Forgive my poor naming and pun skills. I know it's kind of a mindsore...and the fact I just realized I stole it from the news. Sorry!
Now, to the actual topic. I recently read a forum topic that somehow came to the thought that BYOND hubs should be reserved for members. At first my immediate thought was, "oh god that would be a horrible thing to do!" Cause, you know, not everyone is a member and several games could possibly lose all function. However I have been tossing the thought around in my head a bit and I suddenly had an epiphany, to put it shortly...
A feature that was recently added to BYOND was the .exe files. They also include support for computers that don't have BYOND installed whatsoever. What does this mean in correlation to the prior topic? Well duh, we don't need the BYOND site at all to show off our creations!
Please do not misunderstand. If I could, I would try to support BYOND, and the rest of the players should too, one way or another. All that I am really trying to say is that we developers should not try to appeal to the BYOND community as much as we should be trying to appeal to communities OUTSIDE of BYOND. Hence the lame, crappy title.
Now for the big question. How does this benefit you versus just having a hub on the site? Well for starters, there's less chance of someone trying to make a rip of your game. If the person is nearly completely oblivious to the system involved in making it, why would they even try?
Another bonus is that you might actually be able to get even MORE players on your game. How? Well if you advertise it on forums that maybe you talk or RP in, you are appealing to an audience that might already have interests in what the game is about. Plus there's a lot less competition since you're not trying to grab people's attention from a site with 50,000 other games trying to do the same. You also get through with word-of-mouth. If your game really is that enjoyable, people will talk even outside of BYOND. How do you think games like Pokemon Lost Silver (made in game maker, not DM) get as popular as they do. (though I do understand PLS's fan-community isn't much bigger than BYOND itself, though you have to admit that's huge for a general BYOND game, and all it does is tell a story...).
What you do would also especially help the community of BYOND. Like any other big name game company would, make sure the players know what platform the game was built on. This ensures that people know BYOND exists and they can look it up themselves. And- hey look! Kudos to you for helping the community without spending a dime!
DM really is advanced in it's abilities for a free game design software. It's general graphics capabilities might not be up to par with big names like Unity, but that doesn't keep games like Blazblue and Pokemon from being some serious money makers (except Pokemon is being invaded with this ugly 3D style now...). And I know that replicating these games in DM is completely possible (though understandably extensive. But remember that they're made by large teams. If you can get a large team together, you'd probably be able to reach even farther!). All that's needed to make a name big, no matter where it's advertised, is creativity and hard work (and perhaps a bit of perfectionism). So I say, members take your hubs, I certainly don't need it. I have the internet and determination....except to actually prevent myself from venting...in glorifying pride...cause I am helping the community by NOT depending on a hub to get players! :)
...Well technically not now since I personally have yet to really produce a game. But yeah, you guys get the point.
