Dukasaur wrote:Gillipig wrote:People who think this is more than the temporarily, every year occuring, fucking seasonal rise in members are retarded. Gaming sites ALWAYS increase in active members during the darker months of the year. ALWAYS, what's new is that it took so long for the decline to stop this year. We were in November before members started increasing, that has never happened before! Previously we saw increasing activity in September and Oktober, we used to call it the summer lull, now it's "everything except November, December, January lull". In one year the same positive retards (or new positive retards) will say the same thing. Only difference is that instead of 12000, it will be 10000. America has a lot of idiots for sure. That's a confirmed stereotype.
Actually, that isn't true.
Here's numbers extracted from evidence posted in this thread:
9/22/2011 16637
10/5/2011 16202
10/24/2013 16192
10/25/2013 16376 ccup bulk mail
11/7/2011 17458
11/10/2011 17423 ccup effect runs out
11/25/2011 17282
12/14/2011 16800
4/15/2012 15883
5/14/2012 15283
6/19/2012 14737
7/4/2012 14575
7/12/2012 14501 page 26
7/29/2012 15475 Trench introduced plus some SEO
8/31/2012 15131
9/17/2012 14641 page 33 gpig bet
10/1/2012 14365
11/1/2012 14721 El Jefe reign begins
11/30/2012 14885
12/22/2012 15045
1/19/2013 15787
3/5/2013 14908
4/28/2013 13687
5/10/2013 13506 second gpig bet
6/1/2013 13146
7/1/2013 12819
7/12/2013 12994 Havoc boards and new bulkmail
7/16/2013 13062
7/30/2013 13583
8/11/2013 13497 Havoc effect runs out
8/26/2013 12706
8/27/2013 12652 BigWham reign begins
9/7/2013 12284
9/15/2013 11998
11/2/2013 11271 page 72, lowest number ever
11/13/2013 11463
11/21/2013 11538
11/23/2013 11515 controversial new homepage
12/2/2013 11771
12/14/2013 11986
And here's some data from earlier, as provided by Ace Rimmer:
Subject: Is CC Declining?Ace Rimmer wrote:Not from the mod forum, but the wayback machine:
4/11/08: 21,424
4/15/08: 21,443
4/30/08: 21,650
5/13/08: 22,894
5/23/08: 23,949
6/12/08: 23,661
6/19/08: 23,245
9/13/08: 23,533
9/20/08: 23,406
9/29/08: 22,642
10/10/08: 21,962
10/20/08: 21,684
11/1/08: 21,056
12/11/08: 19,848
12/17/08: 19,971
12/26/08: 20,256
1/7/09: 20,946
1/29/09: 22,130
2/10/09: 22,503
2/22/09: 22,811
3/7/09: 23,039
3/23/09: 22,726
3/23/10: 20,839
4/6/10: 20,570
4/17/10: 20,270
4/29/10: 20,128
5/12/10: 19,899
5/26/10: 19,730
6/8/10: 19,770
6/23/10: 19,707
7/6/10: 19,729
7/24/10: 19,506
8/8/10: 19,081
8/26/10: 19,050
9/14/10: 20,025
12/23/10: 21,130
7/8/11: 18,353
7/20/11: 18,180
As you can see from the above, there were modest winter increases in 2010 and 2011. In 2012, however, winter brought a small decline, and the winter of 2008 from 22,642 in late summer to 20,256 by Boxing Day of that year.
In total, we have solid evidence for four years, of which two show increases and two show decreases. For other years we don't have data at hand. Two ups and two downs does not add up to a reliable "winter peak" of any kind.
Incidentally, Gillipig lost the both his bet on 9/17/2012 that Conquer Club would not survive another year, and the bet he made on 5/10/2013 that it would be below 10K members within six months.