20 replies to this topic

[Taco Chopper]

In terms of years gone by, Screenshot of the Week hasn't been a force to be reckoned with in some time.

I'm using the 2023 mid-year review of the contest as a starting point to analyse the data. The data is a little bit lopsided in terms of numbers - 13 contests from February to now have currently taken place in 2025 compared to 2023's 20 from February to August, so the window for contrast is a little bit different. Screenshot of the Week was fortnightly until around July 2023 as well, and this is factoring in that two Screenshot of the Week 2025 contests were delayed by a week due to not having enough shots submitted.
 
All that said, this is the total numbers for unique SotW 2025 entrants up to today (SotW 841):

Twilight Knight - 7,
Rambly - 6^#,
Shane - 4^,
Anthus - 3,
Moon - 3^,
Orithan - 2,
Jared - 2,
Kifstopher - 2,
FireSeraphim - 2,
xanadude - 2,
Taco Chopper - 2^,
Joelmacool - 1^,
Airfart - 1,
Cobgoblin - 1,
Haylee - 1#,
Mani Kanina - 1^,
Mr.ReDead - 1,
Professor Bedwetter - 1,
Shoshon the Elegant - 1,
Matthew - 1^

^{^ denotes that this user was PureZC staff when submitting for Screenshot of the Week
# denotes that this user was a Contributor when submitting for Screenshot of the Week}
 
So, the numbers across 13 contests:

• 21 total entrants, 10 entrants who submitted on multiple occasions,
• Twilight Knight and Rambly are absolutely carrying this contest (which I will touch on further down),
• After that, Shane, Moon and Anthus are the only other entrants who have submitted more than twice,
• 7 (out of 10) current staff members (including Rambly in this during her time as mod) submitted, while another 2 contributors have submitted. Congratulations Rambly on falling under both categories, and apologies to Zack for not including him in the contributor category due to the fact that he wasn't a contributor at a time. All up, that's 9 out of 21 entrants that are either staff or involved in running PureZC events in some way.

For contrast, across a wider timeframe, the 20 contests in 2023 saw:

• 30 unique entrants
• 9 entrants who had entered more than twice
• 9 out of 10 staff members at the time (Russ, Shoshon, Matthew, Jenny, Deedee, Shane, Eddy, Joel and myself) entering at least one shot, although I believe this was mostly off the back of the two weeks of Gollab entries at the time. 

I know 13 vs 20 makes for a very... limited contrast but the reality of it is that SotW has dropped off as a contest. It started with a bang in 2023, and I would say some of the numbers in that initial dataset were inflated from the initial wave of participation and themed contests, but interest has dried up. I am also kind of hitting a point where I'm not happy having to beg for entries come Monday/Tuesday each week; while I appreciate Rambly and Twilight Knight's continued contributions to the cause, it feels like it's delaying the inevitable.
 
I proposed wrapping up Screenshot of the Week last year in favour of keeping Screen Rebirth around; some feedback at the time was around "if SotW dies, people will say the community and ZC are dying in hushed tones". I refute that with the fact that the 64 Quest Contest was the best contest turnout we've had in a decade, if not longer. I was unsure a year ago whether this kind of contest still has a place in this current era of the internet, particularly when most of PureZC's activity happens on the Discord server; this has only been reaffirmed in the time that's elapsed since.

 

A lot of discussion has been around whether SotW's age and assumed level of participation are playing a part in people not submitting, whether the Discord server has assumed some of the function of what the contest once had (screenshot feedback, for instance), and whether there's much that can be changed in the format. Similarly, much discussion has been made of whether the entry level of Screenshot of the Week is just too high (taking previous SotY winners into account), and if a contest like Screen Rebirth is the way to move with screenshot contests going forward. Low level of entry, everyone gets to work off of the same base screen, and it's all about the creativity aspect first and foremost.

As it stands, I am unsure of keeping this contest running in its current format beyond this year, and am considering the possibility of retiring Screenshot of the Week permanently. I haven't decided on a time frame, whether that's the end of June or the end of the year. That said, what I would like to do as a grand finale for the contest at some point would be to do a "Greatest Screenshot of All Time" contest, where we pit all of the Screenshot of the Year winners (and maybe runner ups as wild cards?) against each other to determine the greatest SotW entry of all time. This would run after any sort of Screenshot of the Year 2025 contest, of course.
 
Anyway, over to you, the public; tell me what you think. What do you think could be done to keep Screenshot of the Week up and running, or do you think it's time to let this 20 year old monolith of an online contest enjoy retirement?

[Jared]

I think we should go back to the way it was before, with two weeks of allowed time to submit. Then we can have two per month, and hopefully at the point of 14 days, there will be three or more entries.

I also need to start submitting again...

[Cobgoblin]

I mean, part of me really doesn't want to see it go, but also I get it. Even if someone else were to take the reins they'd still run into what you're running into as well.

 

You can look at old SotWs to get an idea of how things used to be, with 50-100 votes cast in a single contest with 6+ entrants, vs the at most 30 votes over 3-4 entrants.

 

Anyway, I guess I'll say that while I don't support a retirement of SotW, I won't object to it. I don't personally think it should be outright ended, i.e. screenshot of all time sort of thing, but indefinite suspension in case someone would really want to bring it back later?

 

FWIW I really appreciate the work you've done in the last few years to keep it alive! You've been very consistent on canvassing for activity. Under a less consistent host I would want to see how it would fare under someone else first, but I think we've got about as good as we could get.

 

So yeah, let's see how screen rebirth goes!

[Orithan]

Keep Screenshot of the Week. It is not like Screen Rebirth and I fear SR will not reach the same frequency and submission rates as SotW because its a lot more effort making a screen under the constraints for a Screen Rebirth contest rather than submitting a screen you made for your quest in Screenshot of the Week

[Taco Chopper]

Thank you to everyone who has replied so far - I wasn't expecting this much feedback already!

I think we should go back to the way it was before, with two weeks of allowed time to submit. Then we can have two per month, and hopefully at the point of 14 days, there will be three or more entries.
I also need to start submitting again...

I ran with the fortnightly format for all of last year and for better or worse, the end result was the same as if it was weekly - which is, nobody submitting anything until the last minute if I was saying the contest couldn't be run due to lack of shots. More time doesn't equate to a higher turnout, which is partly why I made the decision to pivot back to the weekly schedule, but with the caveat of postponing the contest for a week until there was at least three entries. It's a hybrid model, it's been done twice this year already, and while it does have its merits, the vast majority of screenshots are getting entered the day I post the contest. Personally I have my concerns that the issues with SotW run deeper than just a schedule change; if the fortnight format had worked better last year, I may have stuck to it long-term.

What would encourage you to submit more as well, if you don't mind me asking?

I mean, part of me really doesn't want to see it go, but also I get it. Even if someone else were to take the reins they'd still run into what you're running into as well.
 
You can look at old SotWs to get an idea of how things used to be, with 50-100 votes cast in a single contest with 6+ entrants, vs the at most 30 votes over 3-4 entrants.

Anyway, I guess I'll say that while I don't support a retirement of SotW, I won't object to it. I don't personally think it should be outright ended, i.e. screenshot of all time sort of thing, but indefinite suspension in case someone would really want to bring it back later?
 
FWIW I really appreciate the work you've done in the last few years to keep it alive! You've been very consistent on canvassing for activity. Under a less consistent host I would want to see how it would fare under someone else first, but I think we've got about as good as we could get.

I hate that I need to be pragmatic around this but the numbers are a big factor around any decision; numbers in voting, numbers in entries. I've hard capped the maximum entrants at 4 for the majority of my time running Screenshot of the Week (except for themed contests and #900) because I wanted to make sure there'd be enough entries for the week after. I think the "banking" process I had set up has worked at times, but that's only been when people have gone and submitted bulk entries - Shoshon submitted something like 30 in 2023, for instance, and carried the entire back half of the year.

As we've talked about elsewhere too, there's been a few other factors at play over the years as well, but as I referred to in my initial post above, contests like this, Enemy of the Month and Map of the Month are archaic in a sense. All three of these (and even Screen Rebirth last year at points) struggled to gain any sort of consistent momentum and while each contest had their pros and cons, I don't think the community can support and sustain these kinds of content-sharing, poll-driven contests when a lot of activity happens on Discord now. The brief period where ZCL ran Screenshot of the Week in the back end of 2022 comes to mind as well; it started strong for the first few weeks but interest died off extremely quickly.

Appreciate the nice words by the way! Something I've tried to prioritise over my time running Screenshot of the Week is consistency; consistency in schedule, consistency in having enough shots to make a substantial contest, consistency in communicating when a contest might have to be postponed. I can only hope that's what this era of Screenshot of the Week is remembered for, alongside some very fantastic contest winners.
 

Keep Screenshot of the Week. It is not like Screen Rebirth and I fear SR will not reach the same frequency and submission rates as SotW because its a lot more effort making a screen under the constraints for a Screen Rebirth contest rather than submitting a screen you made for your quest in Screenshot of the Week

Screenshot of the Week won't be going anywhere immediately, particularly while Screen Rebirth has just returned; it's far too early to make a call of going all-in on one or the other. That said, if engagement of Screen Rebirth stays at a higher level than Screenshot of the Week currently, and reception around Screen Rebirth remains positive while Screenshot of the Week continues to flounder, it would be a mistake to keep two screenshot, poll-based contests continuing simultaneously long-term.

That said, feedback around Screen Rebirth is that it's significantly easier for some people to make a screen using a base screen, rather than having nothing to work off of at all. Some feedback around Screenshot of the Week has included that people are quite intimidated by the prestige of the contest; the bar for what makes a good entry has been established over a 20 year timeframe. Then there's the questions of "do you make a mockup entry?", "do I share content from my quest that I'm working on?", "is this going to qualify as a good Screenshot of the Week winner?".

Screen Rebirth at least has the base screen, so everyone who enters is coming from the same entry point. I'm just not sure how to get people to submit to Screenshot of the Week when the entry point for it is whatever entrants deem appropriate.

[Moosh]

I've held a not so subtle disdain for SotW for about as long as I've been here. I'm crotchety and bitter and I probably won't shed too many tears if it does eventually get retired. I would say ironically though, the last several years have turned out some of the best screens in the lifetime of the contest. Shame it's just in time for interest to decline, or perhaps thinking more cynically, it's declining because of this. I have different tastes I guess, I've almost never agreed with the popular vote. But overall there've been a lot more quests that I'm interested in being shown off and more creative stylistic ideas that catch my interest. So even if I've fallen out of the habit on checking in and long since stopped submitting, I still see the potential in it.

 

On the management side of things, I can't think of much to improve turnout. The most obvious thing would be the need for immediate gratification. Internet discussion moves at a breakneck pace these days and so having to wait a week, or two, or more feels glacially slow. I have a couple ideas how that could be addressed but they're a bit out there and I'm not really confident in either. One would be to open the submission dropbox to the public and allow discussion of screens before the polls are even up. This would make it more akin to the screenshot feedback thread which is also pretty inactive right now. Another would be to hold some kind of live event where at a scheduled date the community comes together and makes their screens on a Discord call. Sorta embracing the last minuteness of the current turnout. I worry that'd hit some of the same engagement issues as Quest Club. Unfortunately a lot of people are just busy.

 

Sorry if I'm slipping into the "PureZC is dying" kind of doomposting, but I do worry some that we're an aging community and losing a lot of our outward facing presence to a cultural shift. Forums have gone the way of the dodo, the internet's all gravitated toward the same couple social media sites, driven more by algorithms than genuine curiosity. And the Discord may have activity, but I don't think that kind of activity is sustainable long term. As members move on from schooling to work and from work to family, more and more of that time that used to be spent here is going to go elsewhere and that inevitably hurts participation in group activities and contests and other things that encourage growth. I think back to when I was still new to the community and filled with a sense of wonder looking at Screenshot of the Week and the QPFs and seeing all the impressive things people had done with the program. I'd want to keep that sense of wonder alive because I don't think I'd have stuck around without it. Thinking about all the Discord servers I've joined to ask one question and then idled in indefinitely. Because I'm an outsider there, and those communities are already established, and they don't have a weekly screenshot contest where people posted beautiful lies that made me say "Whoa! This ZC thing is going places!"

 

I'd really love to recapture that energy we used to have and get away from the miserable times we live in out in meatspace for a bit. Game design was always a nice escape for that. I think there has to be a contest of some sort outside the Discord just to establish "Yo, we still exist!" Whether or not SR can fill that spot remains to be seen. I also think Pure could use some kind of social media presence and reach out to more Zelda communities, though I cringe at the thought of running such a space, same as I imagine everyone on the staff team does. Still, the best way to get an inflow of new screens would be an inflow of new creators and new projects I imagine.

[Deedee]

the vast majority of screenshots are getting entered the day I post the contest.

I wonder if the problem is that it's a contest that's easy to forget about until it happens or something happens to remind people. People generally don't want to wait a whole week to see their screens be shown off when the option to show them off instantly exists. A lot of this is discord existing; but I think a lot of it is also that it's a contest that needs to be in the public's perception in order for people to want to submit to it, and I think a lot of the discord announcements are easy to just tune out even if the channel isn't muted. Would a site sidebar thing (or a discord bot that has a role that puts it high up in the userlist and changes it's status to count down to the next SotW) potentially help with this? Something to constantly give an idea of when the next sotw is. I don't even know what day they're usually posted on.

[Moon]

Would a site sidebar thing (or a discord bot that has a role that puts it high up in the userlist and changes it's status to count down to the next SotW) potentially help with this? Something to constantly give an idea of when the next sotw is. I don't even know what day they're usually posted on.

Girl its always been on Monday. The only thing that has changed I'm p sure is the frequency in which contests happened (when we switched to bi-weekly, for example).

 

I don't think its a matter of people not knowing, I think people are just procrastinators tbh. I know I am when it comes to deadlines especially.

[Taco Chopper]

Moon's right - it's in the back of people's minds and it just falls by the wayside. I've had people message me or talk to me while streaming saying "oh yeah, I should submit for SotW" but for whatever reason, these submissions never eventuate.

It's definitely not a case of people not knowing either; there's plenty of information around the schedule. The 2025 schedule thread, for instance, which is updated when contests are delayed due to lack of submissions; or the SotW Information and Rules thread, which includes everything regarding the schedules, contest structure and Of which, Moon's right, it has always fallen on a Monday on US time while I've been running it. The SotW Announcements and Updates thread is also updated regularly if there aren't enough submissions.

Similarly with Discord. I do two to three pings on the server a week - one for the previous week's contest winner, one on the weekend, and a third if there isn't enough submissions on the Monday and I have to post the contest a day later, or delay it outright. People have told me they actively choose to avoid the Discord SotW ping because the frequency of my pings annoys them that much, which as much as that feedback sucks, I kind of understand - but it's the only way this iteration of SotW has survived consistently up to this point.

Point being is, it's in the public space.

I've held a not so subtle disdain for SotW for about as long as I've been here. I'm crotchety and bitter and I probably won't shed too many tears if it does eventually get retired. I would say ironically though, the last several years have turned out some of the best screens in the lifetime of the contest. Shame it's just in time for interest to decline, or perhaps thinking more cynically, it's declining because of this. I have different tastes I guess, I've almost never agreed with the popular vote. But overall there've been a lot more quests that I'm interested in being shown off and more creative stylistic ideas that catch my interest. So even if I've fallen out of the habit on checking in and long since stopped submitting, I still see the potential in it.

On the management side of things, I can't think of much to improve turnout. The most obvious thing would be the need for immediate gratification. Internet discussion moves at a breakneck pace these days and so having to wait a week, or two, or more feels glacially slow. I have a couple ideas how that could be addressed but they're a bit out there and I'm not really confident in either. One would be to open the submission dropbox to the public and allow discussion of screens before the polls are even up. This would make it more akin to the screenshot feedback thread which is also pretty inactive right now. Another would be to hold some kind of live event where at a scheduled date the community comes together and makes their screens on a Discord call. Sorta embracing the last minuteness of the current turnout. I worry that'd hit some of the same engagement issues as Quest Club. Unfortunately a lot of people are just busy.

Sorry if I'm slipping into the "PureZC is dying" kind of doomposting, but I do worry some that we're an aging community and losing a lot of our outward facing presence to a cultural shift. Forums have gone the way of the dodo, the internet's all gravitated toward the same couple social media sites, driven more by algorithms than genuine curiosity. And the Discord may have activity, but I don't think that kind of activity is sustainable long term. As members move on from schooling to work and from work to family, more and more of that time that used to be spent here is going to go elsewhere and that inevitably hurts participation in group activities and contests and other things that encourage growth. I think back to when I was still new to the community and filled with a sense of wonder looking at Screenshot of the Week and the QPFs and seeing all the impressive things people had done with the program. I'd want to keep that sense of wonder alive because I don't think I'd have stuck around without it. Thinking about all the Discord servers I've joined to ask one question and then idled in indefinitely. Because I'm an outsider there, and those communities are already established, and they don't have a weekly screenshot contest where people posted beautiful lies that made me say "Whoa! This ZC thing is going places!"

I'd really love to recapture that energy we used to have and get away from the miserable times we live in out in meatspace for a bit. Game design was always a nice escape for that. I think there has to be a contest of some sort outside the Discord just to establish "Yo, we still exist!" Whether or not SR can fill that spot remains to be seen. I also think Pure could use some kind of social media presence and reach out to more Zelda communities, though I cringe at the thought of running such a space, same as I imagine everyone on the staff team does. Still, the best way to get an inflow of new screens would be an inflow of new creators and new projects I imagine.

I want to discuss all of this much more with you and I think a deep dive of all of this - especially the social media presence - would be great to flesh out. I think the point around immediate gratification here is similarly echoed in Deedee's post; it's a slow moving contest that just doesn't hold the same pay-off for the userbase like it did to.

I think there's still a benefit to contests like SotW and SR; you've nailed it around the sense of wonder and having the community's work essentially immortalised on a contest thread every week. I was much like you when I first signed up, just in awe of all of these (what seemed to be) prestigious events kicking on and feeling like "hey, I really want to be a part of that". That aura's not as present as it once was, but I think the fact we still have had a few newbies bob up over the last two years of this contest and win outright gives me some happiness, especially in the way that the homogenisation of the internet has taken place.

I've had a suggestion made to me (thanks [redacted] ^{user of this community that is not Ether}) around upping the ante on submissions as well. A draft system could be implemented. Members nominate themselves and the SotW host will chase them up when it's their turn to submit for that week. They would then be exempt from entering for the next month. Considering anyone who's entered this draft system; implementing a survey that asks:

• How does that member feel about criticism of their submission?
• Would they actively want more of it?
• Would they prefer if people don't critique (in form of text) at all?

Members who participate in this could also advise whether they'd want to be in the same pool as those who want criticism (or vice-versa). Aspects of this are kind of blurry, it's a rather large change of approach and it changes the format while still allowing the contest to function. It would also require the SotW host (me, at this point in time) to follow up and make sure people have a submission ready to go by Sunday night US central time; so there is that issue of reliability there as well.

[Jared]

What would encourage you to submit more as well, if you don't mind me asking?

 

Probably finally graduating from my RN program lol. But I wanna get back into doing more ZQ as of late.

[Twilight Knight]

I do get your frustrations with running this contest and you've contributed to it for a long time also. But I still love the contest, and love submitting, even if I almost never win nowadays. It's about profiling your screen design, getting feedback, seeing what the community is cooking in one contest.

 

I also really like Screen Rebirth, but as Orithan pointed out it is extra work and usually not something that is already part of your quest. F.e. I won't be able to submit to the current SR, because I never work in the classic(esque) tilesets.

 

And people submitting late, I'm also guilty of that, but as Moosh pointed out this is a bit of an aging community. We've got responsibilities now :-(

 

 

What if we just lose the "of the Week" part? And as soon as 3-6 submissions are made, and when Taco Chopper has time/energy, the Screenshot contest gets posted?

 

I also think better integration with Discord would be helpful, AKA also showing the submissions there in a post/thread, allowing feedback there and requesting Discord members to make their official vote on the forums.

 

Ideally the Screenshot contest is completely in sync on the forums & Discord (so all the feedback/votes are visible on both platforms), but this is a lot of development work and not a realistic expectation.

Edited by Twilight Knight, 22 May 2025 - 03:59 AM.

[Hergiswi]

I proposed wrapping up Screenshot of the Week last year in favour of keeping Screen Rebirth around; some feedback at the time was around "if SotW dies, people will say the community and ZC are dying in hushed tones"

 

i mean, the truth of the matter is exactly that: the community isn't growing and neither is interest in zc. i wouldn't go so far as to say the zc portion of the site is dead; we've had 9 quests submitted to the database already this year, and sometimes newcomers show up to try out zquest. but if people are saying the community is dying, it's only because they're being observant rather than delusional.

 

i'd echo the sentiments of most of moosh's post, though contrary to him, i've always loved sotw. i said this in the last sotw-related post, but it would be better to let sotw end and let it be a joyful memory of the site's past. otherwise, we're going to run it into the ground as an emblem of the fact that we, as a community, have collectively refused to admit that times have changed. if we keep sotw running, we might have a resurgence here and there every time we fear that "this is the last sotw," but ultimately, it's going to burden you, taco chopper, or whoever takes over in your stead. we'll be running a legacy competition that's burning out the person running it while desperately begging the very community that claims to value it so much to even participate.

 

mercy kill sotw. it's practically begging for us to let it die. change is hard, especially when it's steeped in history and tradition, but it's not like we can't have other, less frequent competitions. if pzc is really a strong community, we'll find other ways to come together and celebrate each other. if it's not, then sotw could never do enough to bring us together anyway.

[Cobgoblin]

One thought I had if we're open to it, is if we have any continued momentum behind SR, maybe a fun thing to do is every 4th or 5th SR or so might be an "anything goes" sort of situation. Basically SotW, with the catch being that the winners / runners-up even could be the subject of some subsequent SRs? Could be a fun way for people of the community to remix each other's stuff and also a good way for the SR host to source content.

[Rambly]

One thought I had if we're open to it, is if we have any continued momentum behind SR, maybe a fun thing to do is every 4th or 5th SR or so might be an "anything goes" sort of situation. Basically SotW, with the catch being that the winners / runners-up even could be the subject of some subsequent SRs? Could be a fun way for people of the community to remix each other's stuff and also a good way for the SR host to source content.

This almost certainly isn't going to happen. I feel that it would just offload the problems that Screenshot of the Week has been facing onto Screen Rebirth and would erode Screen Rebirth's unique identity as a contest. Also, Screen Rebirth is already running Challenge Weeks as well -- this would effectively mean that Screen Rebirth would be juggling 3 contests in one. Essentially rolling SotW into Screen Rebirth every 4-5 contests would make scheduling pretty unwieldy.

 

However, both me and Hubydweyer like the idea of winners of certain challenges going on to become Rebirth base screens. This is something we'd want to communicate beforehand, of course, but it's something we're open to.
 

i mean, the truth of the matter is exactly that: the community isn't growing and neither is interest in zc. i wouldn't go so far as to say the zc portion of the site is dead; we've had 9 quests submitted to the database already this year, and sometimes newcomers show up to try out zquest. but if people are saying the community is dying, it's only because they're being observant rather than delusional.

I don't think this is necessarily true - there are new users popping up in the Discord all the time, and plenty of users that are engaged in ZC that come out of the woodwork every now and then (as you pointed out, database submissions are still growing and people like Airfart, FTX6004, and Royal showing up out of nowhere with really cool projects is pretty good evidence for the long-term health of ZC -- there's also a quiet but active base of players that posts every now and then). Screenshot of the Week is anemic and so are the forums, but that's more of an indictment of them being dated and not working very well in a modern context rather than the community as a whole.

One last thing I'd like to point out: Screenshot of the Week having issues sustaining turnout is not at all new. In fact, it's been a problem for nearly twenty years at this rate - people were talking about SotW's decline in 2005 and 2006. I don't know whether this is reflective of SotW being a contest that's gone through lulls and booms, or if it's reflective of SotW just barely meeting the margins of sustainability for 20 years and always being on the precipice of death, but it is kind of interesting that people have been worrying about the contest's health for so long.

[Hergiswi]

One last thing I'd like to point out: Screenshot of the Week having issues sustaining turnout is not at all new. In fact, it's been a problem for nearly twenty years at this rate - people were talking about SotW's decline in 2005 and 2006. I don't know whether this is reflective of SotW being a contest that's gone through lulls and booms, or if it's reflective of SotW just barely meeting the margins of sustainability for 20 years and always being on the precipice of death, but it is kind of interesting that people have been worrying about the contest's health for so long.

this is actually hilarious, seeing these posts in 2005 literally saying the same thing we're saying now. i guess there really is nothing new under the sun.

 

i suppose my skepticism towards sotw really comes from your other point combined with other people's points: the fact that forums in general are largely irrelevant now, the aging pzc community (generalizing, not everyone obv), the continual weekly sotw struggle, and the instant gratification that other platforms provide. it feels like the perfect storm of people moving on to careers/families/social media/other games and the online landscape of 2005 being unrecognizable compared to now. i don't think any one factor is enough to kill sotw, but it feels like a relic of the past from my perspective. not that i'm trying to sound doom and gloom or anything.