GAMING ADVICE WITH PROFESSOR KNOW-IT-ALL: HOW TO BECOME A SOMEBODY IN THE GAMING COMMUNITY AND GET MORE GROUPIES

Get active! Get involved! DO SOMETHING!

  • Addit
  • 12/13/2013 04:45 AM
  • 38206 views


Good day, ladies and gentlederps. The name is Professor Know-It-All. And I’m here today to teach you all about the secret art of game making and general game design. You can just call me “The Professor” for short, considering that’s what most people call me around here. For the next ten minutes, or however long it takes you to read all of this, I will be sharing my wisdom of many years of game making experience with you all. Although my speculative advice may come free and is considered well-informed by most, please take into the account that even I, the great and mighty professor can sometimes be faulty. So make sure that you have a clear head that is full of common sense and a willingness to go beyond the boundaries of knowledge as we take a look at today’s informal lesson.




“Thank you for going out of your way and submitting a review for my game!”
“I just did it for the bitches.”


Congratulations, good man. By directing your time and efforts from working on the next killer app for an old engine that nobody has used since 1997, you’ve just made someone’s day and given yourself a couple of points in overall community service! Now don’t you feel all warm and accomplished inside?

Now for the most of you sitting in the back row with your precious MP3 players cranked up to the max – “Professor,” you say, “what does this have to do with game making?” Well, I’m very glad you all asked that question. For you see, game making isn’t all about spending the entire duration on your comfy butt slaving away over tweaking the same sprite over and over again – oh no! It’s also about establishing your sexy persona all over the Internet to market yourself to other nerds and nerdettes. You can make the most impressive piece of ass all you want with your sleek menu design, parallax mapping, and yada-yada-yada, but the most important thing is to paint a respectable image of yourself on to others. Just simply joining an indie community and posting your game and precious screenshots of you failing on the same boss fight over and over again isn’t going to cut it! You need to get your feet wet and do something for them for a change. It’s the same classic expression: you scratch their butt, they’ll scratch yours.

“But Professor,” you may ask, “why should I help them when they’re supposedly the scum of the Earth!?” Well…technically they are, but at the sametime, you have to work together in order to compete against each other. Just simply being a confident loner isn’t going to cut it in today’s heavily relied social media world. You need to do something to become something. And I know just the ticket.

The left subject, which is you, probably, has just managed to stumble upon a person’s game page that they just recently submitted. It looks pretty cool, I guess, but nothing like yours - but who cares!? You just want to reach out to somebody, give them a slight jolt of praise, and then hopefully gain a new member for team you. Let’s see how it goes.




SUCCESS!!!


Now that user will probably tell his or her other virtual friends and that person will tell theirs and so and so on. The point is, by reaching out to this other young man and putting on a brave courageous face, he was not able to garner more attention towards his own games but also put on a clever marketing disguise. Don’t ever underestimate the power of marketing…and sex appeal.

But there are many other ways you can create more well awareness of yourself around the community that just is not limited towards doing comments or reviews. There’s a brave whole world out there for you. For starters, there are the community forums where people go to frolic and comingle about the latest DLC pack for the latest MMO RPG game. Even if you don’t play that sort of junk (or even remotely care), you can still comment on other things and give yourself a voice to be heard. You can also create your own topics as well. What exactly does all of this do? It gets you more noticed with your bright shiny username for all to see. Out of all the visitors that come to that particular gaming site, someone might click on your profile and check out all your stuff because they see that you're quit active in the community. All it takes it just one click to become insta-famous!

If the forums and commenting isn’t your thing – what about posting up some reviews, let’s plays or create some sexy fanart for someone, especially fanart if you’re an awe-inspiring artist. Other lurkers might see your freshly hand drawn creations or your incredible video editing skills and might give you a like. You see, it pays to be a team player. By getting involved in your community, you’ll get more popular, more noticed, and more fans coming on to you (ew…) Just joining alone and making the odd post here or there won’t necessary cut it. If you want to be a superstar, you gotta put in the work to become that superstar, not just on your own projects, but on your own fanbase as well. It may not occur to you, but someone out there is a person who is rather fond of your work, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. And as long as you have that one person that’s drawing interest, you have done your job.

You don’t need to contribute something all the time; just take it slow and do what you can. If possible, try to contribute a few things on the other indie game sites you want to post your game up on too. The more attention that you give others, the more that you will receive back in good nature. So – go ahead! Write a review for someone; draw that sexy piece of fan art of the main character that you've always wanted to do; compete in a game making contest...the more you contribute, the more people will be drawn to you and your many kind deeds, which will generate into a healthy amount of downloads and word of mouth for you. By coming together, you can do better on both fronts. And who knows!? Maybe you might meet that special someone who you can help or they might be able to help you out with your own games, especially the parts you’re the weakest at, and then you’ll start making some true killer apps.

So what are you waiting for!? Get your ass out the door and start contributing! I would contribute too if I wasn’t making less than minimum wage on a teaching salary.

(Please don’t tell the dean that I said that.)



Class dismissed.

Posts

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Good read. I do enjoy these articles, Addit. Guess I should post more or submit more articles/tutorials (I'm too quiet around here ). And maybe chuck in some of my resources that I posted at RPGMaker Web too. =)
tl;dr version: whore yourself out, and others may whore on you!
edchuy
You the practice of self-promotion
1624
Bottom line, give in order to (hopefully) receive or "You reap what you sow".

As always, a good read, Addit. Now, about that that RMN Strip Loose Comic ...
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
And here I was, thinking the saying was "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours".

*now I know, and knowing is half the battle*
slash
APATHY IS FOR COWARDS
4158
This is some good advice!

If you're active in a community, people will notice, and if you're kind to people they may be kind to you in return :) This is what a stoic businessdude might call "networking", but it's really just being friendly and helpful.
author=edchuy
Now, about that that RMN Strip Loose Comic ...


I-I'm working on it. Maybe next year I'll start pumping a few of these out again.

(Mmmm...now that whole "Chocolate World Space Martians" game sounds - and tastes - kind of interesting.)

Thanks for the comments, guys.
(I really should stop writing / finishing my reviews or articles up at 1 in the morning when I’m half there, physically and mentally.)

author=kentona
tl;dr version: whore yourself out, and others may whore on you!


#dirtythoughtspleasestop
SunflowerGames
The most beautiful user on RMN!
13323

I noticed that after posting on some forums that my download count for a certain game would go up soon after. Participating in the community just a small bit lets others know who you are. You never know when someone will click on your name to view your profile and download one of your games.
Good to see you back, CC. =)
author=yuna21
Good to see you back, CC. =)

Hopefully, I won't be as stupid when it comes to "whoring myself out." Only time will tell, I guess, lol.
Thanks~
Yellow Magic
Could I BE any more Chandler Bing from Friends (TM)?
3154
You can also be a controversial douchebag. That way, people will most likely play your games no matter what.
That is true. Being an ass does have its advantages at times.

- Just look at Max McGee! (sorry Max)
Yellow Magic
Could I BE any more Chandler Bing from Friends (TM)?
3154
Not gonna lie - he's the first person that came to mind as I was typing my post...
Was there really no other?

I can’t really think of anybody else.
Yellow Magic
Could I BE any more Chandler Bing from Friends (TM)?
3154
...neither can I...
author=Addit
Was there really no other?

I can’t really think of anybody else.


Solitayre.
author=calunio
Solitayre.

Shh…quiet, he’ll hear you.
author=Addit
Shh…quiet, he’ll hear you.


He's not really an ass or a douchebag, but he's clearly one of those guys that gets attention from writing controversial stuff.
Yellow Magic
Could I BE any more Chandler Bing from Friends (TM)?
3154
Of course, yet ANOTHER alternative is to make controversial games. 8) 8) 8)
author=Yellow Magic
Of course, yet ANOTHER alternative is to make controversial games. 8) 8) 8)


Yep, I'm familiar with that option. ;)
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