Webtoon contest 2018 update: Why are people not supporting the winners?

[CallMeMattheww]

This isn't me trying to be mean and throwing shade but rather I'm just really confused, like I personally don't follow the 8 winners only because the stories aren't my cup of tea but I thought that since they won the contest it meant that many other people were following and would greatly support the winners (I mean that's why they won right?) but checking up on them now (well 2 still haven't debuted yet) they seem to be on the usual webcomic downward spiral where the first 3 chapters are high in terms of likes and comments but as the series keeps going every chapter gets less and less like / comments and what's worse is that If I remember properly some seem to be performing worse than they did in the actual contest

This is honestly confusing to me only because the whole purpose of the contest was IMO to get fans to choose which series they would support, basically it was a smart marketing strategy on Webtoons part because now they get to see ,first hand, which series people would actually support but for some reason the comics seem to be "under-performing" , but like why tho?

Also, we do not have the full performance stats of the comics because Webtoons does not show the view counter so all we can go on is the audience engagement so I'm basing my judgments on that alone

So all this has left me wondering why are readers not supporting these comics? did something happen that I'm just not aware of.

[joannekwan]

I guess after the initial boost of the contest, they're just like any other comic at their very core and suffer from decay like a lot of titles do after a certain point.
Maybe it's pointing to some larger issue at webtoons, their audience, or how they're running things? Who knows?

[CallMeMattheww]

But it's so weird tho, like why is it that some are doing worse than when the contest started, I would think that at the very least they would reclaim they're average numbers that they had during that time but it seems like even that's gone, like where did all those viewers go?

[Rodimus13]

They don’t realize the comic restarted. In the case of muted they totally rewrote the beginning of the story. To the point I’m like ummmmmmm what? As it has a different feel now

[joannekwan]

That seems … counterintuitive to the contest.
Are they allowed to do that? xD

[Rodimus13]

Part of the prize is they work with WEBTOON editors. So the editors probably strongly suggested it.

[Azifri]

They have an editor once they become featured. I don't know what happens internally but they might even be required to make changes.

About the initial topic, I'm also surprised and at the same time I'm not xD In the previous contest, my favorite winner was a comic called Inarime and after it relaunched it got so little attention they cancelled it after season 1. I feel that a large number of webtoon readers go with hype and then forget completely about the webtoon, so I wonder if after the contest, people who supported some stories then just forgot about them.

[joannekwan]

Guess webtoons could be shooting themselves in the foot in that particular case.

[Nachi]

Maybe part of the reason could be that it took months before the series restarted in featured and people's enthusiasm just cooled?
That is a wild guess, but what my better guess would be that there are a lot of series getting featured recently, that it is hard to follow them all. I would love to read them all, but there is just not enough time for it and I prefer to spend the time working on my own webtoon, so I usually read 2 series a day on average.
But don't get me wrong, I think it is great that so many series were able to make it into featured, but it also makes it harder to become super popular, probably.

[graveweaver]

The majority of Webtoons readers probably did not care about the contest. Most people on Webtoons are just lurkers and read whatever pops up as a notification.

During the first three eps, every feature is pushed super strongly so everyone who has the app at least looks at the notif. This is MUCH more people than the fans who originally were rooting for any particular series to win. I'm sure that whoever was invested in the results of the contest is keeping up with their favorite contest winners, but in the grand scheme of webtoons readers that is probably like maybe 5% of people on their site. During the contest they were just a very vocal subset.

Also, receiving declining likes is normal. Everyone checks out the first three eps. Lots will like without subscribing, making a mental note to check it when it has way more updates so they can binge. Others like it because they read it, but it wasnt for them and they moved on. Almost every series that has a significant amount of subscribers will have the most likes on episode 1 because, that episode has the most viewers. EVERYONE reads episode 1. Not everyone from episode 1 sticks out to check episode 78. Not because a series is bad, that is just how viewership works.

[Kittosaurus]

The popularity was only a portion of of the score. Honestly I think the biggest factor as others have mentioned is the relaunch. I wasn't really interested in a lot of the comics that won - so I haven't followed their progress since the contest. But I know as a reader, I'd probably loose interest in a story if they took it off Webtoon for a few months and then started from scratch (with minor to major changes).

[oysterchip]

the majority of winners weren't chosen by popularity and seemed to be very influenced by editor opinion, which seems to be out of touch with their audience
i also get the impression they were trying to support underdogs/diverse styles but of course that comes at the cost of reader engagement
it doesn't make sense from a business standpoint but seems in line with their previous contests so i can't say it was surprising

[Buurd]

I think a big part of it is probably that there was a lot of hype and ads about the contest around the site/app. So more people were checking out new titles and trying to show a lot of support for those they wanted to win. But now that they're featured they've already reached that goal, so readers don't feel as responsible to get their favs stats up.
Also, the contest ran during the summer when students had time off to binge and keep up with lots of comics. Now they're relaunching while students are busy with school and exams, so they might not be able to read/keep up with as many different webtoons as they could before.

[Rodimus13]

I can vouch for exams! State tests for my students are next week.

[RandomWebComicFan]

I noticed the same thing with Castle Swimmer. Don't remember the beginning that well, but it still seemed quite a lot different from what it was like when on Tapas.

Lumine also had that one scene when it was on Tapas; absent when it got featured.