In response to Ganite
I wouldn't go that far. Between Tom and Lummy, and not even considering website costs, I'd assuming they're making around the same amount as a minimum wage job, and are clearly pumping out updates. You have to keep in mind that most of this money isn't even going to them.
Let's just say Ganite was complimenting Tom and Lummox JR for persisting even with less-than-ideal revenue.
In response to Kaiochao
Kaiochao wrote:
Let's just say Ganite was complimenting Tom and Lummox JR for persisting even with less-than-ideal revenue.

When the 2 person company I work for (I don't count our contracted guy as a real employee), gains more pre-sales on our expensive medical billing app, then I will start to donate the thousands a month to BYOND.

But like you said Tom, don't bank on the future (though you meant features).

But I won't know shiznit about that til July.
If BYOND went into a different direction years ago, it'd be a lot better off today. It's only been going in the direction of a few selected individuals which have still brought nothing good to BYOND despite all their talk about what they'll be bringing with said updates. Sad to say but it serves em right. I've been here for years and have always loved the potential BYOND has had and still has but they always go in the wrong directions. It's a matter of opinion but BYOND's income reflects that as well.
You are 100% correct about "serves em right" because the business success/failure is correlated to our (my) decisions. I am not trying to convince you guys otherwise or ask you to donate etc-- I'm just telling you the truth of the situation, that we need to make a certain quota to realistically progress here, and since it's not happening, BYOND is largely a maintenance project. I do not doubt that with some better decisions about the direction we could have done better, but those are a lot easier in hindsight, especially in the world of technology where the tools that exist today may not have been around a week ago.

I don't want to give people the impression that this is a guilt trip to goad you into donating or feeling sorry for us. I am proud of this product and think it's pretty good that we've managed to keep many users around for so long. I think it may have seen its best day (actually that was probably ten years ago) but that doesn't mean people shouldn't use it if it meets their needs, and we haven't wholly given up either because a small (very small) delusional piece of me believes that we could be more successful.

My main message though is that I don't want people waiting on these kinds of updates; I make the announcements just to give you an honest idea of what we're trying to do, but because there is a whole business side of this that isn't doing well, and we aren't funded, there's a lot more to it than just trying to crank out technical improvements in the hope they will save the day. That would be more along the lines of an open-source freeware project, which may be what we become down the line.
I do my best to support byond by bringing people who are interested in the dynamics of game development to this site...
I believe that it is a very good tool for beginners to get their "feet wet" in basic game design...
In response to Tom
Tom wrote:
and we haven't wholly given up either because a small (very small) delusional piece of me believes that we could be more successful.

Thats all you need and how I feel with my business (Music Videos mostly rap.) Though my ego is a little bigger I honestly believe I can go further and will and thats all you need and ever need.
In response to Tom
I understand where you're coming from and I don't think you're trying to convince anyone but I really really wish you would've listened to the larger part of the community(despite them being the "anime kiddies" instead of the "experienced" forum goers who agreed on the removal of guilds for example. All of that is in the past I guess. I wish BYOND the best of luck for it's future and if I had the money I would definitely be donating tons if I felt everyone was actually listened to. I've learned a lot on this site, good and bad, and I'm still planning on working on a lot with the program, just sucks to not really have any good help around here because most were pushed away from the site from the past decisions.
I don't see how we pushed anyone away. We had to reorganize because the ratio of drama (= maintenance) to productivity was very high. We weren't making any more money then either. Bottom line is that no one really has the answers as to how to make this a viable business-- everyone just has an opinion-- and it may just be an intractable problem the way things are setup, which OK too. We had to take things in some direction and this is what we went with. I can tell you that the software now is definitely better than it has ever been, but so is the competition.
I think BYOND all around from owners to the community just like to respond to negative comments.


or I'm just jealous :(. lol
In response to MDC
MDC wrote:
I would definitely be donating tons if I felt everyone was actually listened to.

Tom and Lummox have listened to the community to the community's detriment. Tom hasn't pushed the competent people out of the community, the community pushed the competent people out by itself.

Guilds and the like were so filled with hate and drama that we lost most of our reasonable folk over the course of their existence. After their removal, the forum was a horrible mess and the moderators were overwhelmed by it all.

BYOND is moving in the right direction for the first time in years if you ask me. The addition of an HTML5 client, the new VS2013 builds, moving toward a platform-independent approach, etc. Multithreading was a bit of an unnecessary kerfuffle, but the recent updates that have improved the string tables and the object reference tables have been huge.
In response to Ter13
Yes of course I agree that the software is moving in the right direction, I was referring to the site. All the drama is still here that's for sure and no one really likes to come around and post on the forums anymore because of the big changes, just the same old group of people.

I'm really interested in the HTML5 client and can't wait to mess around with it. I've had plans for 2 games I've wanted to make but sadly won't have the time for it till I move and get married haha.
In response to MDC
MDC wrote:
till I move and get married haha.

you really won't have time lol.

In response to MDC
MDC wrote:
Yes of course I agree that the software is moving in the right direction, I was referring to the site. All the drama is still here that's for sure and no one really likes to come around and post on the forums anymore because of the big changes, just the same old group of people.

I really think the mistake we made was putting so much focus on the site as a portal, and not focusing on the software. So really, complaints about the site seem to me, to be extending the problem further.
In response to Ter13
Ter13 wrote:
MDC wrote:
Yes of course I agree that the software is moving in the right direction, I was referring to the site. All the drama is still here that's for sure and no one really likes to come around and post on the forums anymore because of the big changes, just the same old group of people.

I really think the mistake we made was putting so much focus on the site as a portal, and not focusing on the software. So really, complaints about the site seem to me, to be extending the problem further.

I actually think the exact opposite. I think coming to the site and being able to chat with people is the main reason people stick around for so long. There's only a few people that actually get games released, so something else must be keeping them here, and I personally think it's the site that does it. I rarely login to the pager anymore, but I visit the site daily. Might be on my own there, but I think to attract the new generation of possible game developers, the site should be modernized.
I don't play much anymore, but I also visit the site daily. I generally check for updates to those I follow first, Announcements, and then often times skim over Design Philosophy for an interesting read.
The point is that everyone has their own idea of what is important. Since we really do need to be making money, I've tried to look at things that could help in that direction but those have mostly been unsuccessful. For example, we put a great deal of work into this "credits" system because some users convinced us they would use it within their games, but really no one has. A lot of our technology and site changes go the same way. I don't think people really understand what a tricky business keeping this all together is.
In response to Tom
Tom wrote:
The point is that everyone has their own idea of what is important.

This is why I agree about people saying "People need to make games". I think if everyone stopped moaning for updates and just developed with what they have already (Which there is a bucket load of possibilities you can do with what there is now), and then as updates are released, simply update your game accordingly if the new feature suites your needs/desires.

I think you and Lummox should just continue as you are, and just do what you think is right. Everyone here is always going to have mixed feelings on what happens and you're never going to be able to change that.
Well said.
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