Your Dream Does Not Have to Die aka The Power of Community

Yeah it's crazy. You never see me writing those walls of text. The sad thing is I often make an effort to trim them down too.

 

Wow this thread is going, so any concrete actions?

 

Gar is creating a member site for this thread and we've reviewed 3 games, 4 if you count the one that we couldn't review because we had to buy it. We all plan to improve the games reviewed.

 

Yeah I am throwing something together. It will be quite a while before it is ready. I am sure by Christmas we'll have something. By Thanksgiving if I really focus on it. I only put in a little time on my personal projects each day and this is one of several.

In the meantime people can simply use this forum thread. If anyone wants to participate just make a post with what you have to offer for promotion reciprocation and what you have that you want others to promote.

I work on it a bit here and a bit there. The database is all setup. The backend programming to manage sessions, security, database connectivity and so forth is now nearly complete.

I designed the signup page:


and the login page:


Next step will be to create the account creation process for the signup. Implement and test it to confirm that accounts can be created. Ya know everything is simple it's just to do things right need to dot the i's and cross the t's. So of course it will need to check and see if the username is available and alert the user if it is already taken. Etc. Not a big deal just another little function CheckUserNameAvailable() or whatever. Just saying these little tidbits all take a bit of time.

But yeah I am working on it. Slowly. No rush.

 

So I was off for a few days over the weekend. Looks like this is becoming a more casual thing with less rules. Sounds great to me!

I won't be promoting/reviewing games just yet as my platform would be YouTube and I've let my channel go dormant for the last few months while I was having a break from it and researching game development. I'll be happy to start posting reviews of games after I post my first game dev video along the lines of "hey I'm making a game, here's a very early, basic version with blocks as characters".

In terms of my reach, I have around 450 subscribers. My channel was/is focused around lets plays (like millions of other channels) and I was playing both indie and AAA titles, basically the stuff I was interested in. So my sub base are all gamers.

I'd be happy to test out any games in the meantime if people are looking for testers. I have a PC that's 3-4yrs old, running Win 7 (can provide more specs if needed) and an iPhone 4.

 

We can test as well. We have all sorts of computers with different stats, from Intel laptops to desktops with fabulous graphics cards to android tablets. No Apples though, sorry!

 

I'm slightly late to the party, but I'm certainly interested in this. I think I have one of the smaller reaches (~5 site visits/day, 73 Twitter followers), but it's always nice to help others as much as I can.

I haven't gone through the whole thread to get the complete picture, but could someone explain to me how this is different from MadeWithUnity?

 

I think you complicate to much, Facebook, LinkedIn are ok for making a private group.

 

Well if someone wants to set it up on one of those things certainly do it! I don't use LinkedIn. FB is only my family and circle of friends and even that I check maybe once per two months.

So with that in mind and me being a software engineer and having made eCommerce and membership sites when I was an Indie Consultant the first thing that came to my mind is building it from scratch. Well second thing. I did spend a few hours digging around online looking for something to use before I decided to just write it myself.

If you or anyone else wants to set up the co-op some place then please do so and post the link in here.

 

Just .02 but a plain old google group is free and easy and a little less "busy" than FB.

 

I am not very Facebook saavy yet either but I have found that people are more likely to like or sign up for a Facebook page than a private website. I guess they feel safe maybe since they already have Facebook?

A friend started a Facebook Group for one of our real life clubs and it is working very well. It seems to get much more discussion than our old Yahoo Group.

Facebook Groups can be private or not, but you can set it up in different ways. I would imagine it would be as busy as you want it to be.

 

Alright so can one of you folks familiar with these things create the Google Group or whatever. Just a note personally I am not much of a supporter of Google or any other of these huge data tracking entities. It's like that Google + crap I need to skip by every time I try to test an Android game for someone around here. Always wanting a profile to track. This is the reason the only search engine I have used for years is http://startpage.com <<<EndOfRant

Anyway if someone wants to create a group some place I will make an exception and use it if I do not need to provide the site a bunch of personal info.

 

FB groups can be private and you can be kicked out of them as I've been for opposing violence and opposing rumourmongering in a genealogy group of all things for crying out loud. And let me tell you it's much more mature to dismiss violence to the status of a video game than to fabricate historical events and use those fabricated historical events to incite bigotry and help sales of your 'historical book'. And that is not a rant.

If Gar want to make a specialized site for this group and it doesn't cost him be a bit of labour I think that's great. The site can certainly be refined t our group's tastes more than FB or GoogleGroups can.

 

Then there are people like me who refuse to touch FaceBook because we're already too busy wasting our time on forums.

 

And that is a big part of why I don't invest much time into FB and other stuff. lol All of this social stuff is for the birds. Hang on I got a Twitter notification.

 

I don't use it a lot either, only to keep in touch with family. However, since I am not just a game developer, but also have kids with friends and moms and social obligations, Facebook comes in handy since everyone I know uses it.

I could just bow out and not use Facebook, but that leaves my kids out of a lot of activities and I can't keep in touch with their moms.

I get the "Facebook isn't cool" thing for game developers, but some of us have a life outside of Unity and games.

 

And here I don't get on it much exactly because I have a life outside games and online communities. lol Actually I go in streaks. Like for weeks I participate on FB then for months I am not on it at all. Just a week or so ago I got a text from a friend back in Pennsylvania asking if all was well am I still alive. lol Because I hadn't been on FB in a few months up to that point. So I logged in and posted Hey I am still alive and well. Hope you're all doing well.

Part of me just thinks it is a bit ridiculous all of this modern social stuff. I mean if I want to know how someone is doing I pick up my phone and call them up. It is almost like the social sites are killing off basic social skills.

 

True, but on the other hand, I have dozens of cousins and it is nice to see their new babies and read about their kids finishing college and whatever without having to call dozens of people. I also get to stay in touch with distant cousins, old college friends (which is wonderful) and hear from people I grew up with in our rural neighborhood. I never would have heard from them again without Facebook. And it is lovely to hear from my 78 year old father, who is an avid Facebook user.

My posts are months between too but I have found it useful for my game development. I think I get more followers from Facebook than from my blog or website.

I think it is just another way of socializing. Honestly, video games are probably more damaging to social skills since they take you away from others while Facebook connects you with people.

 

Yeah I was just thinking about that. I agree. Because there are times when I find it far more efficient to just make a single post saying "alive & well" and that one post is available for all family & friends to see. Much more efficient.

I see Twitter and most social networks as a good way to do marketing. It allows us to connect with others with similar interests around the world. Just got back on Twitter a bit over a month ago. A quick look at my Twitter page and the 1,000+ items I have favorited easily shows a strong interest in retro gaming and pixel art. I favorited the things out of my own interest and yet it is very interesting I am sure to other people who like such things. Kind of like a curated collection of Twitter "posts" ready for them to check out. Mainly screenshots.
.

 

I have my 'business' as a FB business attached to my private personal FB profile but I don't really do much of anything with my FB business page and when I do I make sure that activity doesn't not show up on my private FB profile. If I make a product worthwhile then it's worthwhile. I'm not going to take advantage of my social network to get them to play or test my game(s). If someone plays my game, and there have not been many, it's because they were looking to play a game. LOL, plus I once had someone from the Unity forums find my FB profile and continue to troll before I made my FB profile private. No, trolls are not unique to Unity forums, the two genealogy groups I was kicked out of for proving the historical facts other group members were citing in books those members were trying to sell were outright bigoted lies that where fabricated to sell those books wasn't appreciated. Apparently it's OK to attack those that can't defend themselves by inciting general bigotry and when you call them on it it's you that are the aggressor. That's the domain of politics. Uh, no, I'm not partaking. I'm like, hey people, this isn't Madonna or Lady Di here, backoff.

 

I do the same thing. A few relatives have heard about our game and have asked for info and then I send them to the Business page. I don't like to connect my private FB with my business either. It is like two different worlds and I like that.

 

Well.. guys, I just wanted to point out.. there are easy ways to connect, no need to put @GarBenjamin to lose precious time for that.

Also, I don't understand all that privacy concerns.. My Facebook is public, my LinkedIn is public, if anyone want to find anything about me can do it in less that 5 minutes.

 

Uh, some people don't like vindictive, "have to have the last word" strangers stalking you to Facebook and elsewhere as I have personally experienced from strangers on FB and strangers from these forums.

Teo - we didn't, @GarBenjamin wants too, it was his suggestion. It's like telling a child that volunteers to play that, "No, sorry, no, we'd wouldn't want to impose on you. Clean the house for us instead."

 

Ha ha. Well come on people just set the dang thing up! I will gladly cross this off my list of projects. I was only doing it because seemed like the only real option. Since some of you know of other options go ahead and do it. Heck that just saves me time and work that I can put on other projects.

 

On the privacy thing I am an advocate for more privacy. Some people don't care about it. Some do. I do. It's nothing to do with doing shady things. Figured I better say that because generally people who do not understand privacy concerns immediately say "well if you are doing nothing wrong it shouldn't matter if companies and government know what you are doing". My view is it simply isn't anyone else's business what I am doing. Whether I search for retro games, pixel art or talk to an old friend or whatever how is that anyone else's business? Why does anyone need to know that and log it? So yeah that is my view of that stuff. People interested in collecting data and monitoring should spend their time and money collecting data and monitoring each other. That is likely where there is a real need for the monitoring in the first place!

 

Yeah, really. GarBenjamin is doing the group a favor and doing something he enjoys doing but there is always someone that keeps on about FB and Goggle being OK for this and the dB too much but don't want to do the FB and Google themselves.

On the privacy thing, it really comes down to using privacy to avoid harassment. Go look in your gmail Spam someday and tell me privacy doesn't matter. Those advocating public Facebook profiles would be singing a different tune if those emails weren't being sent to the SPAM folder.

Furthermore, my mom, with her children in tow, spent 4 years trying to escape my step-father before she actually succeeded. Privacy is important.

 

I'm all for using something else. If there is a way to do it quick n easy then someone needs to set it up.

 

Good for you! I have been stalked before so no way would I make mine public. Besides, I like to share pictures of my kids.

 

That's a serious problem. Yes, privacy can help you.. some how. I did not count that honestly.

 

Another big thing about the privacy and using all of these things such as FB and so forth I just think people do not realize there is a certain risk in any of it. Posts and comments can be misconstrued and taken completely out of context. Anything you have posted is there on the servers. Sure you may hit delete which sets the "Deleted" column of the record to true thereby no longer showing that comment or post. I don't know I just think all of this obsession with tracking everything everyone is doing has become pretty insane. It's like throwing a net out across the entire ocean to catch a few sharks and in the process every single fish in the ocean is placed under scrutiny.

Anyway getting back on topic... how about we just leave it at if someone here wants to set up the Google or FB Group then do that and post here when it is ready.

Until that time I will continue to build this thing a bit here and a bit there. Basically, I just do a little on this. A little on something else. A little on something else. Depending on how much my mind is into something and how soon I reach a good stopping point which means always stopping at a point where the project is functioning and testable.

 

Stalking's not new, I endured it as a child walking to and from school in the 70s and I've already mentioned my mom's escape. And stalking is not always a misunderstanding of intent. It's another case of if you're public you're a publicity *horehound and if you're private you're a criminal with ulterior motives. How about we don't live in a world that's created by our own expectations and leave it at that then?

Thanks Gar for your work, it's appreciated.

 

I think your question got lost in all the other discussion. Basically the group is about cross promotion, everyone has their own reach with social network/website/YouTube etc. The idea is to promote/mention games from others in the group to help increase exposure.

It's different to MadeWithUnity because to see the games there you have to go visit that particular site. With the cross promotion the games will appear in places that people were already looking at in the first place, not on a site that they may or may not go look at.

 

Yes, this is about doing small favours for people with no particular expectations that they'll have the opportunity to repay you. So you need to set limits for how much you're willing to help coming in, so you can enjoy the rest of your life and still have time to make apps and games in Unity too. Over time that will add up but it's not a full time job for anyone.

Of course if you are inviting people to help them with no expectations they help you, or even with such expectations, one have to set limits on time, HW, SW, maturity of the content, and one's own abilities to not waste an hour or more re-explaining all of that all over again. That's where a site like GarBenjamin is setting up helps.

By all means if you have a game that needs testing or reviewed ask, but I (other can speak for themselves) can't buy it and I can't test til next week (Sunday) as my 2 a week allotment is gone but there are other folks too. Others have offered review write-up nd videos, Gar is offering a small private promotional site, and together they'll be better than throwing a little bit of money at a big machine, even if it's because we saved a bit of money and learned a bit for ourselves.

And there you see the difficulty of doing this in a thread. In a private web site I could allow a calendar that allow users to schedule me for one of the two days a week to test their game and all the limits of how I can help in one little private coop Kiosk. By the way, there are free test sites too but I've yet to try one.

 

Gotcha.

Being a web dev, I'm all for the full site approach. Even setting up a Wordpress site or something would be enough for basic user management tasks, and I think it also opens up potential for other initiatives like blogging and that sort of thing.

@GarBenjamin If you want a helping hand with the setup process, let me know.

 

You know... that never even crossed my mind! Even when I was still building websites for businessses "on the side" several years or so ago I switched from custom writing them all to WordPress. Made it faster for me and cheaper for the customer. There is a lot of stuff available for WordPress.

I just completed the sign up piece in php and MySQL.
Building it here:
http://garsgames.com/GameDevCrossPromotion/signup.php

But am now thinking I might have another look at WP. I think one thing that put me off is my current site is using WP and is very sluggish despite using WPCache.

Custom development will get faster the more I write and have established patterns and code to reuse. But a WP using the right plugins may be much faster to setup.

Is that something you could check into? How involved it would be to have a WP site that allows people to sign up to participate in the co-op?. Just a membership site plugin might be fine.

What I am building would just allow people to sign up entering basic credentials information, login and then they can fill out their assets. Like Twitter following, YouTube subscribers, willing to test games etc and then also list the game page, website or Twitter account etc they would like the other members to promote. Ideally making it so it can handle groups so different levels of people can connect with each other. But that latter would be a phase two for my custom work.

 

Sounds like a social network for hobbyist indie game devs.

 

I like Wordpress.

In my case it was a coworker who I only knew via the internet. He had mental health issues, but I didn't know that at the time. It turned out okay, but honestly, I don't want to deal with it again so I keep my FB private.

 

:-(

 

I'm a huge supporter of the "dev blog" It gives players a look into the development process, keeps them informed, and grows a community for your game very organically. You will find your game's biggest supporters and fans will *love* your dev blog.

That being said, they are a lot of work to keep updated (time you are not developing the game), but developing a community and social presence is very important too

 

That's the problem with all "indie devs" who actually make games more that writing dev blogs. You have to chose what you want to develop a game, or write stories. You can't be good at both.

 

almost forgot @holliebuckets , can you please ask nicely some peoples from graphics to check the "Graphics>Global Illumination", we have some serious problems there and nobody seems to come and give any advice or help.

 

indie life is tough. When you are a team of 1, an 80 hour work week still isnt enough!! Soo much love for this thread because of that fact: it's not easy - probably why you are all so darn inspiring <3

and

OFF TOPIC: yes. I'm not the best person for that section but I'm trying to pull more devs into it <3

 

Absolutely. Like you said, WP has a lot of plugins available to extend its OOB functionality, so it wouldn't be too hard to whip something up that handles this kind of information. I probably won't put too much effort into styling it just yet, but all the right fields should be there. The other great thing about WP is that it's easy to write your own custom code anywhere you want, or even modify plugins you're using to tailor them to your own needs.

I can spin this up on a subdomain as a sort of "competitor" to your efforts. Then we'll compare notes and see which will suit the project's needs better and move forward from there. I do have a couple busy days ahead of me, but I'll sneak some time in here and there.

 

That sounds excellent! Yeah I remember that custom stuff. When I used it to create client sites I updated themes and plug-in code as needed to customize it for the client. I just have not done much web development in quite a while. Been several years or more in fact so I am just getting my head back into it with this project. It is all coming back to me though. Now that the sign up piece is complete I can draw on that as a reference and login should be faster to write although that needs to manage sessions. Once login is done the rest of the work will draw heavily from the patterns used in login so will be faster to code.

I like the idea of you using WordPress for it and building it at same time. Between the two of us one of them should actually be finished sooner or later. lol

 

This is not really what I was thinking in my original post. In looking at the problems and trying to come up with a solution joining forces seemed logical. The idea is for game devs to join forces with other game devs so they can help each other to reach more of their target audience. One person may work on promotion through YouTube, another may use Twitter, someone else may use Facebook and another may use something else. Instead of all of these devs having to spend the time (which they likely do not have) to try to build up a following on all of these platforms they can leverage the work of each other. The YouTuber can now have some reach on Twitter, Facebook and something else. The Twitter user can now have some reach on YouTube, Facebook and something else. And so forth.

If a person submits their game and has nothing available for the co-op to use in return I'd see that as very different. Then it becomes a matter of charity to just help the dev out without the other devs gaining anything from their time (which is generally limited as it is) in doing so. Beyond that it becomes a matter of once you have no requirements then we are back to the same old thing we see in game dev which caused much of the current situation to begin with. No barriers. So you'd likely end up with just a bunch of people saying hey I have nothing no Twitter, YouTube, website, Facebook or anything else to help you in return but please promote my game. That won't work. Because the whole point is for all of those involved to be working together to cross-promote each other using their existing assets (the platforms they have worked to build a presence on).

In that case of people who have done no marketing work, I'd recommend those people to work together from the start. Perhaps build one of those Facebook group pages and all of them can list their games on it and all of them can promote it. Something like that would then allow them to all help each other starting from ground zero.

That is not to say that others could not occasionally throw out some support by mentioning that Facebook group or whatever. Just that something is needed first.

EDIT:

Or like in your case you specifically offered to test other people's games. That provides a service and is a good example of adding value in return for some promotion.

I know a lot of people view things like I am describing as exclusionary and do not understand why companies and individuals cannot all just spend their time and money helping everyone else for free. The reason is because they simply cannot.

For one, there are so many people involved that if there is no requirement on any of them to actually provide any value in return for what they receive then what is the point of it? Imagine 100 people or in time 1,000 people saying hey please help me. Please promote my game. You will get nothing from doing so other than feeling that you are a kind decent soul. People only have so much in the way of resources so which of those people do you help? How do you choose which ones? How many do you help especially when knowing that all of the time, money whatever you spend doing so you are getting no help in return?

This is why it only makes sense to make it required for participants to offer some value to other people when they are expecting to receive some value from the others. And it is not like it is terribly difficult to do some marketing to get that bare minimum. Anyone who is trying to succeed making a business from game dev should already be doing these things.

Heck, I am only a hobbyist and just set up a Twitter account about 5 weeks ago and already have about 220 followers which I view as having about 4 real followers. By that I mean I figure about 1 out of every 50 of these followers will actually look at any given thing I post. It might be more but from past experience in marketing I don't expect more than a 2% response rate ever.

But those 4 that do respond will be golden. Some will retweet and spread my messages. Other times we get into discussions and that attracts interest. And so forth. Due to the viral nature of such platforms when I had only about 50 followers and made a "tweet" Twitter alerted me several days later "Your tweet has been seen by 227 people" and so forth. Because people viewed and some retweeted (or autobots not to be confused with Transformers retweeted). And those things can continue to be carried on for some time I would guess.

So, anyway, there has to be some expectation of give-and-receive for it to work. And it is not difficult for someone to start building a small presence with a bit of focused effort in doing so. Twitter costs no money to use. Nor does Facebook. Or YouTube. But they do take some desire and time.

 

I mean that I'm not expecting every owner of every game put in the same effort that you have in creating the web site or in reviewing and testing a minimal number of games per week, but if someone comes by and mentions the coop to people who do review and test games than maybe we'll get to a significant number of users that can offer tests and reviews to improve each others games and grow the coop over time in numbers and quality

 

I haven't read the whole thread. Is everyone who wants to synergize promotion efforts here sure they have a product that is above average market quality and that could fail only because of a lack of exposure? When I have read the title of the thread I thought this was going to be a thread about collaborating on projects to raise the quality of the games, not the awareness for them.
In less sugar coated words: if the average jaded gamer thinks "this looks lame" upon seeing your game, no amount of tweeting or facebook likes will change that, imho.

That said, I see potentially great value in collaborating for beta testing and feedback! And a plattform set up for that might be time well invested. I don't know if it really would work better than the forum here, but it might be worth a try.

I wonder if a kind of anonymous rating system for different aspects might be beneficial. Like a 1-10 score for engagement, ease of use/learning curve, controls, graphics, difficulty balancing etc.. I've seen games where I thought "wow the controls suck, this has zero chance of ever being successful", but I might not want to tell that to a person directly, even though it is useful information that I believe to be true. Forum feedback very often leads to a "you like my stuff, I'll like yours" situation and to go beyond that I'd find an anonymous rating system helpful and to avoid abuse an separate site to sign up probably is enough. It would also be interesting to be able to see the individual rating sets and not just the average results. E.g. people that find the tutorials lacking might find the game too hard because of not getting what they need to do.

 

This may be true. However, not all games are "lame" and some simply suffer from lack of exposure. So, all we are doing is helping to provide that exposure, not making the games better. That is up to the developer...although we can give input and test, so that may help the developer to make the game better...but not really the purpose here.

Advertising, getting exposure..all very important and for some of us, the most difficult part of making a game. Without players, whether it is a for-profit game or just a hobbyist wanting others to play his game, all the work is really for nothing.

I see asset developers who make detailed forums, engage with the users, and even go out of their way to help via Skype or email. Those are the successful developers. Yeah, there maybe be prettier assets out there, but when we know we can work with the developer and that he/she delivers, then we are more apt to buy his asset....and work with him to make it work for us.

Same is true of games. If we engage people, get exposure, we are more apt to have players and testers notice our game. By engaging in the community, including Twitter, Facebook, and whatever, we are involving others in our development. Some are very good at this and it shows in their large followings. Others, like me, are a little less good at it. So, while our game is far from ready, I am hoping that by spending a little time posting about other games, that I can learn something and maybe they will help me a little when my time comes. I do not expect great reviews if the game doesn't warrant such reviews, but a little exposure won't hurt.

 

Can definitely add Review and Testing components to this. However, I don't have any interest in being a part of trying to keep people's stuff out due to thinking "it's not good enough". I definitely think there is a line for minimum quality on the one side and there is a line for elitism on the other side.

For example, I personally play all kinds of games and find enjoyment in them even when a lot of people around here would likely not even give them a second look simply because they have programmer graphics or certainly very amateur artist quality graphics.

So to me I envision this as being something where like-minded people can connect and work together. The people who think every game has to be near AAA quality can definitely connect and form their own group of promoting each others games and testing and so forth. On the other extreme people like myself who are messing around having fun and focused more on what the game does than trying to achieve near AAA quality in all regards can also connect and group up to help each other with promotion, testing and so forth.

This is why I think there has to be different groups catered to. Personally I am more interested in helping the non-AAA oriented folks simply because it seems to me that most of the existing services out there are already focused on serving the so called AAA indies. I'd see little sense in making just one more thing for that segment and ignoring all of the others such as myself. However, the idea is that people with like-minded interests whether seeking top-notch quality all around or sharing their hobbyist creations can connect and help each other.

 

This coop for me is about honest, civilized tests and review of the games I review. That is the only thing I can offer of value to the others. Others do other things in the coop. Nobody should care if I mention a game I've never played, tested, or reviewed. Unless they're asking why are you touting a game you never played?

I can only speak technically if the game worked, not of the game's genre and so I won't call a game the next Minecraft in a bit of marketing hype. To be honest, I'm not enough into games to know most of their genres. I either like or I don't, it's the same with music.

I have no minimum quality of games I review and test. I'll make minor suggestions to make game play better from my point of view. If a game grosses my out and make me uncomfortable reviewing it then I will refuse to review. However, content I feel uncomfortable viewing will not but lumped under the guise of saying it's poor quality or it's not good enough - I will say why I felt uncomfortable in my case. That's my choice. And I will make those things clear and those that want testing and feedback will know where I stand. If someone wants to review the games I feel uncomfortable reviewing then they need to step up really don't they? So far the only violent game that's been submitted for review in this thread needed $10 to be paid by each of us to review. By the way the violence in that game was unrealistic enough that I probably would of reviewed it had it be free to review.

I've already shown in review of my own game that it's not embarrassing or is it mean to honestly review a game. My game needs a lot of improvement. An honest review I think has more value to folks ultimately than people realize even if you disagree with the assessments.