At this point we didn't expect much community feedback but wanted to test the waters and see which part of the website needs more clarity and focus.
It turns out the feedback was mostly focused on two areas:
- "What if I'm not lonely?" to which we have a simple response: great, you can then help us realizing the mission of making other people less lonely. We want to make it loud and clear that the Games Against Loneliness is not a general gaming community nor a gaming club. There are many local clubs and communities already and we don't want to cannibalize the existing places and communities. We would rather acts as a connector between those communities and a magnet to attract new people (often completely new to this kind of activities) to join.
- "When will the Games Against Loneliness HQ be opened?" to which we don't have an answer yet because it all depends on the amount of paying Members — the more people join the cause, the more membership funds we collect, the larger budget we will have to open the community space. So far, even with limited registered interest it looks hopeful.
We want to stress: opening the community space is one of the end-goals that we try to reach as soon as possible but there is so much else we need to tackle first.
For example: first version of the website mentioned creating a registered association (which is still possible to fulfill the social activities), but it became painfully clear during the discussions that there also needs to exist a commercial entity that will provide enough freedom to us to run things in the background and keep everything financially sustainable. We are thinking how to solve that because, while it's much easier to run a company than a non-profit, it comes with its own set of challenges. Fewer of them, but still, and we want to keep things transparent.
For that purpose, we will probably start small with a cheap membership (about 5€ a month, 60€ a year) that will be used to launch the online community and a platform connecting Members to facilitate their local Community Hubs and Game Nights. This is what we can do at the moment to start building from the ground up, get more Members, spread the word, and prepare for the next steps.
As always, you can get in touch with us with the form located in the footer of the website — if you have feedback or want to ask about something, we are happy to help!
This website exists thanks to the Cubitoo Pro Bono Program.