Harsh Realities

(not a real_jamicus prouduction)

Greetings to members of the Gaming World Indie Game Development scene and other members alike.
Prof. Knight here to talk to you about the Harsh Realities of the Development Forums.
Today we are going to break away a bit and take a more in depth look down GW’s Game Dev. Cavern to harvest whatever possible diamonds and probable fungi that lurk deep within.

Let’s begin with a brief observation of the current “state” that Indie Game Development is in...


Dramatisation, may not have happened...
[blockquote]Topics may showcase a Full Game or Lengthy Demo.[/size]
Fact: You can release your game to be viewed and rated in a live environment.
Harsh Reality: Indie Game Development is like a last generation console, sitting there gathering dust, used every now and then...

Topics may involve discussing general Game Design and Development.[/size]
Fact: They have to go somewhere, and we can’t clutter the Game and Demo Advertising forum.
Harsh Reality: We clutter the forum that has completed material as a means of bringing more people into the forum...

Topics may act as helpful tutorials or articles related to General Game Development.[/size]
Fact: It would prove helpful to some members.
Harsh Reality: We have support, resource and blog forums for all of these sorts of things where more people actually go to post/view said materials...[/blockquote]
Okay, so as you can see this forum is far from perfect and many members are aware of that, but it isn’t going to change until we do something about it. This isn’t about discussing new ideas but is instead a report about the many cracks that lie beneath the patches of tape and gum stuck to the cave wall.



Our Economy and Community
Now that we have a few of the facts out of the way in regards to the forum, it's time to look at the community and how it functions by seeing the members you are likely to find and how your actions are likely to be received by them as a whole.
The GW Dev. Community is split into a few groups of member types, each of which have their own impact on the small economy, here are a few of the commons:
[blockquote​
The Active-Hyper
As the name states, this is a member who at first glance is more concerned about advertising their game than actually making and releasing it, this results in advert topics with trace amounts of content in regards to storyline and features.
The odd demo will see the light of day however you can consider that as the passing of the storm, once their demo is released the hype begins to fade making further hyping about as effective as beating a dead horse, so they target its offspring, give it a new name and “theme” then repeat the process.


The Picky Pete
This member has its purpose and makes the forum a healthy environment in healthy doses; however it only takes a few in the same place at the same time to make a swarm of disagreement and overall confusing.
To explain further, the Picky Pete (PP) is a member who would willingly say the Mona Lisa should have had a fringe to make her forehead look a bit busier like the rest of the picture, members quickly learn that no matter how good you make something, someone will find something that could be improved, and if two members of this type have conflicting opinions it can make you think about who to listen to, or whether you should listen at all.


The Conservative
Conservatives are the rarest type of member; they are PPs in very small and subtle doses and spend their time working secretly on their games, showing them to a select crowd only. The average member receives a nice surprise whenever content is publicised, however you can usually count on the content being outdated.
Information about what they do is limited but as far as things go for the community; there is a lot to gain and nothing to lose in regards to a game being finished, nothing gets hyped and therefore there is no downside to abandoning a project.

:thumbsupbuddy:
The Yes Men
Need more be said?
Yes men (YM) are there to praise whatever you do, they are the type of member to just say "Hey that looks cool!" or "There is nothing you can do to make that better IMO", they fill the gaps in a way but don't necessarily provide any adequate input other than "Downloading now, this looks awesome!" without any feedback, it's like going to an icecream store, having a free sample and then not telling them whether their flavour is good or not.
[/blockquote]

As far as our economy goes; like any other economy anywhere in the world our target is to reach to unreachable Equilibrium or in our case, Harmony.
Here is a diagram to explain:


This graph is designed to represent 1 member's posts in any amount of topics.



As shown above, our level of equilibrium (red line) should be where the average member makes at least 1 post for each topic present, with more posts of course being encouraged, with more input comes more room to grow.
The blue line shows where we are, Indie Game Development in particular is a forum that has a lot of projects floating around but many topics have low post counts in comparison to others, obviously the topic's game and quality plays a factor in this but due to this current behaviour developers miss out on crucial information from other members and most importantly the PPs, without adequate judgment on a game you are left with the many YMs doing nothing more than adding 1 to their post count and getting a game out of it.


Even reality cannot escape the clutch of a Picky Pete

This community has to grow, and it has to start from the foundation; which is of course the member base, members should feel the urge to post about a game whether it is good or not, not every opinion has to be positive (although it is preferred), but the negative feedback and criticisms that come with it play a crucial role in the Indie Game Development process.



Why?
Throughout my many endeavours through this community and others there is one thing that sets Gaming World aside from the rest, and it comes down to the fact that game releases are a rare occurrence, so I conducted a research expedition and my findings left me amazed.


The atomic construct of a game in development

A game in development is very much like the diagram above; for its structure to remain stable most (if not all), of the elements listed above need to be in the developer's grasp, the design process can survive without some of them but in order for a game to reach its full potential all conditions must be met.

Inspiration
Getting inspired by anything is always good, in order for it to be put into play however you need the appropriate level of Skill.
It can also Motivate you by injecting the thrill of bringing a new aspect of the game to life.

Time
The biggest element affecting the overall stability of the project, it affects your Motivation and to a degree your Skill level & Imagination.

Support
The second in priority, but the focus of my research.
The support you receive from anywhere is crucial, Conservative Developers are lucky because they know where to go for the support they need, whether it be for harsh critiques or just a general thumbs up, in the end they are better off because their feedback is in small amounts and is of higher value to them.
Regular developers however must turn to the public for opinions and feedback, it gives them an idea of how popular their project will be in the future and also helps them change different parts of their games to make them better.
Support (or lack of), is therefore the biggest producer or killer of Motivation.



Professor's Input
From my observations I have reached the conclusion that this community needs to be more supporting of each other.
I believe that in order to achieve a higher rate of quality in games and a higher rate of game releases this needs to be done as soon as possible.
Sharing thoughts and ideas as well as having the confidence to give valid opinions and criticisms could be the very thing that actually gets this community motivated again, we should value the opinions of our members, perhaps try to press the YMs for more detail and begin working on a brand new world of gaming.

Together we can make Indie Game Development thrive with activity and an overall pleasant atmosphere, we are becoming too isolated and I think outsiders see this which prevents them from registering and presenting their ideas to us for that very reason, but hey, we won't know until we try.

Thank you for reading and stay tuned for my next piece on why there's no going back once you go black

-The Conservative-

I fit in that pretty well.

Carius, you made my day with this article. This is so fuking true... 

Of course I'm more of a yes man and I would like to keep it that way, it usually sucks to put people down when they are trying so hard and since I feel their pain as "I" too am making a game that has lasted more then 10 weeks, I would like to keep the peace and try to give them some moviation to continue. I'm not really hyper activte in terms of making useless adverts, more less because I rather have one big topic then a several small ones.

  = Strangeluv & Eyesore

You write more articles Carius. Looking forward to the next one! 

I can see 3 yesman in this thread already.

Of course I'm more of a yes man

no you're the active hyper.

I can see 3 yesman in this thread already.

no you're the active hyper.

Not as much anymore, hype isn't really a good thing as I see it right now. ^^

I love how 30 minutes later after this article is posted, another one bumps this down on the front page. That killed pretty much all the traffic. 

meh it cant be helped really but i think anyone interested in the mainsite would continue to proceed down the page to see if there are any other articles...
However i dont think many IGD, members really look at the mainsite.

Haha, excellent article! I'd say I'm a 'conservative' according to that list.