which became abundant in the site, increases user engagement, but it seemed that in this case it actually started to drive users away.
 
Lady Bow said:
I was part of a pretty popular retro gaming forum called NintendoAge and they were bought out by a corporation at some point as well. Their press release had the same language as this MOBA capital firm. "Everything is going to be the same" "No drastic changes" yada yada. A week after they changed the domain name of the site and merged it with an existing forum they already owned, effectively killing the database and making a bunch of critical data and history gone forever. Not saying the same thing is going to happen here but I'm weary whenever there is corporate meddling and profit goals that have to be reached. They have to earn back that 4.5 million somehow.
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Yep, the prevailing notion that nothing will change is absolutely absurd. I expect an entirely different staff by the end of the year.
 
Pretty incredible to pay almost 5 million dollars for an internet forum in 2021. I do wonder what's gonna happen to it.
 
Cerium made out like a bandit lol. Hell of a time for this though. I doubt it even registered for M.O.B.A., but I wonder how pleased they are about the Sales and NintendoEra debacle. Can't be too happy to see moderators conspire to ruin communities. :3
 
I hope I'm not setting a tone but I'm hoping this thread can be extra civil. Understandable as it is, Era doesn't need to cast a shadow on Famiboards.

There's a lot of individual points and concerns that comes up to reconcile with cleanly. I'm not surprised the sale itself was made. I can reconcile with the idea that the moderation team/admins were told of this ahead of time and has decided to stay on with the future laid out for the time being, if it happened as such.

I'm not going to comment on the relationship I have with era in detail because I'm pretty distanced on how I post on the internet as a whole, but for now, my stance is wait and see what happens. My last post on gaf was 'if it dies, it dies,' but that was another time and another place.
 
Yzz said:
Does the timing suggests that the exoduses in the last year or so, affected the traffic of the site?
It has been documented that trolling, which became abundant in the site, increases user engagement, but it seemed that in this case it actually started to drive users away.
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It definitely did (look how big XboxEra got), but I don't think it was a factor in the sale. That only really came to a head in the past month or two, and I doubt any deal of this size is going to happen THAT quickly.
 
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That's probably the end of Era, I think.

They have had a no fun allowed policy since its inception so it will probably just double down on it.
 
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LMAO
Xterrian said:
Cerium made out like a bandit lol. Hell of a time for this though. I doubt it even registered for M.O.B.A., but I wonder how pleased they are about the Sales and NintendoEra debacle. Can't be too happy to see moderators conspire to ruin communities. :3
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Yep he just dipped that thread
 
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Geez. 4.5m payout while the mods continue to be volunteers. Reminds me of seeing how much money Twitch streamers make while they’re having fans volunteer to mod their chat instead of paying for staff.

Honestly all the mods there should quit if that wealth isn’t shared a bit, it’s so disrespectful.
 
Benzychenz said:
Geez. 4.5m payout while the mods continue to be volunteers. Reminds me of seeing how much money Twitch streamers make while they’re having fans volunteer to mod their chat instead of paying for staff.

Honestly all the mods there should quit if that wealth isn’t shared a bit, it’s so disrespectful.
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A lot of big Twitch streamers actually do pay their mods, which makes the whole thing even more ridiculous.
 
I hope the website can still thrive, but some members have got to go. The way some of them bait each other into getting banned/thread banned is scary.
 
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LOL, well this should be interesting to see, make some room fellow members so I can take a seat looking at the sinking ship. That's a lot of money for a gaming site.
 
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Its kinda hilarious that another single dude managed to take hold of the site after what happened to neogaf, i wont lie. The admins at least surely knew of the arrangement and kept quiet but given the exodus of figures like Zhugex, Emily, Nibel and numerous others i bet theres a lot out there that we dont know. So much for transparency
 
Eh, i doubt there will be another G*F situation where these owners decide to delete several years worth of history for no reason. At the very least they'll give people a year or two to prepare this time. i hope

But i think the real issue here is that i think Online Communities in general are incredibly fickle and the death of an individual group is basically inevitable regardless of what happens. This is coming from someone who was witnessed this happening several times already.
Even if ERA wasn't plagued by discourse over administration decisions, even if MOBA Network didn't buy them, the cycle (and it's successors, like this very site.) would continue.

The general lesson here, i think. Is just to consider that friendships are not permanent. and it's best to focus on living your best life as an individual, that doesn't mean you should avoid any and all contact with others, getting help when needed is still an important part. But remember that they might not always be there for you when necessary, and could potentially be gone forever someday.

I suppose i'm a bit lucky in my case, in that i at least know what my purpose (archival work) is, and i can always dive right back into it to forget about the losses. Make Art Not Friends, as they say.
Benzychenz said:
Geez. 4.5m payout while the mods continue to be volunteers. Reminds me of seeing how much money Twitch streamers make while they’re having fans volunteer to mod their chat instead of paying for staff.


Honestly all the mods there should quit if that wealth isn’t shared a bit, it’s so disrespectful.
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I don't get why people are so stringent on this part in particular. Mods being unpaid volunteers has been a standard part of Forum culture for decades.

The SEGA Forums (an example of one of the many communities i've seen die out.) never paid their mods either. Despite being run by a large gaming studio.
This is just the natural way these things go, and it even has continued on to the modern-day stuff like Discord servers.
 
Krvavi Abadas said:
Eh, i doubt there will be another G*F situation where these owners decide to delete several years worth of history for no reason. At the very least they'll give people a year or two to prepare this time. i hope

But i think the real issue here is that i think Online Communities in general are incredibly fickle and the death of an individual group is basically inevitable regardless of what happens. This is coming from someone who was witnessed this happening several times already.
Even if ERA wasn't plagued by discourse over administration decisions, even if MOBA Network didn't buy them, the cycle (and it's successors, like this very site.) would continue.

The general lesson here, i think. Is just to consider that friendships are not permanent. and it's best to focus on living your best life as an individual, that doesn't mean you should avoid any and all contact with others, getting help when needed is still an important part. But remember that they might not always be there for you when necessary, and could potentially be gone forever someday.

I suppose i'm a bit lucky in my case, in that i at least know what my purpose (archival work) is, and i can always dive right back into it to forget about the losses. Make Art Not Friends, as they say.

I don't get why people are so stringent on this part in particular. Mods being unpaid volunteers has been a standard part of Forum culture for decades.

The SEGA Forums (an example of one of the many communities i've seen die out.) never paid their mods either. Despite being run by a large gaming studio.
This is just the natural way these things go, and it even has continued on to the modern-day stuff like Discord servers.
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If someone was modding a forum run by Sega for free that someone is a moron that doesn’t value their own time and work.

Era was a community created and community run forum, so mods volunteering for that space makes sense. But then when you learn the owner is actually making bank from running the site, the whole thing feels hollow. Pay your staff.
 
Krvavi Abadas said:
Eh, i doubt there will be another G*F situation where these owners decide to delete several years worth of history for no reason. At the very least they'll give people a year or two to prepare this time. i hope

But i think the real issue here is that i think Online Communities in general are incredibly fickle and the death of an individual group is basically inevitable regardless of what happens. This is coming from someone who was witnessed this happening several times already.
Even if ERA wasn't plagued by discourse over administration decisions, even if MOBA Network didn't buy them, the cycle (and it's successors, like this very site.) would continue.

The general lesson here, i think. Is just to consider that friendships are not permanent. and it's best to focus on living your best life as an individual, that doesn't mean you should avoid any and all contact with others, getting help when needed is still an important part. But remember that they might not always be there for you when necessary, and could potentially be gone forever someday.

I suppose i'm a bit lucky in my case, in that i at least know what my purpose (archival work) is, and i can always dive right back into it to forget about the losses. Make Art Not Friends, as they say.

I don't get why people are so stringent on this part in particular. Mods being unpaid volunteers has been a standard part of Forum culture for decades.

The SEGA Forums (an example of one of the many communities i've seen die out.) never paid their mods either. Despite being run by a large gaming studio.
This is just the natural way these things go, and it even has continued on to the modern-day stuff like Discord servers.
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Just "because its always been like that" is not a good argument, specially when the project consists only of a message board that rakes a lot of money. The issue with resetera is an extreme lack of communication and transparency, it was touted as being different from gaf from inception but its basically a more progressive/liberal skin. The structures and modus operandi are the same, hell, even some of the mods and most of the posters are
 
Long live Famiboards. No ill will towards Era, and I wish them the best, but it's so nice having a fresh Nintendo-centric forum in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty and one.
 
Whatever my thoughts on Cerium, gotta respect the hustle. Not sure there's much I wouldn't do for 4.5 million.

Cannot wait to see how a forum that bans more users than it takes in functions when the goal is infinite growth.
 
Mekanos said:
Whatever my thoughts on Cerium, gotta respect the hustle. Not sure there's much I wouldn't do for 4.5 million.

Cannot wait to see how a forum that bans more users than it takes in functions when the goal is infinite growth.
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They either want data, or milk its current userbase a la twitter (obviously not as big) by increasing "engagement" (trolling and toxicity). Maybe both!
 
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Raccoon said:
Yep, the prevailing notion that nothing will change is absolutely absurd. I expect an entirely different staff by the end of the year.
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Honestly, that's probably for the best. To say nothing of the individuals themselves, just their demonstrable ability to chase away so many communities with one PR blunder after another is astounding. If the new owners pay even one iota of attention there's no way they don't clean house, since they are a public company that presumably wants to generate profit/growth. Though I'm sure plenty of the mods will resign themselves before then. And MOBA probably has completely different plans for the forum anyway.

Krvavi Abadas said:
I don't get why people are so stringent on this part in particular. Mods being unpaid volunteers has been a standard part of Forum culture for decades.

The SEGA Forums (an example of one of the many communities i've seen die out.) never paid their mods either. Despite being run by a large gaming studio.
This is just the natural way these things go, and it even has continued on to the modern-day stuff like Discord servers.
Click to expand...
I don't think it's the same at all. Well first of all Sega should've absolutely paid their mods. But secondly, ERA rakes in mounds of cash, and is extremely large/active. Moderating it is significantly more demanding than moderating a forum like this. And regardless of whether or not you think its staff is any good, they deserve to get paid for the amount of work they have to put in and the sheer mental toll of it all. Again, especially because Cerium can easily afford it.
 
At the start It was Said the forum lacked money asked people to not use Adblock and subscribe, It was never transparent regarding that
 
This was the final straw to make me delete my Resetera account. I'm now a Famiboards exclusive. Quick, someone call me anti-consumer.
 
Presumably there will be a lot of changes; realistically ResetEra was on the way out anyway with a lot of communities leaving to make their own forums. Some of the recent moderating has been crazy - specifically that Jim Ryan/Middle East thread, people get banned for nothing.

In saying that, I don't get the furor re: the mods not getting paid - they signed on as volunteers after all, typically you don't get paid for volunteering.
 
0
I'm still processing this tbh but it feels like a significant splintering after the cohesive exodus from the previous site. I hope a lot of the great posters who aren't already here, find their way here.
 
Ray00101 said:
Can we limit the amount of people we may potentially take in from there? I would rather this place not devolve into Era.
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that would be...hmm contentious. no need to add drama, i trust the good people here to reign them in. Even i im trying to be on my best behaviour to respect the more laid back and positive atmosphere we got here
 
Already seeing a lot of Bad faith actors, previously banned era members and just horrible fucking people on social media using this as an excuse to say that all of Era were fake allies etc. Maybe i am wrong for saying it (I wasn't even a memeber of that site) but it fucking sucks. Yeah, Era wasn't perfect, but at least it wasnt a homophobic, hateful and downright shitty place. Anyway, better shut my mouth about it.
 
Ray00101 said:
Can we limit the amount of people we may potentially take in from there? I would rather this place not devolve into Era.
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Not a fan of this rhetoric. Everyone is welcome, we're here to discuss Nintendo. Transparency matters; I think the staff are doing a great job in that regard. That will prevent Famiboards from making the same mistakes. You can call out the staff freely; no mod whining bans here.
 
Ultrapop said:
Already seeing a lot of Bad faith actors, previously banned era members and just horrible fucking people on social media using this as an excuse to say that all of Era were fake allies etc. Maybe i am wrong for saying it (I wasn't even a memeber of that site) but it fucking sucks. Yeah, Era wasn't perfect, but at least it wasnt a homophobic, hateful and downright shitty place. Anyway, better shut my mouth about it.
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i dont know man, theres lots of ugly stuff that happened there to minority communities. A lot of threads with legit complaints and bans galore vanished. I wouldnt go to bat for resetera without receipts.

That said, of course you'll have chuds celebrating anything nasty that happens there cause their racist/bigoted shtick wouldnt fly there and got dropped quite fairly. Era has that gift of annoying everybody though and imo thats due to bad communication and transparency with everything regarding those boards. It promised something great but failed to deliver. Thats why we are here
 
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Jarmusch said:
i dont know man, theres lots of ugly stuff that happened there to minority communities. A lot of threads with legit complaints and bans galore vanished. I wouldnt go to bat for resetera without receipts.

That said, of course you'll have chuds celebrating anything nasty that happens there cause their racist/bigoted shtick wouldnt fly there and got dropped quite fairly. Era has that gift of annoying everybody though and imo thats due to bad communication transparency with everything regarding those boards. It promised something great but failed to deliver. Thats why we are here
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Mind pointing out the part where i wrote "Era was a wonderful place''
Of course they fucked up more than once (Asian era, LGBTQ era etc) and yeah, some of the mods were less than good people. But let's not act like all of Era was shitty. idk man, maybe you're right and i am wrong, anyway, back to lurking for me. Have a good one y'all ✌️
 
Ultrapop said:
Mind pointing out the part where i wrote "Era was a wonderful place''
Of course they fucked up more than once (Asian era, LGBTQ era etc) and yeah, some of the mods were less than good people. But let's not act like all of Era was shitty. idk man, maybe you're right and i am wrong, anyway, back to lurking for me. Have a good one y'all ✌️
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i mean, it greatly depends on your gender/race, and interests i guess,cause obviously as you wrote, many communities didnt felt comfortable there. And as i wrote it had tremendous potential undermined by a self serving hierarchy, but theres posters here - who probably wont bother, nor they should - that can attest to that more accuratly.

It should be praised by clamping down on bigoted posters and trying to be a very inclusive board that ultimately failed cause the power fell to a single dude, once again.
 
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Era is a bad website and the only approach mods and admins know, to deal with any problems or conflict, is to just ban everyone.
 
Nabbit said:
I'm still processing this tbh but it feels like a significant splintering after the cohesive exodus from the previous site. I hope a lot of the great posters who aren't already here, find their way here.
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I give @bellydrum a lot of credit. He's done an excellent job with bringing people over here.

I'm seeing people here that I haven't seen in 3-4 years.
 
All i hope is please don't follow in Resetera's steps with famiboards. But yeah that Cerium guy it always bothered me he owned the place in the first place. Was very weird a single dude bought up all other shares and became sole owner. It was hella fishy. Also he had quite the weird takes. Also shame he does not atleast give the mods a one time monetary gift. He literally never posted in 2 years LOL.

Also feel bad that the mods defend him to heaven. Read through the majority of the threat and..... yh

Also kinda crazy a so called progressive forum does the most capilatism thing possible.

No wonder Nibel left and others quite early.

To add that resetera sub plan is even more crazy now if i remember correctly it said the money was used for the site. So peeps who thought they contributed to a community contributed directly to his pockets.
 
That thread is the most active Era mods have ever been and it's to circlejerk about how much they love not getting paid and if the community cares so much about them not getting paid, maybe the community should pay them did you ever think about that.

Weird shit, man. I really should stop being surprised at how openly hostile the staff is towards the community on Era, but I never am.
 
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