SilkWizard's site

Gamers Must Die

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 22:21:57 +0000

Jared and I have been toying around with the idea of starting up a regular podcast for a couple years now. Many of you probably remember our BYOND Podcasts from awhile back, and nowadays we do an informational NEStalgia podcast every now and then. Those podcasts were essentially our practice runs for this:

The gist of our theme for the podcast is as follows:

There is something very wrong with the world. When the hell did gaming go from being a source of entertainment to becoming some sort of lifestyle choice? When did the majority of gamers become mean spirited, self-entitled dipshits who believe that crap like console rivalries actually matter? From obsessive neckbeards who shed involuntary tears of joy every time they think about Final Fantasy 7, to rage-filled losers who spend almost as much time ranting about how much they hate World of Warcraft as they do playing it.

...Are we the only ones who aren't okay with this?

Gamers Must Die doesn't care about your Gamerscore, your Tier 10 raid gear or your kill/death ratio. We're here to talk about games without all the fanboy love affairs or irrational hatred for the games or their developers. Most importantly, we're here to speak to other people like us who enjoy video games but can't stand the increasingly obnoxious culture surrounding them.

If you enjoyed our previous BYOND Podcasts or if this sounds like something that might appeal to you, then check it out at Gamers Must Die.com. There is some coarse language and the occasional more adult-ish topic, so it's not meant for younger listeners. I don't plan on linking BYONDers to new episodes or blog posts after this, so be sure to follow us on that site if you want to stay up to date with future content.

Enjoy! Or don't. This one might be hitting a little too close to home for some of you...

NEStalgia's Recent Success and What You Can Learn From It

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 00:52:59 +0000

It's been a crazy month. I'm still being pulled in a million directions at once by all of the stuff on my to-do list, but I'm pausing for a moment to share with all of you the story of Silk Games' success. My hope is to make the case for just how viable original games are on BYOND, and why you should start making one right now.

This post is addressed to the developers who have been sitting on the sidelines (or on their hands) because they haven't believed that making an original game is worth it.

I believe that I can boil down the secret to my personal success so far on BYOND to one very simple piece of advice. Heed my advice and put yourself in the same mindset that the Silk Games team did, and you could be responsible for the next big BYOND hit that will make NEStalgia's recent run seem like nothing in comparison.

My advice: Don't make a BYOND game.

I've see a lot of games come and go during my time on this site, and ninety-nine percent of them all had one thing in common: they were designed to be BYOND games. In other words, most developers have believed that a game's worth was judged based upon a simple comparison between their game and other BYOND games. So-called technical accomplishments have been trumpeted over everything else: "I have click to teleport commands in my game!", "I have a 500x500 map!", "There are 100 different types of enemies!" "I made sweet animations for all of my attacks!"

No one outside of BYOND cares, and no one (apart from 8-14 year olds) is going to be interested in your game unless it's good by the standards of all other games that are available online. Let's face it: there are only a handful of BYOND games that don't suck. Put 99% of BYOND games side-by-side with any "real" game in the same genre and it becomes glaringly obvious what an embarrassing mess most games here are.

If you can't tell which of these screenshots looks like a legitimate game, and which looks like some student homebrew crap you'd have found on a Windows 3.1 shareware collection disc back in the early 90s, then you might as well stop reading this blog post right now.

You don't have to make a game that is overly complex, and you don't need cutting edge graphics. What you need is a complete, cohesive package: a great concept backed up with fun gameplay and a professional level of polish. Your litmus test shouldn't be whether or not other BYONDers would review your game as a 9/10 - it should be whether or not a site like Destructoid would.

Before what happened with NEStalgia in February, did anyone think in a million years that a BYOND game could be featured on mainstream gaming sites? No, they didn't: and that is the root of the problem.

NEStalgia's Success: Myths and Facts
NEStalgia's recent success was based upon two very important factors: the concept for the game, and the execution. The concept is unique and has never really been done before in a mainstream game. People have played old RPGs, and they've played MMOs, but by combining the two different genres we have something very original on our hands that is both familiar and new at the same time.

Once we nabbed people's attention with the concept, whether or not they tried the game (and stuck around) was solely dependent upon the execution. In that sense NEStalgia absolutely delivers - the look and feel of the whole thing is spot-on, and the game itself is a lot of fun to play.

The only area in which NEStalgia still has a lot of catching up to do with mainstream games is on the technical side of things. If we could host large-scale servers without lag (200 players+) we'd have retained a lot more people... but I'm not sweating that. While many developers here like to use BYOND's limitations as an excuse for not making a game, the fact is that even without the ability to host large servers we've been incredibly successful. Instead of whining about those limits, the Silk Games team is working pro-actively to find workarounds and solutions for them.

It's all about attitude and determination.

The Marketing Campaign
First a quick aside: Over the course of the past year when I talked about marketing NEStalgia, most of my "haters" on BYOND were proudly proclaiming that it would never work and that I'd fail... yet now that the game is popular, those same people point towards my "crazy marketing campaign" as "the only reason" for the NEStalgia's success, as if that's some sort of insult now. There's a lesson to be learned there, and it's to ignore the haters and don't let anyone else tell you what you can't do.

I've got a secret... and it's actually a pretty juicy one. Are you ready?

There was no marketing campaign.

I'm dead serious. I didn't get the chance to put my plans into action, because the game exploded about half an hour after I sent off what were essentially my "warmup" emails.

My brilliant marketing campaign™ amounted to a website, a trailer for the game, and this email:

NEStalgia didn't make the front page of Kotaku, Game Informer, Destructoid, Joystiq, etc. etc. etc. because I "marketed" the game. It made those sites because it was such a unique concept, and the screenshots and trailer backed it up by demonstrating how well executed the game was.

Player Counts
Everyone over the age of 14 on BYOND knows that fan games here don't get players because the games are good (they aren't), they get players because practically all of their advertising is being done for them. By associating themselves with a popular IP, DBZ/Naruto/Final Fantasy fan games on BYOND are automatically having players funneled their way. There are millions of DBZ fans out there searching the internet for more DBZ stuff every single day; it would be hard to create a DBZ game and not get hundreds of players trickling in automatically.

I know that this phenomena has discouraged many potential original game creators here, and has even turned them a lot of them over to the dark side as they hope to take advantage of leaching onto a popular IP's success. Perhaps it should have occurred to some of you that there was another path to take, one that was not only much more profitable, but much more fulfilling: create your own IP and work to make it popular.

With even this small initial burst of exposure, NEStalgia is now beating the BYOND Fan Games at their own game. Just last week I found out that we'd been featured on 1UP's Top 101 Free Games of 2011 list - which compliments our presence on Gamepro's 37 Best Free PC Games list. We have a lot of very popular "Let's Play" YouTubers releasing weekly videos that get tens of thousands of views. Just a couple weeks ago one of our community members posted about NEStalgia on a website that they frequent, and we ended up with thousands of page views and hundreds of new logins in a single day.

Can you imagine what's going to happen when we expand the game so that it can handle larger servers, and then begin to actually market it? With the long term development plans that we have in place (not to mention the advertising budget that I now have at my disposal), trust me when I say that you've only seen the tip of the iceberg.

The Money
Let's get right to the point: NEStalgia sold $10,000 worth of subscriptions during the first three weeks of the explosion.

Three weeks. Ten. Thousand. Dollars.

Those of you with BYOND development skills who are having a hard time getting motivated - if $10,000 in three weeks doesn't get your attention, then I don't know what will. Of course our profits have leveled off a bit since the initial explosion, but they're still very steady. The average sales/donation revenue for the last two weeks is $150 per day - and even at those numbers I could theoretically develop NEStalgia solo as a part time $40,000+/year job after expenses.

Now all of that is pretty crazy for a BYOND game, yes... but it barely scratches the surface of what a truly successful indie game could bring in. The money we've earned so far has simply proven that NEStalgia has the potential to be a gold mine - it's now up to me and the rest of the development team to take it to the next level.

What's stopping other BYOND games from doing this? That's a good question to ask yourself.

A note about BYOND benefactors
BYOND does indeed receive a much deserved cut of the NEStalgia revenue, which brings me to my next aside:

I've always hated the fact that people champion users who donate money to BYOND as the "ideal BYONDers" who are the ones "doing the most good for BYOND". Donations are certainly nice, but I've always said that the best way to benefit BYOND is to create good games. Now not only have I done that, but as a side effect of creating a good original game I've essentially also become BYOND's biggest financial benefactor.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

What You Should Do
Whether you're new to BYOND or a developer with ten years of DM experience, you should drop everything and start developing an original game right this minute. If you put some real thought into coming up with an original concept, and if you take the time to do it right, there is no reason why you can't experience the same level of success that NEStalgia has had thus far - or greater.

Don't worry about timeframe. The world isn't going to change in 6 months, 1 year, or even 2 years. There is no need to rush something out the door - take your time and get it right.

Just remember that your goal isn't to make a BYOND game: your goal is to make a game. The BYOND Hub, the members page, the developer forums - all of those things are irrelevant. Your audience is waiting outside of BYOND, and when you make a good game you'd be surprised by how little it takes to draw them in.

So what are you waiting for? Go do it.

@People who sell fan games

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 18:10:12 +0000

I didnt' find out that people were actually selling subscriptions to fan games until a week or two ago. This is not a joke. Your existence on BYOND endangers my own endeavors (if BYOND gets a site-wide C&D, I'm super screwed in the short term as well). This problem needs to be addressed.

I sent off an email this morning to find out who to contact at Namco Bandai about developers on BYOND who sell subscriptions to DBZ games. They got back to me inside of eleven minutes.

Something needs to be done. You need to stop selling subscriptions and taking "donations", or your games need to be removed from the hub outright.

The only thing that has kept me from taking this a step further is my concern for BYOND itself, and because I think that the powers that be can resolve this situation on their own before it becomes a big deal.

Edit: To be clear: I'm not calling that number right now. At this time, I'm simply trying to illustrate my point.

People are live streaming NEStalgia right now! Another show also features NEStalgia/BYOND.

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 07:30:01 +0000

This is pretty cool! A group is live streaming as they play the game. Lots of people watching too.

[Edit: the live stream is done for now]
http://justin.tv/spikedapenguin

Also, NEStalgia got mentioned on the latest Destructoid Show, along with BYOND:

Starts at 9 minutes in.

Any BYOND hosts, or do you know of other hosting services?

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 02:09:53 +0000

I'm running on empty at the moment, and I'm curious as to whether or not there are any other BYOND hosting services out there that I'm not aware of. Also, what about hosting services on external websites that would work to host a BYOND game? Money isn't an issue.

I'm totally clueless on this topic, and if someone could point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it :)

NEStalgia is currently climbing Reddit

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 17:47:50 +0000

I started sending out emails to gaming sites and blogs this morning. We've had a great response so far. Right now a lot of our traffic is coming from Reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/fr3nx/ nestalgia_free_to_play_nesstyle_morpg_just/

I've begun hosting a second server that may or may not be temporary, depending upon how many of the new people stick around:

byond://98.225.39.120:1633

Whatever happens, I'll be happy to transfer savefiles between servers later on. Our only hiccup so far is one that we expected: the use of BYOND icon functions makes the server chug when there are lots of people creating new characters. Nothing we can't solve by hosting a few more servers in the short term.

Good Promotion vs. Bad Promotion

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 23:57:16 +0000

Next week I'll be posting some specific guidelines and suggestions for how BYONDers can help to promote and spread the word about NEStalgia. Before I go over that, however, I think that it's important to have a more philosophical discussion of the "dos and don'ts" of promoting something online. The best way to go about this is to point to an example of what not to do in order to learn from someone else's mistakes.

What not to do
Last Spring a NEStalgia player randomly took it upon themselves to go out and promote the game online. Who this person was isn't important - this is not about the person, but what his failed techniques were and how to learn from his mistakes. Frankly, it's as much my fault as it is his: at the time I didn't want to hurt his feelings by saying "No, I don't want you to do that so please stop!".

This person used the name "NES_Online" and signed up for accounts on lots of different message boards and gaming sites for the specific purpose of promoting NEStalgia. He was met with fierce resistance, and most of the threads were deleted. Here are a couple examples of what he posted: Example 1 | Example 2

So what did he do wrong? Lots of things, but first and foremost: NEVER join a website or a community forum for the sole purpose of promoting something. Even though most of the message boards he posted on were geared towards online gamers and RPG fans, NES_Online was essentially a human spambot. No one likes to be advertised to like that.

The actual NES_Online handle was another huge mistake. Not only did it scream "I'm only here to advertise this game!", it gave the impression that he was officially representing NEStalgia... yet in his post he presents himself as just a player, or even someone who has just heard of the game and not played it. Ex: "I was wondering if anyone had heard of this game... It's supposed to be....". Now he is coming off as a spambot AND a self-promoting douche trying to deceive people.

Last but not least, the post itself is pretty bad, full of paragraphs of poorly worded and meaningless information (no one cares about the names of the people who made the game, etc). Also, saying that NEStalgia is a "parody" of old games and movies is not only misleading, it's incorrect.

What should have happened here?
To promote something like this online, you spread the word amongst people with whom you already have a relationship. If NES_Online was already a known member of a gaming forum or community, then he should have made a post about NEStalgia that said something like "Hey guys I've been playing this game called NEStalgia, and I really enjoy it. Here is why:", and then provided relevant links so that they could try it out as well. Short, sweet, and personal.

This philosophy applies to more than just message boards. Post a bulletin on YouTube with a link to the NEStalgia trailer for your friends, but don't go spam message a bunch of random YouTube members saying "watch this video!". Write an entry about the game on your blog, but don't go posting comments with links on random blogs hoping to leach traffic.

Promoting the game on larger news sites, gaming blogs and independent gaming websites is my job as the game's developer. That type of promotion needs to be done in an official way through the appropriate channels.

Unfortunately, NES_Online also took it upon himself to create official looking entries for NEStalgia at sites like this using the same cringe-inducing verbage. The only person who should be listing NEStalgia on those types of sites is me; if you stumble upon a site that you think the game ought to be listed on then the best thing to do is send me a link to it.

Why does all of this matter?
When you're marketing anything you need to have a consistent message and avoid getting in people's faces. Word-of-mouth can be incredibly powerful (see Minecraft's success), but it can't be forced. An advertising campaign can just as easily backfire if you tick off your potential audience.

With the promotional website and the trailer I've created the best tools that I possibly can to help convince outsiders to give NEStalgia a chance. The goal at this point is simply to get those materials in front of people in the most natural and unobtrusive way possible.

Stay tuned - we're going to have some fun with this next week!

What do you want to know about HUDs and Onscreen Text?

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 02:25:23 +0000

Yesterday I released the Silver Version of the Silk Games HUDs and Onscreen Text demo/tutorial. As I now turn my focus over to the more feature-filled and complex Gold Version of the demo, I'd like to know what people want out of it.

The major additions that I'm planning for the Gold Version are customizable dialogue boxes (what you see in any traditional RPG), a simple Player inventory HUD plus NPC shopkeeper HUD demonstration, and stuff like Yes/No prompts and auto-updating numbers up the HUD.

The Gold Version will show you how to do stuff like this
The dialogue boxes will probably be the big draw, as developers will be able to drop them into any existing project without much hassle. Line breaks etc. are all calculated automatically (and only once, when the world boots up).

My question: Is there anything else that you'd like to see demonstrated with HUDs? Anything that is lacking in the other demos currently available on BYOND?

Please post a comment with your suggestions or requests. People have been asking me about how Silk Games HUDs work for years: now is your chance to uncover the specifics!

Silk's Week in Review - Jan 23-29 2011

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 02:28:01 +0000

While I will continue to occasionally post on this blog about BYOND related stuff, my main blog is now at BenMakesMovies.com. Every week on my new blog I plan to do a "Week in Review" post about my opinion on world news in addition to how my week went. Alongside that I'll post once here every weekend to link you to my favorite blog entries from that week along with short descriptions.

You don't need to sign up in order to comment on posts at Ben Makes Movies, so feel free to make your replies to my posts there.

Dear Week's Growth Beard
Well, here we are again. Our relationships always end like this. It seems like it was only 5 days ago that everything in the world was right I didnt have to wake up and shave, and you made me feel laid back and carefree.

It wasnt very long after that before we started having problems again. Were both to blame: you started chafing my neck, and I wasnt taking you out in public anymore... (Read more)

The problem I have with Twitter
A few days ago I begrudgingly started using my twitter account in order to help promote the new site and Ive found that actually bringing myself to post a tweet is a struggle.

My problem is not that I have a lack of interesting thoughts or experiences to tweet about throughout the day the issue is that I cant picture anyone else actually giving a damn about them. Why? Because of my own perspective on other peoples tweets: (Read more)

To all of the angry Fan Game creators/players

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 03:23:57 +0000

Try something for me.

Step 1: Go create a fan game for the Xbox Live platform, a fan game for the iPhone, or a fan game for Android.

Step 2: Attempt to submit your fan game to those services to be published.

(Step 2.5: Get rejected immediately)

Step 3: Come limping back to BYOND with your heads down and your Saiyan tails between your legs and beg for forgiveness.

The fact that your fan games are allowed to be listed on BYOND at all is a miracle. It's also sheer luck that the IP holders have overlooked BYOND fan games up until now. That luck could change at a moment's notice.

Welcome to the real world, kiddos.