Basically, you are saying we shouldn't let the fangames loose because they might somehow defame BYOND even more, if that's even possible. If some poor soul lurking in some dark corner of the internet managed to stumble on a niche fangame community and download one of their "games", they would either quit so fast that they would have no idea what engine it was built with (not that they would care), or they would become like the other mindless zombies who actually "play" those things, and would never tell anyone else about it anyway.

In order for BYOND to become hurt by fangames becoming standalone, the games would have to become more popular. For that to happen (it won't), the games would have to be improved significantly and more or less completely rewritten. If there were fangames that somehow managed to improve enough to become so popular that they had a greater impact on BYOND's image, the impact would end up being positive, not negative.

Hiding the problems or pretending they don't exist doesn't make them go away. The first step to fixing a problem is to admit that it exists, and that's what BYOND needs to do. If BYOND constantly hates itself and tries to hide its problems from the wider internet, do you really think anyone is going to want to visit this place? It's far worse for a business to be unknown than to be disliked. The few people who like BYOND are the ones that will make the difference, and that's the only thing that should matter. BYOND shouldn't care what the potential haters think. Just focus enough on the niche and the niche will give outsiders more reasons to like it.

Ter13 wrote:

Multiverse, I don't think the idea is bad per se. I just think there are a lot of complications with it that make it at best pointless and at worst, destructive. If I had a successful business model, I'd 100% offer it.

That sounds like a contradiction. Why would the idea work for your business, but not BYOND?

I think it comes down to marketing the engine in a positive light. A highlight reel would be a great start, but BYOND lacks but three games I'd put on a highlight reel. It has to start there: with the games.

Unfortunately the kind of games that BYOND needs might not happen unless outsiders are given a good reason to use this engine instead of the many alternatives out there. If the engine is put first, the games will follow, but as it stands, BYOND is an underground platform with underground games that nobody knows about. The webclient probably has the most potential to change that, but more developers will need to start using it. BYOND isn't unpopular because of the games, the platform, or the engine. It's unpopular because of a lack of good presentation and advertisement. BYOND doesn't present or advertise itself well, and its games don't either. From the outside, BYOND looks like an old, abandoned mine, but the reality is that there are all kinds of things going on inside. It's just that there are no signposts or any indication that the mine is active. BYOND is losing a lot of its potential by failing to brag about itself. It would help to offset all of the negative discussions like this one.

BYOND has been going for over 15 years, and you are trying to tell me that in that much time, nobody has made anything worth advertising? That's ridiculous. There has to be something. It has to start somewhere.

BYOND might have hidden Undertales, but since nobody bothered to advertise them, they might as well have never existed, because the world doesn't know that they exist.

It has been 15 years and the community hasn't showcased the engine yet. What makes you think they will start now? If BYOND doesn't care enough to showcase itself, why would anyone else think of doing so? That makes no sense.

If BYOND doesn't care enough to showcase itself, why would anyone else think of doing so?

What I'm saying is that showcaseable games need to be made. We need something more than just NEStalgia, Epoch, Severed World, and SS13 to showcase. And god, SS13's UI is pretty abysmal. It really just can't communicate itself as part of a demo reel. SS13 communicates itself best through text.

I just don't really get how we can showcase the engine without SOMETHING to showcase. The games that are live right now on the hub are almost entirely auto-train anime chatrooms. There's no way to make those look at all good for a demo reel. Most of the games that were well made were done before 3.5 and thus don't take advantage of modern UIs that are now possible in BYOND 5.0. So we can't showcase those either.

I mean, I'm really not saying I'm okay with where we are at and what we are doing, but I mean, it's kind of our fault that it is the way it is, and if we want BYOND to flourish, we need to use it, highlight its strengths, and show it to people with a passion for retro multiplayer gaming.

If BYOND doesn't care enough to showcase itself, why would anyone else think of doing so?

It's not that BYOND doesn't care enough. It's that BYOND is literally one dude investing all of his time improving an engine so that YOU can more easily make games. This is what I mean by entitlement. People just can't seem to see the fact that time is a finite resource and that yes, some things require you to put on your big boy britches and do things yourself.

That's amusing. You literally found a fangame trying to showcase BYOND. At least someone is trying. The problem is that most of the quality games are not being showcased, and if they are, there is no mention of BYOND being used to make them.

Ter13 wrote:

We need something more than just NEStalgia, Epoch, Severed World, and SS13 to showcase.

At least those would be better than some random fangame.

It's not that BYOND doesn't care enough. It's that BYOND is literally one dude investing all of his time improving an engine so that YOU can more easily make games. This is what I mean by entitlement.

You make it sound like Lummox JR, the one and only developer, is working for free. BYOND is still a business, and if a business isn't making enough money, or bringing in new customers, it's probably doing something wrong. It's in BYOND's best interest to at least attempt to sell itself. There is no "entitlement" at work here. Lummox doesn't have to do anything, and I respect what he does. The fact that he is only one person is why he needs help from all of us. Nobody here is making demands. We are just brainstorming ideas. I don't know where all of the negativity is coming from.

It's not like BYOND doesn't already advertise games. It already provides a hub service and lists the games in a searchable database. It would be a good idea to improve the presentation of the existing features.

For example, the home page is completely useless. It has no link to the latest announcement, no direct download link, no link to the membership page, and doesn't really show a single game. It's just a mess of pictures and text that serves no real purpose. The home page is normally considered to be the most important page of a website, so if it isn't providing useful information, then people will forget about it and won't have a reason to visit it again.

The download page doesn't look inviting. It just has really small text links. It shouldn't look like fine print. It should have large download buttons, preferably with some nice OS logo icons. The download page of a game platform should never look so boring.

If the games page listed only one game per row, it would have enough room to show an actual screenshot from each game's hub. If that page could show larger pictures, players could immediately get an idea of what a game is like, without even needing to click on it. You can't tell very much about a game by its icon.

Small changes like these could have a big impact on the way BYOND is perceived. The site probably looks so bad to outsiders that they might think it's a scam, or a dead site that's no longer used. The home page gives people a very bad impression of BYOND. The site itself is probably more harmful to BYOND than any fangame could be. You know something is wrong when 99% of BYOND's own community stays far away from the main site. There's something really spooky about it.

BYOND is a failing business no matter how you look at it. Unity and UE don't have to beg their users for donations every month. They also don't charge you for 10k a year of profits (personal edition).

Of course, Unity updates/business model changes made it kind of a PITA and seem unfriendly for a while but thanks to community outcry they scaled it back a bit.

Multiverse7 wrote:

BYOND has been going for over 15 years, and you are trying to tell me that in that much time, nobody has made anything worth advertising? That's ridiculous. There has to be something. It has to start somewhere.

BYOND might have hidden Undertales, but since nobody bothered to advertise them, they might as well have never existed, because the world doesn't know that they exist.

For a very long time, BYOND simply wasn't very good. It's strong point has always been how easy it is to get a multiplayer game set up with it, but outside of that for most of it's life BYOND has been behind other comparable software in terms of features and potential.
Remember before interfaces and how BYOND games had that horrible looking info panel down the right hand side? BYOND had that for over 2/3rds of it's life.

BYOND is now in a better state than it's ever been. It's been largely modernised and has mostly everything you'd need to make a decent 2D game. But for a long time BYOND simply wasn't that great and couldn't be used to make good games.

You can't really compare the BYOND of back then to the BYOND of now, and the BYOND of now hasn't been around for very long.

Multiverse7 wrote:

I'm just saying that we should at least show something that BYOND can do.

Please do. Seriously. I mean that for you, me, everyone here. By far the best way to showcase the engine is for people to make high quality enjoyable games with it. Right now, there is very little in the way of completed games for Lummox or anyone to show.

Multiverse7 wrote:

Anything is better than nothing.

No... Drawing attention to poorly constructed, troll infested, afk-fests and forum shit storms is not better.

If you want to help BYOND, make a good game. Period.

https://unity3d.com/public-relations

Could BYOND have something like this...?

I don't know about massive. I'm just talking about adding more to the front page and the BYOND 101 page (that's a thing) that would be of interest to new developers, such as:
* Engine usage statistics: number of published hubs, live games, online users... sounds familiar
* Notable games showcase: NEStalgia, EPOCH, Space Station 13, and other games that have reached an outside audience
* Information about the company: team, about the team member(s), office location, startup history