azorius.net

Video game genre communities on the Threadiverse
from Elevator7009@lemmy.zip to games@lemmy.world on 17 Apr 16:48
https://lemmy.zip/post/36589978

List more in the comments! I’ll add them if they are a community for a video game genre, and have had at least one post in the last month. Crossposted to !communitypromo@lemmy.ca here.

!adventuregames@lemm.ee (also has puzzle and interactive fiction)
!arcaderacing@lemm.ee
!automationgames@lemmy.zip (replaces dead feddit.de community)
!citybuilders@sh.itjust.works
!cozygames@lemmy.world (replaces dead feddit.de community)
!crpg@lemmy.world
!dailygames@lemmy.zip (for quick once-a-day web games like Wordle)
!fgc@lemmy.dbzer0.com and !fgc@lemmy.world
!incremental_games@incremental.social (having federation troubles, but as someone with an incremental.social account I can guarantee we are active)
!jrpg@lemmy.zip and !jrpg@lemmy.world
!lifesimulation@lemmy.world
!metroidvanias@infosec.pub
!otomegames@ani.social
!rhythmgames@lemm.ee
!roguelikes@lemmy.world
!shmups@lemmus.org
!simrallyracing@lemmy.world and !simracing@lemmy.zip
!soulslike@lemmy.zip
!strategy@lemmy.world, !strategygames@sopuli.xyz, !turnbasedstrategy@lemmy.world, !turn_based_tactics@lemmy.zip
!tycoon@lemmy.world
!visualnovels@ani.social

I also found some genres with dead communities. Maybe someone would like to revive one, or make a new one (preferably on a smaller instance than lemmy.world)?

!horrorgaming@lemmy.world
!platformer_games@sh.itjust.works
!puzzlegames@lemm.ee (yes, !adventuregames has some, whether puzzles actually belong with adventure games is another conversation. I don’t think so but I’m not an expert on either genre)
!realtimestrategy@lemmy.world and !rts@reddthat.com
!survivalgames@lemm.ee

On my search for communities to put here I found some genres seem to be wholly missing. Let me know if I missed something!

MMOs
open world/sandbox
RPGs that don’t really fit in CRPG or JRPG
shooters (think FPS, hero shooters, literally any shooting game that does not fit in the shmup/shoot-em-up genre)
simulation in general
sports
stealth

#games

threaded - newest

ampersandrew@lemmy.world on 17 Apr 16:55 next collapse

I think a lot of these are going to be placeholder for a while until more generalized communities like this one see more growth. It’ll be a while before we even hit 100k subscribers here, and you need to have a subset of those people who are looking to talk about an even more specific interest in more depth.

Agent_Karyo@lemmy.world on 17 Apr 17:27 next collapse

I think the bigger deal is Lemmy/Threadiverse getting 100K MAU and seeing steady growth beyond that. We are currently at around ~50-55K MAU.

Subs are a deceptive metric, MAUs are far more important.

ampersandrew@lemmy.world on 17 Apr 18:14 collapse

Oh, things are trending in the right direction, but we’re still a long ways away from needing smaller sub communities.

Agent_Karyo@lemmy.world on 18 Apr 03:40 next collapse

In principle I agree with you, but it’s also a “chicken and egg” type problem. Many people aren’t going to switch to Lemmy if there isn’t a modicum of coverage for more specialized topics.

I think getting to somewhere beyond 100K MAU will have a transformative effective on activity in some more specialized communities.

Elevator7009@lemmy.zip on 18 Apr 17:13 collapse

On one hand I understand this, but on the other hand I’d like to post games I find that fit these subgenres or talk about that subgenre without making myself the biggest spammer in !games@lemmy.world, and I think (time will tell!) I do have the stubbornness necessary to scream into the void until people come along. Maybe I should crosspost the ones I think are most likely to have mass appeal…

ampersandrew@lemmy.world on 18 Apr 17:16 collapse

I wish you the best of luck. I don’t know what that threshold is where the smaller communities make sense, but for me, we haven’t met it yet.

Elevator7009@lemmy.zip on 18 Apr 17:48 collapse

I feel if I spontaneously quit all my niche gaming communities and posted everything I’d post there on a general community instead, I’d annoy everyone with a bunch of Steam links for games they probably do not care about. People in the niche communities are more likely to care about a link to a game in a genre they already like. Also, for most of the small communities I’ve got at least one other poster sometimes, and that’s better than nobody! Despite all the trouble with incremental.social and federation, when I can get on there we do have a few regulars chatting there and that’s nice.

contains gender politics

There’s also just fans of a certain genre being used to backlash from the wider gaming community. I did get mostly upvotes when I posted !otomegames@ani.social, which is mostly romance visual novels for women who like men, to !newcommunities@lemmy.world. I appreciate it. But I am not sure how posting these games to !games@lemmy.world would go over, especially when I suspect Lemmy to be male-dominated. Visual novels already suffer from the “it’s all just hentai” stereotype. Now add the “media for women, especially romance media, is stupid and vapid and silly” prejudice. And even for those who just live and let live, I suspect most of the general !games@lemmy.world community would be disinterested in otome game posts, which is fair because I’m disinterested in romance and/or sex visual novels aimed at men who want to date women (although they should definitely be allowed to exist and people should be allowed to like them in peace). So both to avoid any backlash, and to avoid annoying the wider community, I don’t want to post those games to this general community. I still want a space for it on Lemmy though, so I made that community. I have one other regular poster and sometimes people drop in and comment.

You could make the argument that I’m simply posting low-quality content, and I’d just have to raise the bar for !games@lemmy.world to accept my posts, and that I just want my niches back, to which I say: fair. But unfortunately I’m no video game expert or connoisseur. I play and enjoy. The lovely guide and wiki makers usually get there before I can. I’m not too good at coming up with fun discussion questions that are better than what I’d consider low-tier engagement bait back on Reddit like “name one good thing about [noncontroversial character]”. So link posts it is, better some on-topic content than none at all. And even if I did write a wonderful in-depth review or guide, if it’s not for some big mainstream appeal game but something that only genre enthusiasts really like, not sure how well !games@lemmy.world would take to it. So that’s my rationale for having these niche communities. You’re still very free to think I’m wrong ;) Thanks for contributing in earnest to !games@lemmy.world!

Elevator7009@lemmy.zip on 17 Apr 17:59 collapse

You’re probably right, but most of these do exist already, so I figure not why not continue trying to use them (and to direct attention from this big community there)? Also probably doesn’t help a lot of instances have general games communities. We’re pretty splintered. Now that I think about it I should probably crosspost to some of the bigger ones.

Aielman15@lemmy.world on 17 Apr 19:18 next collapse

sffa.community/c/sffgaming?dataType=Post&page=0

Sffagaming is for sci-fi games, but I haven’t seen a post in there in a while.

lemm.ee/c/the_talos_principle?dataType=Post&page=…

lemmy.world/c/residentevil?dataType=Post&page=0

Communities for Talos Principle and Resident Evil, but again, they aren’t active.

lemm.ee/c/gamemusic?dataType=Post&page=0

Community for sharing game music. Not very active, but I see posts in my feed every now and then.

retrolemmy.com/c/TipOfMyJoystick?dataType=Post&pa…

Fairly new community to help people looking for a specific name they forgot the name of.

Sorry for not sharing the generic link, I’m on mobile and that’s the link my app generates when I click on “share”.

Elevator7009@lemmy.zip on 17 Apr 21:36 next collapse

!sffgaming@sffa.community
!the_talos_principle@lemm.ee
!residentevil@lemmy.world
!gamemusic@lemm.ee
!tipofmyjoystick@retrolemmy.com

tal@lemmy.today on 17 Apr 23:07 collapse

Another adjacent community that is seeing no real activity: !arcadesticks@lemmy.world

tal@lemmy.today on 17 Apr 23:02 next collapse

!gamemusic@lemm.ee

Community for sharing game music.

On that note, !gameart@sopuli.xyz for video game artwork.

Communities for Talos Principle and Resident Evil, but again, they aren’t active.

Yeah, there are a bunch of communities for individual video games, but they’re all pretty dead. I think that !pixeldungeon@lemmy.world, where the dev actually shows up, posts, and moderates is probably one of the most alive.

This came up when I originally got on the Threadiverse — I remember suggesting that people post in generic gaming communities, then when the load became too high, move to genre-specific, and then when the load became too high, move to game-specific. Otherwise, the userbase in any one community just isn’t large enough to get much community activity.

Aielman15@lemmy.world on 18 Apr 00:23 next collapse

I agree. In the days immediately following the APIcalypse, people attempted to move all their favourite niche communities to Lemmy, but the site’s active userbase isn’t there yet for that kind of content - much to my displeasure: I was only active in two/three niche communities back when I was a Reddit user, but they are pretty much nonexistent here, so I’m forced to include more generic communities in my Lemmy feed to keep it from drying up.

tal@lemmy.today on 18 Apr 01:17 next collapse

Oh, and @PugJesus@lemmy.world has kept a flow of material to !fallout@lemmy.world, for one other game-specific community that has some activity.

Aielman15@lemmy.world on 18 Apr 11:54 collapse

PugJesus and The_Picard_Maneuver are single-handedly keeping half of Lemmy afloat.

Elevator7009@lemmy.zip on 18 Apr 17:17 collapse

!baldurs_gate_3@lemmy.world has some activity thanks to @PugJesus@lemmy.world
!stardewvalley@lemm.ee has activity thanks to @sag@ani.social
!factorio@lemmy.world has some posts
!infinitynikki@discuss.tchncs.de has three people including myself There are probably more for some really big games, but these are the ones I know of.

tal@lemmy.today on 17 Apr 23:17 collapse

sffa.community/c/sffgaming?dataType=Post&page=0

Sffagaming is for sci-fi games, but I haven’t seen a post in there in a while.

I can’t DNS-resolve sffa.community, either on IPv4 or IPv6. Google’s DNS root can’t see it either:

$ host -t a sffa.community 8.8.8.8
Using domain server:
Name: 8.8.8.8
Address: 8.8.8.8#53
Aliases: 

Host sffa.community not found: 2(SERVFAIL)

$ host -t aaaa sffa.community 8.8.8.8
Using domain server:
Name: 8.8.8.8
Address: 8.8.8.8#53
Aliases: 

Host sffa.community not found: 2(SERVFAIL)

$

It clearly existed at one point, because lemmy.world has local copies of some stuff from a year back:

lemmy.world/c/sffgaming@sffa.community?dataType=P…

But I think that the instance is gone now.

EDIT: The last time archive.org’s Wayback Machine was able to successfully index it was September 16, 2024:

web.archive.org/web/…/sffa.community/

Aielman15@lemmy.world on 18 Apr 00:15 collapse

Oh, that’s sad. No point in staying subscribed, then.

Kolanaki@pawb.social on 17 Apr 19:22 next collapse

RPGs that don’t really fit in CRPG or JRPG

I was thinking it is weird that the generically named “RPGs” community (and RPGMemes) seems focused entirely on tabletop stuff, but I just noticed it’s literally on an instance dedicated to tabletop games so that explains that…

MelonYellow@lemmy.ca on 17 Apr 19:33 collapse

Yeah they’re all tabletop. If there was one for general RPG games, I would’ve been joined. Missed opportunity for sure

Cocodapuf@lemmy.world on 18 Apr 13:16 collapse

TIL, the threadiverse has a lot of .zip communities.

I wonder if they’ll be larger after I unpack them?