No one on BYOND will play your game.
Now, when I say "no one" I don't literally mean zero people. What I mean by that is that you won't have a lot of people playing it.
One of the main reasons why I quit Metier War about year ago was because I felt no one was interested - I was tired of asking for feedback and suggestions and for people to come test, but kept being ignored. Frustration came from seeing all my hard efforts seem like they were going to waste while people who spent roughly 30 seconds making themselves an admin and claiming a stolen source as their own game average about 200 players daily. What I was failing to realize is that I didn't have a player base because my game was trash - it was because BYOND didn't have an audience for it.
The reason why I'm making this blog post is because a few moments ago, I decided to log in to a Dragon Ball game just to see what the anime crowd was playing nowadays. Here is a screenshot of "Battle Universe X":
I'm not even going to go into detail about how awful this is. Anyone with half a brain can glance at this for only a moment and tell it's atrocious. But, that's the thing - the majority of the BYOND community is attracted to atrocious anime games. It's like a dung beetle - no matter how much you present it with fresh, clean food, it's still going to choose a pile of shit every time. You can't make a professional game and expect to "make it big" without promoting it elsewhere because the moment the anime-obsessed kids see that it isn't some low quality Zeta rip, they're going to log out of your game and never return.
Projects that come to mind are games like Eternia and Feed ( because these are two games that are being made to earn a profit ). You're not going to get your desired profit from BYOND. Hell, you'll be lucky just to get people to log into it let alone fork over some cash for it. But, this is not your fault. If your game has a small player base, then smile because guess what: that probably means your game is good. You just need to get the right people to see it. The people who actually demand a quality gaming experience. The people who aren't obsessed with Gokus and Narutos. The people who recognize and appreciate a good game when they see one. Stop trying to feed dung beetles fresh food when they obviously want to consume turds all day.
Your game needs to escape BYOND! I strongly recommend you promote your game on every website BUT this one. Sure, a BYOND-wide promotion will get you tons of players on the initial launch day, but just like NEStalgia, your player base is going to plummet because the people on this site despise quality. However, that number will climb once again once you get your project on gaming websites, forums, YouTube, Facebook, etc.
I just wish I had gotten this revelation back when I was still making games. Metier War would still be here had I figured all this out in the past. Which is why I'm telling any developers who may not already know. Do not make the same mistake I made. If you fail on BYOND, most likely you'll succeed everywhere else because the only way you'll average 200 players a day from BYOND alone is if your game is garbage.
