There seems to be a bit of commotion over there about this move, one that is according to the new article to be beneficial to Filefront but many of it's community think otherwise.
I wouldn't say "many". Maybe a few hundred people have initial concerns out of over half a million members. As a percentage that's incredibly minute and I think most people will see that it's a positive move for filefront.
After the Ziff Davis issue back last April, it seems that Filefront could possible be in risk of closure, at least to some of the site gaming sites like A2Files, BCFiles, SFCFiles etc.
Break is investing in filefront to expand it and make it more popular, because that's the only way they can make any money from the deal. None of the network sites are under any risk of closure whatsoever, including ours.
Or worse, they could be turned into something like the rest of Break Media's sites, which have questionable taste at best which I'll not link here as it's inappropriate for this family site, however the names of the sites are there so you can google them or just go to a Filefront site and look at the new black bar at top with all the links to them.
In all fairness, the rest of their sites are aimed at a completely different audience and they are successful
for that audience.
They understand that a different demographic needs a different approach and they have been looking for views from the volunteer staff as well as the members. If you check a network wide news item asking what the members would like to see was posted a few weeks back. That was done at the request of Break's editorial team because they were interested in knowing what the members thought.
Having spent a fair amount of cash, they are hardly likely to try and hammer a round hole filefront into a square to fit with the rest of their portfolio.
If you have comments on this please post them here (also on FF as they need to hear your views), as a fellow A2 and Gaming site we are always interested in the going ons in the gaming community. Also considering we have a high interest in A2 this effects us as well due to the threat this could pose to A2Files.
But rest assured if the worst happens MSFC, is here for the A2 Community and will serve as a life-boat site for A2Files in both file hosting and forum and community survivability.
I have already discussed the change of owners at some considerable length with our community manager and i'm satisfied that it's a positive change and that there is no threat to our site. If anybody has any specific concerns then i'm happy to take them up with the Filefront management.
Also reasons I think it could turn into some like this is not just because of there current sites but the comment made by "Mark Burnham, Associate Gaming Editor for Break Media" under the username of "xmadmardiganx"
If their current sites are any indication, I don't like the sounds of that at all. I could just be reading into it too much and I hope I am wrong in this instance.
Mark Burnham said:
And yes, we're definitely looking at the network sites and thinking of ways to make them prettier, more functional, etc.
Yeah, I think your reading a bit much into that. His point is that the network sites look like dated relics of the first generation of websites developed in the late 90's. Which is fair enough, considering that is when the network was developed and they haven't been redesigned since. They are also functionally not far removed from an FTP site.
Much as we might not like the
content of a lot of Breaks portfolio, many elements of their designs are better than Filefronts. Imagine having the networks "latest files" displayed as the videos on break's sites, for instance. That's the sort of development that we are expecting. Things that most of filefront's competitors have and filefront hasn't.
It would be a shame if I had to stop going there because stupid users comments were no longer censored, or the adds became intolerable. Simple things like that could really make that site no-longer family friendly and would be a shame for all those how enjoy those games.
It could very easily kill the a2 modding community
Ads will actually improve quite quickly. When filefront was independent they had to take literally anybody that would place an ad with us. That led to getting people who would then mess filefront around by altering things so we'd end up punting malware.
To put it simply, Break has more sales people for selling advertising contracts than filefront has (non volunteer, paid) staff. That speaks plainly about the sort of adverts they need to accept.
We're still doing comment moderation, so nothing will be changing there.
Also, I'm not really worried about the community dying even if A2files goes down. (which it won't!) If there was one thing that we learnt from last april it's that we'd still be together as a community even if the worse did happen.
P.S. With as popular as Armada 2 still is, Break Media would be really idiotic to let it go.
Exactly. It doesn't cost them anything other than disc space and banwidth to run a site, seeing as we don't get paid anything for doing it. Therefore, it's not worth shutting a site down. Even the "closed" sites are still active for people to download things from anyway and files submitted are posted. The requirement for a site to be "closed" on the network simply is that it doesn't have any files submitted to it.
You have to look at it from a business view. A2 is a rather ancient game by gaming standards, 10 years old and A1 is even older. One can no longer buy it, it's not open source, and to get one on ebay your easily paying anywhere from $100-$200 dollars. Yes I actually checked yesterday.
It makes more sense for a business to support STO, or some other currently or soon-to-be released game. The A2 Community isn't getting any bigger, as a matter of fact it's getting smaller. If you compare it to what it was 5-7 years ago, it's a 1/3 of what it was.
I hope I am wrong, but looking at it in terms of a business I can't see A2Files being on the top of the keep list. But MSFC is here to assist if the worst comes to be. We'll take in the community, the staff, the mods and the spirit of modding Armada 2 if that's what the community and the A2Files staff wish.
The real point is that it doesn't cost them anything to continue to operate a site in real terms. The only "cost" is volunteers time (eg, myself and the kids time, in Armada's case) because volunteers are a finite resource required to run every site on the network.
Now, I wouldn't be interested in staffing any other site and I doubt the Kid would be either. That means that they wouldn't even be able to reassign us to another site. There is absolutely no benefit to be had from closing A2files. It's not going to happen.
To be honest, I'm not worried about A2Files becoming male-oriented or less family-friendly. The Community could still survive it.
What I'm scared of, is the fact that this could really mean the end of the A2 modding community. Yes, read it again: The END. Nothing against MSFC, it's a fine site and many of the finest members of the A2 modding community hang out here. But we're only a few. If A2Files would really be shut down it would be catastrophic. True, we survived the first "shut-down" last year. But A2files was never again like it was before. And I fear that this time we may lose even more.
If this new owner threatens the existence of A2Files, he also threatens the existence of the community. It's not the forums that are so important. It's the main site. A2Files is a place where the modding efforts of a whole decade are at home. And the community is centered around this ever-growing treasure. If we lose it, we lose the work of a decade. A2Files is like a magnet, attracting those who love the game and uniting them in one place. Without A2Files the community would break to pieces.
That is what I'm afraid of. Maybe I'm too skeptical about the new owners, but I want to see the results of this before trusting them.
Armada II Files will not be closed by Break. Nor will any other site on the network. I'm quite certain of that based on what I know, and if people are that worried about it then I can get the management to state that definitively.
For the sake of argument, even Break did literally pull the plug without warning we'd have a new site up pretty quickly. I'm willing to host it personally on my site, so is AFC and so is Majestic.
The thing that would take longest is simply uploading 15+GB worth of stuff, and that's simply a case of waiting for several days while it finishes. (uploads are WAY slower than downloads)
The result would probably be beneficial to the community, as we'd be able to make changes outside of the CMS framework.
It would be a huge blow. We're fortunate that everything was backed up last time. From my understanding, the backup material was kept, just in case that issue ever happened again. hopefully it wont, but it doesnt hurt to be prepared. all we can do is wait and see.
Well, there's hardly any point in throwing backups away.
Anyway, I hope BM would not turn FF to a men only site
I'm pretty certain that they aren't planning to. However, I'll put the question to them.
jk
maybe the makers of break are really big fans of startrek, and would do nothing to kill any startrek community 
