You know, 8WAYRUN was launched about 2 weeks after the release of Soulcalibur IV. The community's previous home was having issues and we didn't know how much longer it would be around. We were taking a risk with 8WAYRUN; since it was community funded, we had no idea if it would be self-sustainable. About 6 months after the release of SC4 we became the de-facto hub for all things Soulcalibur.
At first we struggled, but overtime, as real advertisers came in, this website became more than self-sufficient. In fact, it was doing well enough that we were able to get our own dedicated server in preparation for the launch of Soulcalibur V. SC5 launched and since then there has been little to no downtime. 8WAYRUN remains self-sufficient and won't be going anywhere anytime soon.
Something a lot of you may not know, but a lot of the software for this website was written by me. In fact, except for the forum software and the skin itself, this entire website was built in house. The event system, ranking system, media library, the wiki, and even the way we handle spam bots and similar ilk have been boons for our community and have helped us become more feature rich than almost every other tournament community out there.
However, at the same time, most of the software I've made for 8WAYRUN has a modular design. I've been able to package them up and release them for free on the internet. Releasing the software to the public has allowed me to put a link back to 8WAYRUN on some of the biggest websites on the net. The result is that this website has one of the highest possible Google PageRanks to a simple forum.
But while the original purpose of releasing all this software for free to the public was to expand the reach of 8WAYRUN and increase it's PageRank, Soulcalibur has been declining in popularity. In fact, it has come to a point where the software I've written for 8WAYRUN is now more popular than 8WAYRUN itself. In addition, the advertising revenue keeping this website afloat is slowly coming down and will eventually meet the cost of our dedicated server.
Now don't get me wrong, I already said before that 8WAYRUN won't be going anywhere. If money became an issue, we would simply need to scale back to a virtual private server to cut costs. But either way, I now had to make a choice: I could scale back the server and keep things the status-quo, or I could use our extra resources to expand. I've decided to choose the latter rather than an inevitable bleed-out.
You should have noticed by now that these forums are now located on a "calibur" sub-domain. All the old links will continue to work; and with our routing system, they should always work. But new links all get forward to the new sub-domain. Its my intention to turn 8WAYRUN into not just a community for Soulcalibur, but a network of communities for many games; and not just fighting games either.
Why not use that extra revenue we are currently generating to help other communities that need it? I know there are a lot of communities out there that still run off free forums, or forums less accommodating for the tournament scene. Therefore, any community that is looking for a home, and can prove a minimum level of interest in their series will be welcome to join the 8WAYRUN collective. I will provide hosting, management, software and relative autonomy.
Turning 8WAYRUN into a network, will also give me the ability to offer a proper home to all the software I have made publicly available. Just let me know what kind of games you want to see join our family.
At first we struggled, but overtime, as real advertisers came in, this website became more than self-sufficient. In fact, it was doing well enough that we were able to get our own dedicated server in preparation for the launch of Soulcalibur V. SC5 launched and since then there has been little to no downtime. 8WAYRUN remains self-sufficient and won't be going anywhere anytime soon.
Something a lot of you may not know, but a lot of the software for this website was written by me. In fact, except for the forum software and the skin itself, this entire website was built in house. The event system, ranking system, media library, the wiki, and even the way we handle spam bots and similar ilk have been boons for our community and have helped us become more feature rich than almost every other tournament community out there.
However, at the same time, most of the software I've made for 8WAYRUN has a modular design. I've been able to package them up and release them for free on the internet. Releasing the software to the public has allowed me to put a link back to 8WAYRUN on some of the biggest websites on the net. The result is that this website has one of the highest possible Google PageRanks to a simple forum.
But while the original purpose of releasing all this software for free to the public was to expand the reach of 8WAYRUN and increase it's PageRank, Soulcalibur has been declining in popularity. In fact, it has come to a point where the software I've written for 8WAYRUN is now more popular than 8WAYRUN itself. In addition, the advertising revenue keeping this website afloat is slowly coming down and will eventually meet the cost of our dedicated server.
Now don't get me wrong, I already said before that 8WAYRUN won't be going anywhere. If money became an issue, we would simply need to scale back to a virtual private server to cut costs. But either way, I now had to make a choice: I could scale back the server and keep things the status-quo, or I could use our extra resources to expand. I've decided to choose the latter rather than an inevitable bleed-out.
You should have noticed by now that these forums are now located on a "calibur" sub-domain. All the old links will continue to work; and with our routing system, they should always work. But new links all get forward to the new sub-domain. Its my intention to turn 8WAYRUN into not just a community for Soulcalibur, but a network of communities for many games; and not just fighting games either.
Why not use that extra revenue we are currently generating to help other communities that need it? I know there are a lot of communities out there that still run off free forums, or forums less accommodating for the tournament scene. Therefore, any community that is looking for a home, and can prove a minimum level of interest in their series will be welcome to join the 8WAYRUN collective. I will provide hosting, management, software and relative autonomy.
Turning 8WAYRUN into a network, will also give me the ability to offer a proper home to all the software I have made publicly available. Just let me know what kind of games you want to see join our family.
