I was in the process of reviewing my data to follow up on my Anticipated stagnation of front page games post to see how my prediction stacked up. A few random things came about:
1) Unfortunately, I cannot seem to locate the snap I took of the page. Dang.
2) Trying to revisit from memory, I think my prediction was spot on. The only change I can see is Ultimatum and Dungeon Master darting in and out of the top 20, Chatters dropping off the chart altogether, and Teka Chat Co. #12.
3) Extremely disappointed in the discouragement or the lack of highlighting of innovation. A couple points to that.
* Zero games from 2011 have made their way into any way shape or form onto the front page.
* The "New Games" section was nuked.
* No incentives for existing IP infringing products to reinvent or convert.
* Aside from Forum_account's A Miner Adventure, no new content in the Featured Games section.
So... new predictions for December 31, 2011:
1) Zero formerly IP infringing games will be on the Featured Games section.
2) Zero games on the Featured Games section will be removed. (me: "yo, hot twins at the club, meet me at 7" byonder: "sorry bb, busy, I have an intense game of Zan going on.")
3) 100 new games will be listed before one of them makes it onto the top 20.
Recommendations:
1) Nuke the featured games section. Replace with accredited user's top 10 games. Take the current iteration: rename "Featured Games" with "ACWraith's recommended games". It gives traffic not only to those games, but to ACWraith himself. Make BYOND Volunteers a forum to establish accredited list makers.
2) Interleave Google advertising within the recommended games. As this was probably made along the lines of a competitor's model, Kongregate sells or receives payment for placement of some of the panels on their featured games section. As BYOND probably does not have a financial agreement with any high revenue games, put in Google panes instead.
3) Put back the New Games section. BYOND has a long way to go in terms of encouraging new content -- it took a major step back by choosing to ignore and suppress new original content.
4) Put in incentives for Anime/fangame conversion. There is an opportunity to gracefully and perhaps financially motivate fan/anime game creators to convert their product. This will help preserve your player base (aka. ad revenue source), as well as many of your developers.
I definitely agree with your last two points. I want the new games section back (similar to when we had the Unpublished category), so I can go through and see new things that are being made.
I also agree that there should be some form of incentive, but what can they really offer? I suppose, the game can be listed and stuff, but that's all I can think of. | |
A few things here:
1) There is a new games section. You have to click the link at the top (the one that says "Sort by: Date" or "Latest" in the Games menu). Bootyboy is referring to the "new games" box, which we did nuke in the last site update because users were getting confused by it and/or it took up too much space (we had multiple discussions over it). It was only rotating out a few games. 2) We have encouraged the old DBZ games to convert in their Feedback tabs (which get sent to them as alerts). Falacy's Adventures game is a port of his old DBZHU game. It had to have its fan counts reset but is climbing the popularity ladder. It is also being reviewed for Featured status. 3) I like the layout of the new Featured box, but I agree that the concept behind it (manual review w/ extremely strict, but defined, criteria) is not useful in our current incarnation. I made these feelings clear when this system was first proposed but we decided to give it a test run, and it has gone as I figured, where very few games are being featured. I think if this keeps up (and I see no reason for it to change), we should move to a system where we simply feature games temporally, based on activity, mentions in the biweekly column, etc. Your suggestion of pulling a user's favorite list is another nice way of doing this. Either would solve the stagnation issue. 4) I did like Forum_account's suggestion to display different things on the front page, but when we actually implemented it, it didn't feel right. It is something we intended to revisit (and will) but other things took precedent. 5) None of this is "major". The bottom line is that the main purpose of the front page is for new users (not existing ones like you and me) and right now those users do get a decent sampling of games to try in each of the listed sort modes. The truth is that, at the moment, our site itself is a very minor component in our traffic yet one in which we devote the most time because it is currently generates our only real income. I know this because even sweeping changes like the delisting of our most popular games have had no bearing on either our income or traffic. | |
I don't understand what you mean by point #3. There are new games in the latest section, which is by no means stagnant. The games do have to be screened first as I understand it, but the process is automatic by staff and seems to be going smoothly. Many of the games there are actually interesting and fun. I think we should encourage people to snoop in there more often, possibly by advertising that section in other places of the site.
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Tom wrote:
1) There is a new games section. You have to click the link at the top (the one that says "Sort by: Date" or "Latest" in the Games menu). Bootyboy is referring to the "new games" box, which we did nuke in the last site update because users were getting confused by it and/or it took up too much space (we had multiple discussions over it). It was only rotating out a few games. One thing to note: the number of clicks it takes to go to IP infringing or fangame product (i.e. simply click on "Anime") is equal to number of clicks it takes to go to new original content. This is certainly unintentional, but it is the reality of the front page. 3) I like the layout of the new Featured box, but I agree that the concept behind it (manual review w/ extremely strict, but defined, criteria) is not useful in our current incarnation. I made these feelings clear when this system was first proposed but we decided to give it a test run, and it has gone as I figured, where very few games are being featured. I think if this keeps up (and I see no reason for it to change), we should move to a system where we simply feature games temporally, based on activity, mentions in the biweekly column, etc. Your suggestion of pulling a user's favorite list is another nice way of doing this. Either would solve the stagnation issue. I agree that the layout is great. I think it is a good eye catcher -- as I noted earlier, I thought Kongregate's "feature box" was a great innovation to highlight new and paid content. I realize that it in a beta form at this time -- it is a fantastic start, but it needs loads of improvement. Consider putting in rolling paid advertisements in that box... 5) None of this is "major". The bottom line is that the main purpose of the front page is for new users (not existing ones like you and me) and right now those users do get a decent sampling of games to try in each of the listed sort modes. The truth is that, at the moment, our site itself is a very minor component in our traffic yet one in which we devote the most time because it is currently generates our only real income. I know this because even sweeping changes like the delisting of our most popular games have had no bearing on either our income or traffic. As you have a far more intimate bead on the financials, I had been basing mine on peripheral numbers from the various traffic sites (e.g. Alexa). Let's requalify the statement: "the main purpose of the front page is for new users" And make it: "the main purpose of the front page is for retaining new users" Stagnating content will likely be detrimental to the above mentioned purpose. New content starts with the existing developer base. The paths of least resistance would be to highlight new original content or strongly encourage the conversion of IP infringed content. | |
Featured games were seeded with what was already in the list, sprinkled with featured games of the banner guilds and then left to submissions. They're not my personal recommendations. They're merely what has has been reviewed and passed.
I created a system that I believe is fair and I invited everyone to participate. Thus far, most would rather whine about the games already there than try anything new. The community has been given the most direct access in BYOND's history. I don't believe it's strict standards keeping people at bay. It's apathy and years of thinking the system is corrupt. BYOND Volunteers is a general purpose tool because I knew there wasn't much hope for this particular project in the first place. However, I've spent too many years to throw in the towel before giving the community a chance to step up. The stagnation I worry about has little to do with the titles in the list. It has to do with whether the quality rises over time. Without standards and benefits, BYOND faces an eternal cycle based on the random whims of changing reviewers. BYOND will throw stuff at a wall praying that something will stick, but the community won't evolve. | |
DivineTraveller wrote:
I also agree that there should be some form of incentive, but what can they really offer? I suppose, the game can be listed and stuff, but that's all I can think of. If the front page contained lists of the top 4 games of each genre, there's an incentive to create games for an under-represented genre. It would be easier to make a new game and get it listed in the "top card games" list than in the "top RPGs" list, some people might take advantage of this and make a card game to get on the front page more easily. Tom wrote: The bottom line is that the main purpose of the front page is for new users (not existing ones like you and me) and right now those users do get a decent sampling of games to try in each of the listed sort modes. The problem with the front page isn't just for game players, it's for developers too. If your game isn't shown on the front page people have to know something about the game to find it - a tag or keyword to search for. By having a variety of games shown in different ways on the front page people become aware of what games are out there and can locate them later if they want to. It's like web ads, they're not the main feature of the site but you can still name some ads you've seen. I've tried to explain this before when lobbying for the welcome page in Dream Maker and don't expect to have any better luck now. I'm not sure what your analysis of the website's traffic would say, but just because something can be located in three clicks doesn't mean that people will know to make those three clicks to find something. | |
That new games section kinda sucked. It took up too much vertical space and it was just the same three games for weeks on end.
I think the website has had enough attention. I want to see more work done on the engine itself. Profile Network, pl0x. | |
Tom wrote:
5) None of this is "major". The bottom line is that the main purpose of the front page is for new users (not existing ones like you and me) and right now those users do get a decent sampling of games to try in each of the listed sort modes. This. Forum_account wrote: The problem with the front page isn't just for game players, it's for developers too. If your game isn't shown on the front page people have to know something about the game to find it - a tag or keyword to search for. By having a variety of games shown in different ways on the front page people become aware of what games are out there and can locate them later if they want to. Its on developers to advertise and get the word out about their games, not on BYOND. The sooner that developers here get that through their thick skulls, the better. Also, all this banter about the front page is made even more irrelevant by the fact that most existing BYONDers find games via the pager. SuperAntx wrote: I think the website has had enough attention. I want to see more work on the engine itself. Agreed. | |
SilkWizard wrote:
Its on developers to advertise and get the word out about their games, not on BYOND. The sooner that developers here get that through their thick skulls, the better. The front page isn't a very good representation of what BYOND has to offer. It barely looks like a gaming site - Teka Co Chat? Resource Center? IconShare? Icon Ultima? If the BYOND site solely existed to advertise the BYOND software, I'd agree. But, the site also contains the community associated with the software so the site has, whether it's a good thing or not, assumed some additional responsibility. | |
What's wrong with Icon Ultima?
It's pretty much a BYOND version of Second Life. | |
SuperAntx wrote:
What's wrong with Icon Ultima? It doesn't look like a game and it only makes BYOND look less serious because it's #6 on the front page. "building", "chat", and "icons" aren't adjectives that you often see used to describe games on Kongregate or Armor Games. If it was #1 under the "top chat/social games" BYOND would look a little more respectable. | |
Yeah, you're right. It's too innovative.
We should just stick to making sidescrollers because they're easily defined and people already know what they're getting. | |
BYOND might not have enough games for it yet, but it'd help to list the most popular games by category. Instead of displaying the 20 most popular games, display the 5 most popular overall, the 5 most popular RPGs, the 5 most popular RTS, etc. The list of overall popular games doesn't change enough to make for an interesting front page, but these mini lists would have more flux, especially for less popular genres. It encourages variety too.