35% (30)
50% (42)
10% (9)
3% (3)With the recent changes to the hub, only a small portion of a game's description appears on the main hub page. If you want to read the full description of the game, you have to click on the description link for more information. Although this may be practical for games with mile-long descriptions filled with every form of nonsense, some developers aren't happy that their game's description, their primary means of advertising their game, has been moved to a secondary page.
So to you, as a player, how do you feel about a game's description? Do you read the descriptions when you play the game? If you do, do you ever read them more than once? Or do you just ignore them altogether and dive right in, perhaps making your assessments on what someone else has told you about it.
Poll: Do you read game descriptions?
Login to vote.
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Mar 3 2009, 10:40 am
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Zxcvdnm
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i generally read it only once unless it is the only source of update information, and then I will read it when theres a game update.
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I do feel as though they've split a lot of the information up too much. The entire BYOND website is messy. Lets just say that Lummox and Tom aren't masters of web layout.
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I periodically read the description if the game posts updates/hints/contests there. Otherwise it's a one time thing.
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I can agree with Verm on this one... currently the BYOND website is sort of a wreck compared to how clean it -could- be. It's not a big deal though... still works.
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I read the first paragraph, if it's a new game. That is essentially the sales pitch. Anything after that tends to be staffing / versioning / tutorial stuff, which I usually don't care for nor particularly look for in the description. That stuff I usually expect to be in-game somewhere.
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They absolutely are important, granted I only read them once or possibly if there is news on a new update ill read that, they are like the convincing argument of whether or not I should waste the 5 minutes to download the resources and play the game. Not only that but it proves to be an effective way to get a feel for the maturity of the staff, joining a game with spelling errors, slang and bad graphics on the hub always ends up pissing me off and I know not to join because ill probably be banned for not asking for gm or something.
However, I do think Images should not be allowed to be used for a description. Screenshots should be delegated to the member screenshot system. | |
Not game-shattering, but definitely helpful to me.
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I very rarely if ever read the hub page descriptions. They're normally just update information/game staff/game rules and everything else I don't care about.
About the only things that get me to play games is screenshots or people begging me to play the game with them. Otherwise, I don't go out looking for games at all. | |
I don't see why this is a major issue. It's not that difficult to click a button that says description.
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Tom and Lummox's reasoning on the issue was that most people only look at the description once, and after that its just a nuisance. I want to see if that's true.
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But the problem with this poll is it's for the Single Player guild. If we stand by the idea that only people interested in Single Player games will come here, the poll can't exactly speak as accurately as a site tracker of some kind.
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It looks like the hub layout just changed again. Funny.
I would think that most of us active devs who are thinking of ideas tend to revisit a number of games to see how they did something or to see if they are doing anything at all on the project. That's about the only reason I browse games. The other was to find quality devs and learn more about them. ts | |
I usually check Hubs periodically to look for any screenshots, teasers, etc. A hub without hosting and any screenshots is just another useless hub. Off topic that's why I wait untill we have completed somewhat of the game to make a hub so I can post screenshots. This either follows B or D
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And how many of those who read a description periodically do so because the game has its change logs entirely contained within the top part of the description? ^^
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I don't actually play much of anything on BYOND, but in my limited experience, hub page descriptions aren't that important to me...
Of course, this might be mostly due to the fact brought up numerous times below that the majority of hub page descriptions tend to be made up of only staff, credits, rules, version changes, etc... And very rarely have any useful/enticing information about the game itself... I myself am guilty of this to an extent, my hub pages are generally news posts about game progress, and aside from a screenshot or two, they contain nothing about the actual content of the game that anyone unfamiliar with the game would understand... As in, there's no introductory summary of the game itself... Actually, I think I need to change that, now that I'm thinking about it... | |
