I am surprised about this discussion.
Sure (although I don’t know chess.com very well), I am sure there are things there that the OGS website can profit from, but why only limit ourself to this one source?
There are more sources, websites, ideas, concepts floating somewhere in the (digital) universum that are worth attention in the pursuit of making OGS a better, correction: the best go server. So why that focus on chess.com?
What also surprised me and still does surprise me is that OGS in my honest opinion (and I don’t mean to insult the powers that be) doesn’t seem to have a long term goal for OGS. Maybe too much ad hoc short term strategies, but not something like “in five years we want to be the greatest go server in the world, and this is how are going to achieve it”.
Okay, enough for now. Just a feeling I wanted to share.
Thanks to developers and moderators for their energy to run this website.
Basically all came from a new publication by go magic about it’s ambition. OGS is mentioned in it.
So it’s time specific and content specific if you want.
Do you think OGS is lacking of ambition maybe? Or communication toward the users?
That is a good point, but I am not sure that there has to be one.
For example, we are all playing Go, but do we all have a “long term goal” for it?
Some people like to reach a certain rank, others might want to win a tournament, others might just enjoy the game at the rank they reached (so, maybe those reached their goals) and are now chilling or others might want to achieve some things but other obligations are taking their time and so forth.
Similarly OGS doesn’t need to have a lofty goal, or growth targets or milestones or a roadmap or anything like that. If it does, good for OGS. If it doesn’t, also good for OGS.
Gomagic posted a pitch deck soliciting business partners to help them fund their growth. The second slide says, “The Goal: Become the #1 Platform for Playing and Learning Go, In other words Become Chess.com in the World of Go” - I don’t think they intended this to mean they were going to use chesscom as their primary source of inspiration for product features or business strategy, but evidently a lot of people interpreted it that way.
I get the same feeling. We’re accustomed to businesses having Bold Visions and Ambitious Plans, but a lot of that is driven by investors who want to be reassured that the company’s management is going to deliver profit and/or capital appreciation. I think OGS is more like an extremely sophisticated hobbyist project - built and run by volunteers.
Of course that is entirely up to OGS. Still, I’m hoping to see more growth-oriented projects in the world of online go, and I’m interested to see how gomagic fares.
It might not be articulated in the explicit manner of “the long term goal of OGS is X” but it’s clear from various statements over time and the general “vibe” that there are a few overarching long term goals:
Comprehensive Go service that offers a maximum practical range of Go playing options to suit every user. People complain that this leads to the OGS options cockpit but that just goes to show that decisions on expanding or contracting the cockpit are taken with this goal in mind and usually result in expansion.
Accessible Go service that anyone can use. Online, usable in any browser, endless visual and sound customisations, allowing third party app interfaces, translations, all point to an ambition of maximal accessibility.
Supporting and expanding the Go community, particularly in the “West”. OGS looks to include far more features related to community building than are necessary merely to play Go.
Sustainable Go service for the long term. It’s clear (and maybe a lack of explicit goal and strategy statement type things is evidence) that maintaining a service and being around for the long term is an objective. It’s not that OGS is run in a ruthlessly commercial way looking to maximise income even if this might mean collapse at some point or a radical pivot in service offer.
There might be others but these feel like the main “guiding lights” to me, not in any particular order.
The strategy of “doing nothing” is neat idea. The phrase here does not refer to inaction, rather to be observant of the landscape and not change for the sake of change.
Does ogs need to change? IMO, not much is pressing. If anything, the rest of english speaking go needs to “back a horse” or so in terms of seeing what they want to see. This section of a niche interest sees types like Devin (of Baduk Club) and Anton (of Go Magic) seeking to “grow the game”.
If the KGS base were subsumed by OGS, all the better in reducing fragmentation. If the AGA decided to parallel or adopt OGS ranks, that would be an interesting change to OTB play, the ramifications of which could be exciting.
Whoever could get mass production of boards & stones could dare to “win” (achieve lofty goals). Likewise with setting up courses to get beginners up & playing. The key for latter is to see matchmaking be so available at starting levels of play, whether in person or online.
A focused campaign with some finance in a large city of english speakers looking to play games is doable with some research. Perhaps finding a city in India or an avant garde metro area in the US would do. A bunch of new features & tweaks on a website isn’t always the answer.
For the game play experience I would look more to other go sites. For puzzles I would look primarily at tsumego sites and also Lichess. For courses I would look at chess learning platforms like chessable and chessly. The thing I think chesscom does particularly well is integrations / partnerships with content creators and hosting events that attract strong players.
Other than that, I would probably have a look at online communities based on other classic games like scrabble, backgammon, bridge, etc.
