What was it about the good old days of the gaming affiliate business that made them so special?
According to the folks who posted on our Ahhhh… The Good Old Days! What Do You Miss The Most? forum thread, it’s the sense of camaraderie and friendship. These days the business is either too competitive or distant, but things just aren’t the same.
Here’s what GFPC (Join Date 2008) had to say on the subject:
During that time affiliates knew one another and stood up and spoke together on issues.
More or less now it appears more and more everyone is a bit isolated – I do not personally feel the community atmosphere I once did
Some members like Fonzi (Join Date 2006) see increased competition as the agent of destruction in the gaming affiliate business:
I also miss people being friendlier and helping each other out. Things have become so competitive that no one gives away any secret sauce.
Not surprisingly, that increased competitiveness was blamed on Google’s increasingly tighter stranglehold on affiliates. Here’s how Michaela26 (Join Date 2008) sees it:
I feel like I could write an essay about what I miss lol I miss so many things about the good old days, they used to be so sweet! I miss the pre-panda and pre-penguin days, when it was so easy to rank in Google!
Plenty of posters missed the buss of activity on the CAP message boards. Satya (Join Date 2005) remembers the time when the boards were a critical business tool:
Back in the days spending the first 30 minutes at CAP was like a routine. And you had to use this just to check out what’s happening. You come back later to post. Multi tasking on 5-6 IMs with affiliates used to be fun. There wasn’t a single dull day from 2002-2006 and then things really started changing.
Of course not everyone saw this slide towards isolation as irreversible. Dominique (Join Date 2003) sees hope for the future:
It’s never too late to turn things around, but without a strong sense of togetherness and cooperation it won’t work.
What are your memories of the good old days and do you think that things are different now? Post them up in the comments section below or on the boards.