Insim under new management!

[Jojoba]

Pfeh. This is entirely shady, I say.

Is it time for the Doom song yet?

[Devilfish]

I don't know Delphy. The graphs clarifies some things, but I can't help but feel that even if Kathy and Eric lied on that site and inflated the numbers, anyone buying it would want to verify the numbers. How likely is it that they simply... you know... cheated us instead of Walt, with their never-ending donation drive?

EDIT: apparently you can fill in any number you want on that auction site and it's not verified in any way before it goes online. So they could have been pulling numbers out of their ass for all we know. I don't know about this Walt but with that kind of system in place, I'd be very careful to actually verify everything.
By the way, didn't he mention that Eric and Kathy contacted him? That's bullocks then, isn't it?

[Pescado]

I have to say though - I feel those numbers for page views and visitors are way overexaggered.  32 million pageviews a month?  MTS2 only gets about 40 million right now and we are a hell of a lot bigger.

Every single envelope estimate pegs Insim's size at being about 3-4x the size of MATY. Consider: When I did this estimate for #grah a few minutes back, Insim + ISA was hosting about 340 peasants, with MATY/Phorum at about 100 peasants. They claim "32 million". You say MTS2 is 40M, which, of course, makes the 32M figure bogus. They obviously added an extra zero there, so if we go by "extra zero", it brings it down to 3.2M, which is, again, roughly in line with the figures of being 3-4x the size (ours is about 1M).

The inflated 400K usercount is similarly estimated: MATY has about 5-6K users, but we subject them to monthly DB purges. Going by the "historical" view, the highest user ID is nearly 43K, meaning if we did not expunge all the bloat from the DB on a monthly basis, we'd be up to some 43K members (obviously, we don't give a rat's ass, so BRING OUT YER DEAD!). However, there's a wrinkle to this: MATY explicitly discourages registration and makes doing so completely unnecessary. Given that the standard distribution of users on MATY is about 2:1 guests:members, we can reasonably multiply that 43K figure by 3, assuming all guests were forced to register because you couldn't get anything without being a member. Thus, we get a figure of about 130K. This is, AGAIN, in line with the original 3-4x estimate.

Going with yet another figure, Alexa reports that Insim is around 0.002, as similar to your graph,with MATY, again, at about third to quarter. Again that 3-4x number.

Basically, based on all the information available, Insim is about 3-4x the size of MATY. Every single measurement I've found and computed confirms this figure. And that's just MATY/Phorum. If you graph it against the Booty, the picture gets even more interesting: PMBD is about the same size as Insim and basically follows the same fluctuations. In short, Insim's constant server-costs issues are a product of either woefully inept financial management, embezzlement, or both.

So I am convinced that this problem is either gross incompetence, fraud, or both. It is highly likely that everyone, from Kathy & Eric, to Walt, to the donators, have all been cheated.

[Delphy]

I have to say, (I know this is going to come as a shock) that I agree with Pescado in his figures and his maths for the last post.

[Devilfish]

Delphy and Pescado agree? Isn't that the 7th seal before the Apocalypse?

Someone is getting cheated alright and I don't think this Walt is the big bad guy here.
This is turning into one of those "Where were you when Insim exploded?" kind of moments.

EDIT: Walt posted some clarifications here.

[carlydunham]

heres a  update



Administrator
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Warrenton, VA USA
Posts: 9
   
Clarification About Free Site Access
I want to clarify some key points.

First, I apparently made a mistake in the way that I communicated my intentions for the web site in yesterday's announcements. Let me clarify. This site will continue to offer all content free. No one will be forced to become a contributor in order to share in the community, mods, downloads, etc. on this site. I apologize for the confusion that was created.

Second, I want to thank those who have already donated on the first day of this donation drive. It is already helping. To those who have not yet donated, please consider donating if you can.

Third, the idea of the voluntary subscription plan is NOT to make some of the contents of the site unavailable to free users. Rather, it is intended to be a replacement for the donation drives.

I want to thank those who have given me your warm welcomes. I pledge to you that I will do everything in my power to make sure this web site will thrive.

To those who have expressed concerns or doubts about the viability of this web site in bad economic times, I respectfully disagree. I am a student of history among other things. While we undoubtedly have some rough times ahead economically, we will get through them.

I have studied the Great Depression of the 1930s. One of the most startling facts about that time period is that not all industries went belly up. In fact, some industries thrived. One of those industries was the entertainment industry. Despite the fact that huge numbers of people were out of work, the vast majority (75-80%) of people DID have work and always scrimped and saved to have a radio to listen to or to go to the movies or to engage in other forms of inexpensive entertainment. My parents were children of the Depression. In fact, while my father passed away this past year, my mom is still with us. She is not online and knows nothing about the Internet, but she is helping financially with this website. Why? Because she knows how important entertainment was during the Depression! She grew up on a very poor Kansas farm in the midst of the "dust bowl." She KNOWS from personal experience what it takes to survive in a Depression. She knows that entertainment is the key, that it's imperative to have good entertainment alternatives in order to survive bad times!

That's why she's supporting this web site.

When times are tough, people need to be able to escape for short periods of time. That's what the entertainment industry offered...much needed escapes. Movie theaters were popular. It was the Big Band era, and in places like Harlem ballrooms such as the Savoy, the Roseland Ballroom, and the Apollo Theatre survived and thrived. Night clubs were popular in the cities. In the towns and rural areas, dances and church events and county fairs and community groups were organized to provide entertainment alternatives. Throughout America, people engaged in low-cost and no-cost entertainment of all kinds, and the pattern repeated itself around the world.

The Internet is the modern entertainment realm, and gaming is one very important aspect of that realm. The Sims is one of the most popular computer games in the world. That's why I think this web site, this community, is so worthy of the relatively small amount of investment involved.

Kathy and Eric

A number of unkind things have been said about Kathy and Eric. While I wasn't here during the past few months, I do know from personal contact with them that there were other issues that you don't know about in their lives, issues that go beyond gaming, the web site, the economy, etc. I have little doubt that these personal issues were behind much of the negativity that some of you have reported. I am not at liberty to discuss these issues in detail, nor would I do so if I was at liberty. Privacy is private, and I respect their privacy. But I can tell you this. If you knew what they were going through, those of you who have said such negative things about them would almost certainly want to take back what you said!!!

Those of you who have expressed support and confidence will find that your faith will be rewarded. This site is not going to change its basic good character. It will continue to offer all free content, and I have every confidence that it will continue to be supported as it has always been supported...by the people who love it the most.

[Echo]

...that I agree with Pescado...

Gasp!

[Devilfish]

Jesus Christ!

THE FUTURE OF THIS SITE IS BRIGHT

Those of you who have expressed support and confidence will find that your faith will be rewarded.

We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. ALL HEIL TSR!!!

*not an actual quote*

[Elphaba]

This is turning into one of those "Where were you when Insim exploded?" kind of moments.
here.

Is it me or is the Sims 2 community going out with a bang lately? Or is a whimper? Or is that too poetical? Or will Elphaba stop asking questions real soon?
...I'll be good

EDIT:

Those of you who have expressed support and confidence will find that your faith will be rewarded.

My goodness how cultish is that! The truly faithful will be rewarded while those sinning doubters WILL BE THROWN INTO THE PITS OF HELL (also known as... the BBS!!!)

[Delphy]

All that stuff about the Great Depression made me roll my eyes.  He's running a community here not a business steeped in history!

[Witchboy]

All that stuff about the Great Depression made me roll my eyes.  He's running a community here not a business steeped in history!

Haven't you seen his picture? He looks old enough to have lived through the great depression LOL

My goodness how cultish is that! The truly faithful will be rewarded while those sinning doubters WILL BE THROWN INTO THE PITS OF HELL (also known as... the BBS!!!)

ROFLMAO

[crunk]

All that stuff about the Great Depression made me roll my eyes.  He's running a community here not a business steeped in history!

He sounds like a bad infomercial - what a creep.

That's why she's supporting this web site.

Also, the money numbers floating around, whether inflated by Kathy and Eric or real, obviously lead this guy into thinking that he was going to make a killing. From a business standpoint, I'd guess that he figured that the staff could be replaced if needed, and that the majority of people using the site wouldn't care. If the revenue numbers are real, then I think that the entire community over there has been getting screwed for a long time.

Also, I can haz incoherent morning postings... sorry if this didn't make any sense!

[Pescado]

Additional figures I have rounded up suggest that for a site the size of Insim, monthly ad revenue is on the order of the lower-half of three figures. Not 4, meaning that the publicly listed figures of "$2000" a month are off by about an order of magnitude.

The site has definitely already been sold, the transfer apparently having gone through about a week ago. It seem likely that this Walt person is aware that the advertising figures have been inflated and he knows the real figures, if he's still talking of a shortfall. What this means is presently unclear.

[carlydunham]

nice little tantrum walt had


Quote:
Originally Posted by carlymichelle View Post
walt can you understand why so many of us are concerned and upset though we had NO warning whatsoever and IMO that isnt right what we need now is honesty
walts  reply to me
Sure, I understand. What I don't understand is why some people think I can fix the way they left. I can't. No one can. Get over it.


http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=100123&page=2

[calalily]

carlydunham, you don't need to quote everything - you can read it without being logged in.

Pfeh. This is entirely shady, I say. Not to mention there is absolutely no reason why creators should remain there after the site is sold, given that they will not be receiving any of the profits, so all they're doing is generating income for some business while getting nothing in return. Either those figures are massively inflated and the true picture is much more grim, or someone is being cheated.

Someone here is being cheated - donators or Walt.  And creators are already pulling out - so download while you can, and while it's free. He mentioned making InsimAdult pay, and Insim having a subscription system for ad free placement - so all of his assurances on Insimenator of "this site will always be free" - that's what he's already said - it will be free, but adult content will be paid.

So, yeah, I honestly don't think it actually has those traffic levels or visitors or gets that much ad revenue.  As somebody else said, if they get $3,200 a month in revenue, why did they need to keep having donation drives every few months?

I don't think that they would - surely that would not be possible for a site like Insim - particularly considering that the site was left to fester and die while Kathy and Eric were off.  

That's why my mom is supporting this web site.

DOOOOOMED! A 12 at the wheel. Fucking hell - his mother