I'd truly hate to see Byond die. I guess this is more motivation for the current developers to create successful games. Thanks Tom

Welp, Back to work

I wasn't aware that BYOND's situation had become quite so dire. I guess all those years of failing business models and declining popularity has come down to this. From what I understand, the fate of BYOND as we know it currently rests on this new pager.

In the past, whether we liked it or not, the pager has represented BYOND metaphorically. When most people had thought of BYOND, they generally thought of the BYOND pager. However, as the BYOND website went through a long series of upgrades, the representation of BYOND gradually shifted to it, as the aging pager faded into the shadows. Now, this trend is being drastically reversed with the new pager, which is quite literally going to become BYOND, as of right now, for all intents and purposes. The new pager will be quite a lot more than just a mere representation as it was in the past. This new pager is effectively fused with the heart and soul of all that is BYOND, and so it has become a single unified entity. To put it simply, if the pager dies, so does BYOND.

On the bright side, I don't think BYOND's financial status reflects all of its recent progress and developments, so I would expect that to even out some, given enough time. The BYOND website, and now the pager have arguably become the best iterations ever. This is an important factor, because the pager and site essentially make up the actual foundation of BYOND, so it's important to keep them strong. Of course, rebuilding foundations is very likely to have some unintended consequences, but in the long run, the good should outweigh the bad. I believe the current business model is also better than all of those before it, although we will have to see it in action to know if it will really hold up. I also suspect that DM development has just begun to mature enough and reach the level where good quality games can finally become the norm and outweigh the unpolished, unoriginal, rip/fan games. I have been seeing increasing attempts at developing what could quite possibly be some of the highest quality, highest budget games ever made in BYOND. I won't name any specific ones, as the status of many are currently unknown, but I suspect that several are being developed underground.

Since BYOND relies on the games to bring in new users for revenue, it must unfortunately deal with a major obstacle. That is the amount of time needed for development of these games. The truth is that software development of any kind, whether it be games or applications, can be a long, hard, and sometimes frustrating task. What this means is that any obstacles DM developers face are also in turn BYOND's obstacles as well, so it is in everyone's interest to make development in DM as easy and intuitive as possible, in order to avoid more of these obstacles that slow down game development.

Ultimately, what it's going to take to save BYOND will be a good impression from the new pager, followed by some quality games, released sooner rather than later, and get well advertised. I believe BYOND has the potential to gain the necessary revenue to save itself and prosper, but it takes longer to climb up a mountain than to slide down one. I hope this helps to clarify things a bit more.

Bleh been slowly working on a game and then I see this :(

BYOND is the reason I started programming and I have played so many fun and original games and met great people here. I would be devastated if it were gone.

People like Acebloke and other developers were my motivavation to learn code and to make my own games.

Byond and its community have been my heroes and I can truly say because of byond I am who I am today, my job, my passion, stems from Byond inspiring my dreams of being a programmer and someday and successful indie game developer.

Idea: Maybe make a fund raiser like wikipedia does? like once a year or so put up big banners saying how much is needed and a donate link and what the money is for, perhaps call it, Save BYOND.

If I were rich I would do anything in my power to help byond. In all my years of looking at game dev tools and communities there is nothing near as good as byond.

Byond has a easy to learn language and helpful community and great tools to help new developers make there own net dreams and without that we'd be stuck with expensive difficult to use and learn tools made by big industries.

I will be praying for you tom and for byond and all of the people who love byond's games and byonds developers.

Good Luck to you and I hope for the best and thank you for all you do.

Bloodocean7.

I would like to see if there are any performance increases with the adaption of a game to flash.

If flash is cross-platform with all of those mobile devices everyone enjoys so much (man I sound so old saying that, I just don't like smart phones and social networking not into that scene) it would mean byond games could be more than just PC games (probably a revelation already within the thread but just wanted to bring it back up for discussion) and would work on mobile devices, where the "real market" is now-a-days.

Someone playing a mobile game with ease of use is much more likely to spend a few dollars here and there on the game (don't get me started on the pc market, it is deep and the money spent is unpredictable and varies in amounts, mobile market is consistent compared; and it must have to do with the low price point (take mech warrior online as an example of bad price point on in-game purchases, they limit their consumers by pricing too high ~ an age old business folly of pricing yourself out of a customer - something byond was doing a few years ago but anyway I am carrying on...) - is my overall point).

Bloodocean7 wrote:

BYOND is the reason I started programming and I have played so many fun and original games and met great people here. I would be devastated if it were gone.

Thank you for mentioning me :)