Intergrate indreams.me Forums Into Dreams

SUMMARY: Integrate the indreams.me forums into Dreams so users can post from within Dreams. This will alleviate multiple problems with the biggest ones being player engagement and retention.

I noticed indreams.me 3.3.0 was added to 'In The Works' on Trello. While it's mostly a user guide and documentations oriented update, it shows that Mm still believes indreams.me is important enough to continue to work on it. That's reassuring, since this site still holds a lot of value. That's why I think they need to confront a major issue:

The forums are dead, and community engagement and player retention has declined.

I'm not trying to spread a doom and gloom outlook. Plenty of people have done that already. Nor am I suggesting the usual solutions (e.g. multiplayer, PS5 version). I'm aware that some of those ideas are already on Mm's to-do list. What I'm concerned about is the engagement from a community standpoint and how this affect's Dreams ability to retain new and returning players. The low activity on these forums has been brought up before, but that was dismissed as the forums being new and to "give it time" to grow; dreambubble.me, another forum, has died as a result of inactivity. Others have suggested that this style of forum is simply old and niche so users will stick with their preferred platform and that's okay.

How, then, would you welcome a new player to this community under these current circumstances?

"Use a forum like reddit to discuss the game, but be sure to use Twitter to promote your games! Need help? Use YouTube for tutorials, or use indreams.me for better documentation. Use dreamstats.me for analytics. Use discord to collaborate. Use this site for this, and use that site for that..."

Do you see how ridiculously it is for a new player to enter this community? How does anybody expect a newcomer to stay engaged when the community feels fragmented and resources aren't in clear reach? "But the game promotes indreams.me so that's good enough" you say, yet as a companion site it feels half-baked and inactive compared to other websites with more users and documentation. Now add in the fact that this game was intended to also reach younger audience and the problem is made even worse. How is anybody, let alone a child, is supposed to feel welcomed when joining this community feels like calling support and getting redirected through multiple departments until one of them has the answer?

I'm sorry if this sounding like a rant, but by no means am I attacking Dreams, the community, or Mm. I'm simply stating the obvious that many have pointed out over the years this game has been out. Taking a look at player count, albeit an unofficial count, it's evident that Dreams can't retain users. The same statistics also show an increase during seasonal and CoMmunity events, so attracting players doesn't seem to be an issue. I have faith in Mm's ability to attract new players, and if/when multiplayer finally arrives (hopefully), the player count will shoot up again; this seems to be the general consensus in the community. But again, I must stress this: the biggest issue has been how to retain new/returning players, and I believe the fragmented state of the community is playing a part in it.

People have given plenty of reasons for this. "It has no monetization!" "It's too limiting!" "It's not free!" "It's not on PC!" "It has no multiplayer!" Funny how that's the problem for Dreams but plenty of games have started under the similar circumstances just fine and had strong followings post launch. There are decades old singleplayer games out there with stronger cult followings than Dreams. I won't deny features like multiplayer will help, but as it stands the current state of the community does more to discourage new players from engaging with the community and staying. Addressing this issue now will help Dreams in the long term. Addressing it now will help retain more players when a big feature (e.g. multiplayer) comes, rather than doing so after said feature goes live and we already see a significant drop in the player count (i.e. post-launch).

"So what do you mean 'integrate the forums with Dreams' and how does that solve things?"

First and foremost, it means new players will finally get a good first impression of the community: directly in reach, easy to engage with, and unified. Good first impressions!

Anyways, in the same way the Weekly Roundup and other news can be displayed in Dreams without loading the browser, the forums should be displayed in their own section. indreams.me already allows us to view in-game comments on Dreams and even post a comment from the website. So, an in-game forum that can be interacted with from indreams.me will not only give everybody a definitive place to discuss Dreams, but it will also solve other issues people have brought up such as:

• Promoting creations without the need to mass "Send" to everybody.

At the moment there is no real way to promote your creation in Dreams, and it's highly unlikely everybody is on every other social channels, so the only reliable way to get more eyes on your work is to send it to everybody on Dreams. This is both tedious and time consuming, and it also comes off as mass spamming to some which can lead to account blocks (and sometimes tension). Then there are those who refuse to do because of those previous stated issues, but that only hurts their chances of getting more recognition. Having an in-game forum will allow for easier self promotion.

• Asset creators/curators not getting enough attention.

Because dreams are the only thing that can be on the Dreamsurfing section, people who specialize in assets, audio, or even curating will tend to get less attention for their work. An in-game forum will finally give them a proper place to be seen, and since Dreams already allows linking to other creations and profiles it makes creating lists of their work/recommendations easy and accessible. Curators will especially benefit from this since commenters can recommend something to check out via linking, and people who are getting promoted won't be constantly notified that someone put their work in a collection.

• Finding help will be easier.

Currently, if someone needs help with an issue or wants to collaborate with people, they'll be told to look to other websites for assistance. With an in-game forum those who are knowledgeable will be able to troubleshoot the issue right then and there in Dreams. "Need a piece of logic? Here's a link to one." "There's a bug you can't fix? Add me as a collab so I can take a look." All of those interactions can happen in Dreams without the need to go to another website, look around to find the resources you need, to find someone to help you, only to end up questioning whether the hassle is worth it. Creators will also have an easier time finding others who want to work on a project, whether they ask for additional members or they put out the word that they're available to join a team.

• Moderating and keeping a "good image" will be easier.

People will have mixed feelings about this, but remember: this is a T-rated game made with 'family friendly' in mind. Because of how fragmented the community is at the moment, the community is represented by the collective social media platforms that discuss it. Some will argue against this, but those same people will also admit Mm is more active and reachable on those platforms than here. So by default aren't those platforms more representative of the community than our "official" forums? So with that in mind, the community can be considered self-moderated. Mm has no say with how Twitter, reddit, and so on discuss the game, and that has worked out so far... because of the low activity. But if the holy grail that is multiplayer finally comes into fruition, how then will Mm be able to continue to promote it as a family friendly environment when the community has no official body to keep them in check? Continue to rely on self moderation? Mm has promoted fan forums as an alternative. Does that mean regularly checking on those platforms to see if they are compliant? With an in-game forum, all of that can be resolved by simply moderating one place and allowing the other sites to discuss Dreams on their own terms. The image of the community will be one that Mm can have full control over without needing to rely on other sites doing their part. If any negative stuff occurs on those sites then it will be reflective of them and not of the Dreams community as a whole.

• Jams will be easier to manage.

Community jams, game jams, and the special events like All Hallows' all run into the same problem: it's hard to organize. I've seen people ask questions about specifics go unanswered, and I've some respond that they got their answer from some other site. I've seen confusion over where to submit their works. Ironically, this year Mm decided to abandon indreams.me for All Hallows' submissions and resorted to a Google doc. Yes, not even Mm had faith in their own platform to organize this year's event! An in-game forum will allow for people organize community jams easier, seek answers to questions faster, create and display guidelines better, submit their works in an orderly fashion, and of course find new jams to join way easier.

And that's just some of the side issues being resolved on top of resolving the main issue: community engagement and player retention! An in-game forum will allow people to feel welcomed into a community versus having to fight for attention on a gigantic social media platform. It will allow Dreamers to strike conversations with other like minded Dreamers. It will motivate those to create knowing there is an active audience and helpful community ready to play, give feedback, and assist. It will point newcomers to resources faster and more efficiently which in affect also gets rid of the negative perception that Dreams' skill-ceiling is too daunting for new players. An in-game forum resolves multiple issues, and it encourages more engagement from the community which leads to more player retention.

If you have made it this far in my post, you might have some doubt about integrating the forums into Dreams. "Don't you think Mm would have done it by now if it's possible?" Need I remind you that indreams.me currently allows audio importing, commenting on creations and profiles, curating options, and has a few editing tools (nothing big but still notable). I'm still shocked audio importing is a thing, but it also comes with a splicer? And appears in scene as a gadget? That's just nuts! So why no in-game forums if it seems feasible? My guess: I don't think they prioritized it. I don't think they anticipated the player count to drop off significantly, nor do I think they anticipated the community being this disjointed compared to their previous UGC franchise, AKA LittleBigPlanet. The forums were archived before being restored post launch, Dreamsurfing was a mess before its redesign, and community curators were hired to help with playlists and other community stuff. I think it's fair to say that Mm has put more focus on the create features of the game to both a) keep the perception that they're still supporting Dreams to silence naysayers, and b) respond to the voices of the creators of the community since creators are the ones making content. "More content = more players" appears to be the current line of thinking, but if the community doesn't feel very engaging then those players will simply move on and not return.

I'm sorry for this lengthy post. I know I'm not a veteran creator with shiny awards or followers to show any credibility. I'm also sorry if people don't take kind to me linking their posts as "evidence." It wasn't done out of malice. It was simply to show that people have voiced opinions on Dreams' state. I respect those opinions since they show a level of genuine concern over this game's future. If it's any consolation, I play a lot of others players' creations, and I've played a lot of fantastic creations. While I also dabble a lot in creating (mostly on my alt accounts), having Player as part of my persona and above average lifetime stats of playing on my main account is something I'm proud to have achieved. I'm just worried everybody is putting their hopes on big features as a sort of hail mary attempt to bring life back to the game rather than creating a stronger foundation for the community so when we do get a huge influx of players we don't have a repeat of the game's launch.

That's just my take on the situation.