more updates and ramblings

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Jun 6 2011, 12:50 pm
@Forum_account:
1. Got rid of the community landing page. Posts related to game development would be screened for content and the approved ones would be displayed on the developer landing page. Unapproved posts would not be displayed publicly.

The members/community landing page generates an infinitesimal amount of ad revenue in comparison to the membership revenue. The existence or non-existence of the two pages you mention is fiscally inconsequential, but serve as an expected benefit of users of BYOND for obvious reasons.

However, should more than three posts be listed on the front page? Absolutely. The front page and game hub pages are the most important ones to address as far as financials are concerned.

While its charter isn't explicit, BYOND Volunteers was supposed to help establish a group of "real BYOND game developers" which would help dictate viable content. That is, give newer and lesser experienced developers a taste of what is expected in the community. However, as you probably have noticed, this group is largely inactive... this is not a good thing. (see Zan: a good game that has faded into obscurity despite all attempts).

Perhaps you have suggestions or mockups to spruce up the developers launch page.
Jun 6 2011, 12:53 pm
Calus CoRPS wrote:
There could be several answers as to why we do not get these posts:
...
I doubt number four is the source of the problem.

But it's one of the few sources of the problem that can be addressed. We can't force people to make better games, but we can change the environment to better foster game development activity.

It's not that developers are deciding "I'm not going to work on a game because, when I post about it, it'll be chased off the front page by a bunch of nonsense posts." What's happening is that passively, because most people are making "check out my new base icon" types of posts, developers are feeling satisfied with their work long before it's complete so there's no motivation to finish it.
Jun 6 2011, 4:07 pm
Like Bootyboy says, I don't think the financial issue can be shoved under the carpet. Before discussing whether this is a good idea, we should ask whether it is possible. Is there, then, any way to make up the loss in revenue?

Bootyboy wrote:
While its charter isn't explicit, BYOND Volunteers was supposed to help establish a group of "real BYOND game developers" which would help dictate viable content. That is, give newer and lesser experienced developers a taste of what is expected in the community. However, as you probably have noticed, this group is largely inactive... this is not a good thing. (see Zan: a good game that has faded into obscurity despite all attempts).

I think the entire BYOND Volunteers idea isn't going to generate activity without more notability. Right now, BYOND Volunteer posts are quite unnoticeable. In this sense, Forum_account's idea is a step in the right direction, and we should also ask what other ways are there to promote and advertise efforts such as BYOND Volunteers.
Jun 6 2011, 4:43 pm (Edited on Jun 6 2011, 5:03 pm)
Toadfish wrote:
I think the entire BYOND Volunteers idea isn't going to generate activity without more notability. Right now, BYOND Volunteer posts are quite unnoticeable. In this sense, Forum_account's idea is a step in the right direction, and we should also ask what other ways are there to promote and advertise efforts such as BYOND Volunteers.

I'm not sure that it's enough to just increase the presence of the positive efforts. Something has to be done to hide/eliminate/reduce the negative efforts. Maybe this is too drastic, but I'm not sure what else can be done. It seems like these ideas have been kicked around before and the staff (or some non-staff users) goes with some non-offensive, middle-of-the-road attempt that doesn't go far enough to bring about a significant, lasting change.

Part of the problem is that the staff doesn't do much to bring new users to BYOND. We shouldn't need to worry about keeping around the non-productive BYOND users (even if they do purchase memberships) because BYOND users should be very replaceable (the internet is full of people who are capable of making posts like this one, edit: or better yet, this one). Because of the lack of efforts to bring in new users, we're kind of stuck catering to what we've got.

And when it comes to bringing in users, I see two ways BYOND can go:

1. Target kids with little to no programming experience. This requires a lot of work because the staff would have to make a lot of educational materials (the DM guide won't cut it). Though, in some ways this is easier because BYOND is already reaching this segment. Still, some quality control would have to be done to ensure that the community stays focused on game development and doesn't turn into a giant anime chatroom/forum/blog site.

2. Target indie/hobby game developers who may have a less of a technical background or just don't have the time to sink into other game development methods. This would require a lot of work because BYOND doesn't seem to be reaching this segment (for most of the developers here, BYOND appears to be their first programming experience). BYOND also isn't up to contemporary standards as a "multiplayer game development tool" doesn't impress people as much as it did 5-10 years ago.
Jun 6 2011, 4:47 pm
Forum_account wrote:
But it's one of the few sources of the problem that can be addressed. We can't force people to make better games, but we can change the environment to better foster game development activity.

It's not that developers are deciding "I'm not going to work on a game because, when I post about it, it'll be chased off the front page by a bunch of nonsense posts." What's happening is that passively, because most people are making "check out my new base icon" types of posts, developers are feeling satisfied with their work long before it's complete so there's no motivation to finish it.

It's a rather large (and difficult to prove) assumption to say that developers feel satisfied with their project because they see low quality blog posts and that's why they don't complete it. What about people like Geldonyetich who strive to create content and yet simply lose interest? And OasisCircle who just stopped updating everyone on his Craftfolk project and has now moved onto Delve?

My opinion is that eventually developers just lose hold of the incentive they had for creating the game. Ultimately the incentive for developing a BYOND game is the developer's own satisfaction, and that isn't always enough. Just take a look at the last bullet point of Geldonyetich's post on why he failed the GSDC2011: "The only real incentive to complete the GSDC2011 was my own satisfaction anyway." Apparently his own satisfaction wasn't enough.

There is also the issue of inexperience that many developers on this site are faced with. But that's an issue for another day.
Jun 6 2011, 4:54 pm
Cody123100 wrote:
It's a rather large (and difficult to prove) assumption to say that developers feel satisfied with their project because they see low quality blog posts and that's why they don't complete it. What about people like Geldonyetich who strive to create content and yet simply lose interest?
My opinion is that eventually developers just lose hold of the incentive they had for creating the game

I agree that there are many reasons why developers don't complete things. However, it makes it a lot easier to be satisfied with an incomplete project when you can look around and say "hey, I'm still way ahead of all these people".

If you get rid of the garbage posts and highlight the quality game development efforts, people may no longer feel satisfied with their incomplete projects. I'm not saying it'll have this effect on all developers, but there's only one way to find out. And if it doesn't work, well, we still got rid of the garbage posts. The only downside to this is that the staff would lose membership revenue (at least in the short term).
Jun 7 2011, 3:49 am
It's been considered before, but I'll consider it again, and take counsel from a few other quarters too, then discuss with Tom. I'm sure he's got plenty of thoughts on this and has considered it several times over already.
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