Sep 19 2012, 9:23 am
|
|
Nadrew
  |
The ads also only pay for clicks, not views.
|
I found a "Create this TCG game online" topic on the 3rd page of a Trading Card game (not pokemon or yu-gi-oh) forum. Funny thing is I rarely ever checked that far more than most of the time. I was literally | | <- this close from "completely" missing byond forever (Or however long it takes before Byond really steps out into some limelight.) The rest is beautiful history, sub-par history, stale history, and now hopeful history.
| |
Honestly I think a change in membership perks is what will increase sales. Tom spoke about posting the changes eventually, I just hope it's not the conventional "You want to make a Java game? Get Membership!" Also we do need better advertising. Realistically the only reason I came here, like others, was because I was search for a Naruto MMORPG. People don't get on the internet to search for byond games, they are looking for flash games, 3d games, etc. I can tell you for a fact that people are not looking for the games that are being hosted on byond publicly, they are only playing them because they don't have much else to play.
Look at Rise of the Pirates, when it first started out, a lot of people were playing it, but eventually they started to realize that the game is just a grindfest with 0% originality. Eternia is another game, that game is extremely great but it turned itself into a text rpg despite the combat system and graphics still being the dominant attraction to players. I think not only the BYOND staff need to be more conscious of their market, but the developers as well. It's Friday night right now, 10PM where I live so the latest in America is 11. Naruto GOA has 54 players while majority of the games on the main page have 45 or less. It's obvious that the main pull for BYOND is RPGs, but we don't want all of the games on BYOND to be an RPG. I believe BYOND has a better idea of their market than majority of their developers, and that's really strange. This is a website based around game design yet we never really go into the gaming market or what people look for in a game. It's more along the lines of look what I made, now you try to do one better. I'm sure once we get more developers like Writing A New One, Silk Games and etc we will be fine. But when we have a game on the top page that is a rip-off of One Piece, I don't think we will ever grow past the current economic problems the staff is having. tl;dr version: Stop making bad games guys. | |
tl;dr version: Stop making bad games guys. That's your opinion. I believe the fan-games are what is keeping BYOND alive at this point & time. | |
Kozuma3 wrote:
tl;dr version: Stop making bad games guys. I agree... People now think that fan-games are bad to BYOND, but remember that they once attracted a lot of people to come here, I include myself. | |
But BYOND shouldn't survive off of them forever either, but at the current state of it without them it wouldn't have as nearly as many users as it does now.
| |
Partialy to the severe lack of quality in games outside of fangames, not saying fangames are better in quality; But they have the 'fan' appeal to it already, so quality can suffer a lot more than an orriginal game, which has to build its fans completely from scratch. And the few quality games hardly gain much of a following because it doesn't have that 'fan' appeal. BYOND users want more than just a quality game, they want to play with quality players. So you not only have to get people to start playing the game; you also have to get them to play it together.
| |
According to me even now many Dragonball Z, Naruto and Bleach games have more player base than original games on the BYOND Popular page. So basically I agree that BYOND is surviving because of anime/fan based games.
| |
Golden_Moment_Production_WU wrote:
According to me even now many Dragonball Z, Naruto and Bleach games have more player base than original games on the BYOND Popular page. So basically I agree that BYOND is surviving because of anime/fan based games. For now- But it will change hopefully :P | |
The problem truly is the selection of original games. If we truly want to eliminate dependency on fan-games, we need more games like NEStalgia; a lot more. Not because NEStalgia is some amazing game, but because it got BYOND publicity. It got people checking things out, but they didn't stick around because of the poor selection of games to choose from.
If they didn't like NEStalgia, or got tired of it, it was farewell to most of that traffic. We have had other games try to rise to this level, but then other hurdles that are again developer related hit. The developers either don't advertise their game much outside of BYOND, they don't stick to developing it at a fair pace, they move on to another language, they focus on too many of the same old ideas and genres, or they have issues with obtaining pixel art or keeping the design team together. An example of the last issue, since it is tough to word, would be Spirit Age. It looks great, it will probably be fantastic, but it seems to of slowed down lately likely because Zane is having to find a new teammate. It's also, once again, an RPG, and that's great but we need a little more variety. I really want to see a new and improved, modern day BYOND game like say LRS, maybe some kind of fighting game (there are a couple ways), a few good single player games like Super Mario, Metroid, Megaman, Zelda, etc. Also, single or not, more things like simple classics such as Golden Axe, Galaga, etc. Some of this has been done to a degree, but usually not in a long time, and not ever all out. There is beauty and brilliance in simplicity, that is probably part of why everyone is on an 8-Bit craze lately. Eh, maybe those aren't the best examples, though. it's late and I'm going on too much... We, as developers, just need to keep up what we're doing and step things up ASAP. | |
Spirit Age is another example of that huge, mega project that was too much for the developer(s) to handle.
Time and time again we tell people not to pursue these huge projects, or if you do, prioritize the game play and have something playable ASAP and just gradually build onto that. Yet they don't listen and have that "those other guys quit their games but I won't quit mine!" mindset all up until a couple weeks into development when they see how much work they set themselves up for. You would think people would listen to those who have actually completed projects and learn from them, but nope. As Confucius would say in this situation: "hard head make soft ass". | |
Exactly. People think their game isn't going to have an Alpha or Beta, they just want to get the finished product out and don't realize how badly they just screwed themselves.
Kozuma3 wrote: tl;dr version: Stop making bad games guys. It's really not an opinion when it is indeed fact. They're creating Pong level games with GBA graphics. It doesn't make sense. | |
We're all hobbyists.
That is the problem. | |
IMO, a game as simple as pong wouldn't be too bad at this point. It'd be much better than the piles of nothing being created.
"Bad" is technically an opinion, though. The fact is, we don't know where we'd be if there weren't any fangames. One could say "quality over quantity," which applies to the games as well as the community. | |
Quality over quantity isn't exactly working for us now, is it? Perhaps there's a third approach not being considered, because the opposite also didn't work too well (although it seemingly brought in more players and money).
| |
Well right now we are producing quantity over quality. Honestly, people don't give a hoot if they are playing a rip, just as long as their game isn't the one being ripped.
| |
Negative talk revolving around BYOND being doomed due to a lack of competent developers is kind of pointless... I don't get why these types of discussions always become so popular, and I think that they should be locked as soon as the topic begins to spiral down that path, because they serve no purpose other than to repeat what's been said many times in the past.
The fact that BYOND's community sucks shouldn't really matter to a developer. What you essentially have is hundreds, potentially thousands, of free testers to try out your project and gain some valuable feedback. Sure, BYOND isn't exactly in the best position right now, but what it really needs is people to stop recyling the same negativity and release some fun games. That's where you guys come in. | |
I was actually hoping to make this one more productive. I didn't intend to discuss BYOND being doomed, but rather what needs to be done to improve it and increase its current income, and how to go about making that happen.
That's why I went so in depth about the developers. I was more so discussing them and their games than BYOND its self. I suppose this is still rather off topic though... Bah. | |
This discussion is inadequate in the fact that it ignores all those that tried and faltered a long the way, gave up and moved onto other engines entirely or simply haven't been able to produce anything on their own (officially).
Byond has Always had rips and probably always will, people want to play their own interpretations of the things they enjoy. The "elusive original quality games!?!?11" that you all mention were in the making and have been all these years but they usually fall to the lack of quality team members willing to contribute, united, into a project - or the lack of willful "competent" programmers that would help those that were/are "less fortunate". I've been trying all this time to finally release a game but indeed I do lose interest due to working on my own and never really being able to "program" those features I design into the games - so the games never come to fruition, playable or not. Like right now, I have a project that has been sitting in the wood-works waiting to be announced but how the hub is setup I have no real means of creating an instant community and presence on byond, unlike the many others - I do not use social networking and advertising to random people just invites confusion due to having to explain all of the pre-reqs just to play the game (and no I don't have "real life friends" and don't want them either). I have an original title waiting for alpha testers but have not found any who will follow through, I intended to have a semi-closed alpha test in the fall season (so now, basically) but I still need at least 8 people and to fix a few bugs I have been neglecting due to lack of interest because of the hub situation. Essentially, I have tried to make original quality ORPG's and even have designs for other genre's and styles of games but because I do not have the hardcore team that I would need I simply haven't been able to produce anything on my own, even though I have tried for nearly a decade now (since 02). Oh well, this post will probably be eviscerated one way or the other (deleted or flamed) so whatever. Mods seem to love to delete all my posts, even if an entire page of off topic discussions occurred. | |