I’ve been a BYOND player and developer since August 19, 2002. My BYOND key could drink legally in the USA. Humor me as I share with the community what has made BYOND so compelling to me, why I think it has got an incredible potential and is going to be successful at attracting and retaining passionate developers which will make some incredible games.

I'm also going to speak about what I think needs to change for BYOND to be successful.

BYOND as an engine has no peers at what it does. People will reference Godot, Unity, Unreal Engine, and others as real threats to BYOND’s future. Those certainly are great game engines, but they don’t interfere with the niche that BYOND is focused on: accessible multiplayer games.

Other game engines, even with recent improvements require a lot of effort to handle the networking between client and server. This makes Godot a perfectly adequate place for somebody learning to build a singleplayer game, but making a multiplayer game is a nonstarter for somebody like me. Anybody looking to make an online game without investing a huge percent of their development time into the networking elements, are going to find BYOND the best option.

There is also a misconception that BYOND has a seriously limited engine, but with the introduction of pixel movement, particles, planes, transformations, partial multithreading on servers and vectors/pixlocs they have really increased the ceiling of what a BYOND game can do. If you think BYOND is limiting your favorite game, its likely the developer refusing the learn to leverage new features. Very few projects now leverage all of what BYOND can do, or even close.

Due to how easy it is to create a game, launch it online and generate a community of hundreds of players, BYOND has a key advantage: Instant gratification.

You can develop a game while concurrently enjoying a community of fans who will test your code, provide feedback and generally appreciate every feature implemented. This isn't typical in the world of game development, on BYOND you can work on your projects in increments and enjoy the fruit of your labour as you work. I can't replicate this feedback loop elsewhere, my little test projects on Unity didn't garner an audience, everything I've worked on elsewhere just never saw the light of day because the audience and immediate viability just wasn't there.

If you find yourself starting and never finishing several projects, solutions like BYOND make projects digestible enough to be realistic.
As a parent with a busy career and personal life I see huge value in being able to make things in my free time and see it playable, enjoyed immediately. There is a huge audience of interested game developers who would be well suited to this community:

1) Rookie developers who don't know how to make a game and want to learn,

2) Hobby developers who want to prototype or get a game concept into playable form without making it their full time job,

3) Strong developers who just want to make games, and don't want to deal with the overhead of back-end network systems, marketing, web hosting, etc.

We as a community can be very self defeating and negative. There is a reason we have so many long-term developers here, BYOND works very well in the niche its carved out.

Then there is another major consideration. BYOND's ownership is not squeezing the community for every dime its worth. In fact, the development of BYOND is entirely financed by donations and has effectively no mandatory pricing whatsoever. There are no barriers to entry, no revenue sharing or up front costs. You should for these reasons donate to BYOND, unlike developing for Unity where you could spend years making a game and be impacted by some aggressive licensing model fiasco.

The perception of BYOND's success is a bit problematic. Lots of people would assert that BYOND has lost some momentum and from a players perspective, that might has some validity. The number of players has fallen in many communities over the past decade, with the SS13 community going the opposite direction and growing and being an amazing example for BYOND. Players and popular games are a lagging indicator of what drives real growth and success here. The important variable for BYOND prospectively is the growth of Developers. If you build it, they will come.

BYOND hasn't always had the most conducive environment for attracting Developers. Huge influxes of fangame players don't necessarily translate to a fun place to make games. Engine limitations or just clunky problems have been a headwind over the years to making good games. The engine with 516 has reached a level of viability and maturity that's very different from how things were back in 2002.

There has been a very intentional effort to cultivate a more inclusive and supportive space for developers, particularly on the unofficial BYOND discord. I can see this working, the seeds of a positive development culture are taking root and I'm seeing some exceptional talent develop. This approach, to support and create a positive space for developers will work.

If you are a player wondering what the future looks like for BYOND, know that we have the tools to make games that are far better than what you might be familiar with. Expect that the learning curve to make higher end multiplayer games is flattening and passionate community leaders like Ter13, F0lak, Kaiochao and of course Lummox Jr himself are putting in a lot of time to teach, support, make libraries and provide examples so that rising talent will be successful.

If you are considering making a project in BYOND, get on the discord and start. Ask questions, make mistakes, the collaborative culture is at an all time high. The engine is ready for a great game, be ambitious and creative.

What does BYOND need to do differently going forward? There are a few key things:

1. The way people communicate has moved on from the Web 1.0 days. The main signpost for this community which is BYOND.com needs to remove some unnecessary and underutilized baggage. New people coming to this site might think its dead. This is partially how libraries and demos are sorted algorithmically to not prioritize new and relevant/rising innovations but rather the all time most popular items. The game sorting doesn't quite result in the most active and popular games rising to the top as the algorithm again favors an "all time" popularity rather than momentum. The presence of "recent updates" don't reflect the flurry of activity and really, a lot of the community communication should live in Discord where it is most effective. The site needs to become a concise pitch to developers, download link, highlight of role model projects and then access to a more relevant library, demo and games page.

2. We need more outreach to other communities. With a more modern website that has more of a pitch to developers as its initial focus, we can go to game developer subreddits, we can post about BYOND or our projects on YouTube, etc. The merits of this engine are not well broadcast and we all play a part in being cheerleaders for it.

3. Make more games and share them more broadly. There is a lingering problem with creators not understanding copyright and trademark law and the community damage that has come with enforcement of these things. We as a community need to compile some thought leadership on what we can't do legally because rookie developers are not lawyers. There was a huge problem with people misconstruing fair-use laws and bad advice turned into takedowns, demoralization and a loss of broader community engagement. Let's keep making games that take inspiration from our favorite source material, but know what the law is and abide by it in all instances.

The potential of BYOND with the tools we have prospectively, is immense. The culture is better and the support has never been more available.

Lets make games. If anybody wants to show off some of the super cool stuff I see daily in the Discord, especially in the hall of fame - feel free to gloat and post to this entry to help me make my point.

Get on the discord: https://discord.gg/WUetUEVdk4

GOA is rebooting as SOA with a major update and launch in the coming months. I'll do a separate update for that. Largest update in 14 years. https://www.byond.com/games/Masterdan/ShinobiOnlineAdventure