Today's topic is about AJ in general. Is AJ going downhill? Well, AJ started back in 2010 when there was no member - non-member difference. Those were the early days of AJ. Back then, AJHQ was able to roll out new content at a rather steady pace. It was, after all, new at that time. As with all new things, content is easy to create. More lands got released, Mt Shiveer, Kimbara Outback and the Oceans are lands that did not exist in the old Jamaa.
However, as time went by, AJ became more developed. To help AJHQ keep the content coming in, they need funds. Where do they get that? Memberships, of course. The member - non-member divide began to grow, and with each update, the divide only worsened. Remember the times when Oceans were member only? For those of you who joined AJ in recent years, non-members of the past had fewer animal choices, couldn't change the colours of their items and didn't have access to (almost) all adventures. That was when AJ probably reached its lowest in the earlier days. However, things took a small turn.
AJ noticed the problem. They made changes to the system by allowing non-members to change their item colours and more. While it worked for a while, I personally do not think it can pull AJ out of the hole it dug itself into. Mindsets were fixed. The member - non-member divide is still there. Older players are leaving. It just isn't the same AJ that we knew from the past. To make things worse, since AJ is already well-developed, new content rarely comes out, if at all. In other words, I feel that the content in AJ is getting stale. Could this be a contributing factor to the downfall of AJ? Maybe.
Now, let's look at an example. In 2017, club penguin closed in favour of a new club penguin game, club penguin island. By doing that, it allowed club penguin to start anew. AJ had AJPW. However, AJ still existed. Also, AJPW wasn't completely new - it was simply AJ-for-mobile-minus-adventures-plus-treasure-hunts. AJ didn't really start afresh like club penguin did. In that sense, it didn't truly come up with new content.
All in all, I do feel that yes, this is AJ's downfall. If AJ doesn't do something about it soon, I feel that the AJ userbase will just fade away. With the userbase fading away, AJ's funds from memberships will be cut (since there will be fewer users), just further speeding up their downfall.
Well, that's it from me now. Do tune in 2 Saturdays from now for your next Random Saturday. Ciao!
-Dew
P.S. With the downfall of AJ, comes many consequences, for one, many people would lose their jobs. All of the AJ Youtubers, bloggers, and employees, for example (That includes us) would be down and out. Not to mention all of the merchandise and resources gone to ruin if and when this occurs. Think everything that went down with Club Penguin on a slightly larger scale. Thanks, Dew, for letting me invade your post!
-Is
P.S. With the downfall of AJ, comes many consequences, for one, many people would lose their jobs. All of the AJ Youtubers, bloggers, and employees, for example (That includes us) would be down and out. Not to mention all of the merchandise and resources gone to ruin if and when this occurs. Think everything that went down with Club Penguin on a slightly larger scale. Thanks, Dew, for letting me invade your post!
-Is
This is so sad. I just joined back again a few days ago and I've also been wondering as to why people are saying that the Animal Jam community has been going downhill. I recently joined and I personally don't notice it, which is a good thing. But my other friend, who also used to play AJ, was watching over me and commented that "I bet that Animal Jam is 'dead' (meaning not as active) now" because they were comparing the server sizes from past to present. And after reading this post, I'm sad and starting to believe that this might be true... I guess I was just trying to deny the undeniable fate.
ReplyDeleteOh wells, at least AJHQ are FINALLY releasing a new Alpha. Seriously, it's been overdue by how long it has taken to release another Alpha. They had so much potential to create more hype for the game! For example, how comes all of the other Alphas from the Mystery Emporium haven't been introduced? Where are their back stories? Everyone in Animal Jam will run out of their excitement (and more importantly, conspiracies) if you don't make more new content.