Friends,
Please lend me your attention for a brief moment.
Tom of DanTom(the makers of Byond) has released a statement detailing the new site systems and their functions as well as the new game tags and the changes to the index of games. I'd like to point out a few of those points to you now.
Tom's statements says,
'You may notice that not all games appear in the aforementioned popularity sort-- in fact, many of our more popular games don't. This is because we have opted to exclude "fangames" from the default display.'
This means that in that instance and classification nearly 2000 games have been removed from the index and search bar. Yet you may ask, 'What's a fangame?' Well, the common definition is 'a game that is based off another game or Anime'. Apparently that didn't suffice for Tom so he defined 'fangame' as this:
'We're calling fangames "games who owe their popularity due to an outside, established intellectual property or franchise" '
So, any game that is based off of Dragonball Z, Bleach, Naruto, Mega Man, Pokemon, One Piece, Resident Evil, Yu-Gi-Oh!, or any other established anime/video game/franchise falls into this category and will be removed from the game index immediately. Yet, hang on.
'Admittedly, a lot of the dbz/naruto games were left listed simply because they had a lot of players.'
So, now we're playing favorites. These games that have a high player count get more attention and encouragement from the Byond Staff simply because there's more people there to complain if they took them down.
More so, I noticed this on my game's hub.
'This option is only available for hub entries owned by BYOND Members, so the submission will not take effect until you become a Member.'
This means that only games made by Byond Members will be listed in the index, regardless of whether or not they're 'fangames'. Even if this is a 100% original idea, completely done from scratch all the way from the simplest of keystrokes up to the 20 hours you spend on making the icons for it. It means nothing unless you give Byond $18 american.(8.8125 Euros, 11.3522 GBP, 1,477.8 Yen).
Ok, so let me explain a little more what the index is. The Byond index is the list of games that is visible on the Byond website. The games listed there are easily accessible by clicking on them and then clicking Play Now.
Let me recap then. If a game is classified as a fangame it won't be listed in the index. If it's not in the index then it has about a 5% chance of being found to be played. Oh, but if you're not a Byond Member(about 85-90% of the Byond users are non-members) your game will not be listed in the index.
So now I ask you, anyone who is reading, even Tom if this happens to make its way to your computer screen:
What will this lead to? You stated that this system is to encourage new and original ideas and gamers to create such games that are original and creative, yet in the process you've alienated the entire reason in which your site has become so popular. These 'fangames' are the reason in which so many of your users are here. The word of mouth is so strong that people will come to investigate. I know since I did. I had never heard of BYOND before my friends told me about it one day back in High School.
If you're going to remove, and yes this is a slow but sure way to reduce and eventually remove all fangames from Byond, the reason Byond is where it is today, then I would not only call that a irresponsible business move, I'd be inclined to say it's just plain stupid.
You and a lot of other people are under the misconception that you are actually useful.
Just because something brings in players doesn't mean it's successful or necessary. I'd rather have 30 talented developers producing quality games than 2,000 useless teenagers creating rips and infesting BYOND with trash. The owners and the player-base of these anime games are horrific. You've seen it. Kids making blog posts saying things like "omfg the owners of dbz ultra battle just bant me tom kin u do someting?" Most of the anime player-base are also the same retards who submit 1 or 2 sentence game reviews. I'm sorry, but Anime is only good for bringing in players, and 9 times out of 10, these players won't do anything for this website other than possibly bringing in another useless person. We need developers and presentable games. Not bipolar 12 year olds and games created from stolen graphics and source codes. | |
Then perhaps Tom should change the idea of BYOND from Build Your Own Net Dream, to "Build Your Own Net Dream, as long as it's what we think is useful"
If the players that Anime games bring in aren't useful or productive then why allow them to be here at all? Believe me, the last thing I want to do is be a hindrance. If that's the case and you guys only want productive original people here, then don't allow people to be non-members. Because 9 times out of 10, they're here because their friend told them about an awesome DBZ Game that they heard about, not to come here to learn how to code. If you want coders/developers/game makers here, then make it a site just for that. | |
Let me say something to you Empirez.
The fact here is these games are not getting looked at, you cannot see the code that is in the game by simply logging on and being around for all of five minutes. Teka is not running around taking samples of the games coding from the owners and actually seeing what the owner has done. This is where the system seems to fail. We cannot simply assume a game isn't original because it has the same basic ideas as others, the actual proof here is that while something may SEEM like it is ripped coding, the owner of the game may have taken months writing all of his code by hand, and is getting nearly instantly rejected because a single person goes "oh look a zeta rip". "Where is the proof?" I would ask of them, but unless that owner has paid Byond money he cannot fight the ruling, and his game and his hard work will sit with this horrible label, forever excluded from the byond index. All because of one mis-informed decision. The biggest argument I seem to be hearing is the legality of the fan games and let me say, fangames are in NO WAY illegal. Something can be fan made about a copy-writed property as long as the provider is not in anyway making money off of the propriaters ideas/images. So for everyone(read: 18yr olds with big mouths) to be labeling them ass illegal is just a mis-informed judgement by a group of people that couldn't explain anything about copy-write law if questioned. | |
BYOND is only hiding the RIPs from the search. They're promoting the original games. Live with it.
| |
No If you'll take a look at the post from Tom he explicitly explains that all rips will be removed from the index/search bar/"only can be found with the hub URL or through pager". As well as all games that are not owned by a Member will be removed from the index, oh wait, I forgot about the highly played ones that he's leaving up there.
Also, fangames are removed until they apply for relisting, which I'm assuming will be a quick check of the game and people will be sent on their merry little way. So basically what this means for games like the ones I play, which are rips yes, but fun none-the-less, is that they will only be found if the person searching for them has friends who play it on their pager, know the URL of the hub directly, or follow the game. This goes for all games that are not produced/owned/coded/'the Hub owner' by Byond Members, then it breaks down further from there. Do take the time to read and understand before you post something that makes you look not only like an ass, but stupid in the process. | |
in my opinion this whole fangame/rip vs. original games as a load of crap. Byond opens users minds to make what they want to, sadly the limitation of imagintion in users is high so they make games based on anime or other games. for a website that encourages productivity and creativity it seems a bit unfair to limit your fan base to original games. because, lets face it not all original games are good, i would rather play a crappy pokemon rip than a game without definite purpose. looking at this situation from a business standpoint we can see that byond as a corporation does not want to be sued by large corporations such as konami, toei, or ubisoft but honestly why limit your users creativity. fangames are original and fun so back off fangames and consider making a step towards improving your programming.
sincerely. Tpenglase ~ps. page me with any comments i will be happy to hear them | |
I understand what your saying about the business standpoint, and I completely agree. These large corporations have the copyright to these ideas and can at any time come say that they are infringing on that copyright. However, from my limited understanding of the Copyright Law, as long as a game is not making money from it, then it's perfectly legal. So we can go look at games like Dragonball GT: Mystic World, where as soon as you log in it asks for a donation to "keep the game alive".
Granted, it's a little morally 'bad' to use someone else's ideas to make a name for yourself. Yet, Tom and the Byond staff have had no objections, that they've voiced at least, to us making these games up until now. If this is truly the path that Byond is going down now, it's very disrespectful to use the users(I say users because nothing bad is going to happen to the Members, only the non-members and our games). So where you stand on this is up to you; the Business end is solid, but a little a**hole-ish, or the immediate reaction of "OMFG MY GAME'S NOT IN THE INDEX! ROAWR!!!!" Or the understanding and thought out reaction that I've got posted above. You pick. | |
I was going to comment on this, but the comment turned way too long, so I ended up just posting my own response and linking it. My post is here. Long story short, I agree that BYOND has been making some mistakes.
| |
i came here first through a fangame websearch so itd suck if all the fangames would be removed
| |
Some will question why I used the pager instead of posting somewhere like the forums or on a News post; the reason is simple.
I'M NOT A MEMBER!
Everything that you see that has any significance to this most recent statement from Tom has been withdrawn from the non-member's ability to state their opinions.
A vast majority of Byond's users are non-members, not because they don't want to, I'd love to support Byond in all of it's endeavors, I'm just a broke college kid who would rather spend $18 on dinner for the next week. I applaud those of you who have the ability and the care to donate to Byond;
Teka123, USSJ4 Cat, Klint_x, Tiberath, and Deadron, just to name a few. I applaud you for donating what you have.
Most of Byond's users are non-members simply because they can't afford it. Whether they're broke college kids like myself, or they're still in High School and their mother's won't let them use her credit card.
That is why I used the pager to get my opinion around, because I wanted to know what the non-member population of Byond felt. My main frustration wasn't enough to send that message, it was escalated once I read the News Statement from Tom in which it told me that only Byond Members could post comments.
I would compare it to running a Candy Store and only stocking the candy that you like personally. It will drive people away unless you have what they want. In this case, let the people(ALL OF THE PEOPLE) say what they want.
I hope my words have sparked a thought, not so much of doubt or admiration or hatred, but simply of curiosity. Ask yourself, is what I'm doing the right thing by my users?