Is Chao Dying?

[Chao31]

Not like a certain chao but the chao community as a whole.............

i gotten bored without anyone to talk to since EVERYONE IS ON DISCORD AND I DONT USE IT ANYMORE!


i really hope this strikes popularity again if it ever happens or the steam group becomes active.

[Jeffery Mewtamer]

I think Chao fans have always been a rather small portion of the overall Sonic fanbase, and it doesn't help that it's been like 18 years since anything truly new was added to Chao and more than half a decade since we last got a major port of a game featuring Chao in a meaningful way.

And sadly, forums in general have lost much of their activity to the likes of Discord, Facebook Groups, Sub-Reddits, and other modern social media platforms.

[Lamby]

you're in the chao afterlife

and to be blunt, if you want a community and don't chase it, you'll be left behind. forums aren't meaningless chatter anymore, besides. they are more like coordination centers for everything else

[AugustChao]

Although I will sadly agree that the forums aren't nearly as active as they once were, I wouldn't say that the Chao Community as a whole is completely dead since there are still a lot of active members of the community, and also because the rest of the site outside of the forums has a lot of work put into it all the time and will probably keep growing for a while. And even if there hasn't been a game with a Chao Garden in years, there are still a lot of people making and updating Chao fangames and mods, and Sega also likes to occasionally give us Chao-related stuff (there's even going to be an arc in the IDW comics soon centered around Chao racing :3), so it's not like we're COMPLETELY forgotten.

[Mooncow]

i really hope this strikes popularity again if it ever happens or the steam group becomes active.

I think there is a place for this forum still, and it will be a part of the main site and discord integration. That is why every discord user needs an account here you see

[LaDestitute]

I don't necessarily think the Chao community is out on the way. For one, since this is considered a sub-community, the Sonic fandom is still going strong itself. There are still both casual and enthusiast fans (power-users, variety collectors, those interested in hacking Chao or reverse-engineering and documenting Chao mechanics, etc) as for this community and I can be for anyone invested in the Sonic fandom, more than half are still interested in Chao since it's a beloved aspect of the franchise despite SEGA completely ignoring it now short of callbacks here and there now. Even I can say that as a couple of months ago when I replayed Sonic Adventure and it's sequel, I did ponder extending my playthrough post-story to do Chao stuff, since all that is so expansive and I could get lost for hours or even weeks focusing on min-maxing and properly raising my Chao.

As for the sentiment that forums are kind of less active in general? This is both half true and not true. While things like Skype, AIM, Teamspeak, etc have largely gone away in terms of major active users, there are still niche forums (including this one!) with respectable activity. Forums are still being used, even with the advent of new communication/places to gather such as Steam and Discord. I can even think of some major forums with huge activity, such as The Escapist forums.

I'd say the Chao community is fairly active even now, especially since the 3D games have come to the PC. I don't know anything about the community that prefer physical Gamecube/Dreamcast Chao to the PC ones and/or console modding (I know they're there but I don't know the extent of console modding as far as Chao goes) but with the advent of PC releases of both Adventure games and fan-made community tools for editing/hacking Chao, Chao is well and alive in that aspect. Even some fan projects have risen, some of notable attention as far as the amount of eyes they got in the Chao and wider Sonic fandoms.

[Roaxes]

The majority of active Chao Island users are now all focused on the Discord server we have. But I believe some topics are better on forums. For casual conversation I believe should now be more directed towards discord then a Forum environment.
However, for a long, detailed focused topic, I believe forums triumph far over Discord. Basically what im saying is, both have areas they excel in that the other does not.