It's not as simple as "bughouse will never happen." Thibault has expressed that it is technically possible, but it will take a huge amount of time and effort from him, so why would he add this technical burden to the site when he's sure only a 100 or at best 1000's of players will be playing bughouse? Seeing this, I decided to start a bughouse team on Lichess (lichess.org/team/lichess-bughouse) so that we could gather a lot of players to prove that bughouse is, in fact, worth the effort to implement. Unfortunately, the team did not gain as much traction as I would've hoped, and we've been stuck in limbo for a few years. Last year, during a tough period of my life, I decided that it was time to fight for the bughouse cause once again. Since then, I have hosted over 6 OTB bughouse events in Lebanon and one international event in Istanbul, and am planning on hosting many more (two more OTB events this weekend!). Anyone interested can check out our work / progress on Instagram: www.instagram.com/thebughousehub/.
I really think that the only way forward is to have the wider bughouse community be all in one place and convene on promoting the game. I hope that can happen soon!
As for the toxicity of the game, that is to be expected in any team game. Of course, though, with bughouse it's much more pronounced because there seems to be a few incredibly toxic players who just drive away newcomers and create some sort of positive feedback loop of toxicity among themselves. I think that in general as a team game, bughouse will always have the "shifting the blame on your partner" problem, but it won't be as pronounced when it's introduced to a wider audience.
I really think that the only way forward is to have the wider bughouse community be all in one place and convene on promoting the game. I hope that can happen soon!
As for the toxicity of the game, that is to be expected in any team game. Of course, though, with bughouse it's much more pronounced because there seems to be a few incredibly toxic players who just drive away newcomers and create some sort of positive feedback loop of toxicity among themselves. I think that in general as a team game, bughouse will always have the "shifting the blame on your partner" problem, but it won't be as pronounced when it's introduced to a wider audience.