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WALKING THE LINE: DEVELOPMENT VS. PROMOTION
Posts
Max McGee
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CloseAs amateur, hobbyist game devs, we don't have many of the advantages that AAA, AA, or even "indie" developers can leverage. Perhaps the most important thing none of us have at our disposal? A full time marketing team.
So, full disclosure...my old pattern used to be:
More recently, my new pattern (and why you haven't seen posts and games from me) has been:
Now obviously this second, newer pattern doesn't get any more games completed. But it's still a major improvement over the first pattern, because it omits several steps in the cycle that have caused me major, measurable, permanent, irreparable physical and psychological harm over time, exacerbated my stress-based autoimmune disorder, made my long-term romantic relationship more dysfunctional and abusive, etcetera. Thank God I realized these ugly, disgusting truths and I was able to take a HUGE step back from all of it. So even if it doesn't produce more complete games, at least it's less horribly self destructive and tragic, and I retain RPG Maker as an occasional creative outlet.
But now because this isn't a confessional I'm going to open this topic up to be about more than me and my personal hangups/neuroses/psychoses/destructive behavior patterns/what-have-you. Because I think, even if it's never harmed anyone else's real life and happiness (and I can't say that for sure) nonetheless this issue of "how much time working on your game do you spend in actual development versus in marketing and promotion" is a MAJOR issue that effects virtually EVERY hobbyist game dev on here.
Personally speaking, I've been around forever. I am an ancient, antediluvian THING from the bottom of the abyss. I have been GAM MAK CERTIFIED since before the year 2001. So I have tried everything from spending more time promoting and hyping than actually making the goddamn game (Iron Gaia 2) to doing absolutely no promotion work and "stealth-releasing" a game when it was already complete (various projects) and of course everything in between. The problem with the first extreme is obvious-at least if, like me, you find "making games" to be a fun and challenging intellectual exercise and "seeking/keeping people's attention on the internet" to be wretched, abhorrent, stressful, and whorish drudgery.
(However, as a footnote, a lot of vaporware peddlers of yore were OBVIOUSLY more interested in being publicly observed "game developers" then in the actual development of actual games, and there is nothing INNATELY wrong with that if that's what you enjoy. For them, the thrill wasn't in actually finishing a project (and maybe moving on to the next) but in having a community of enthusiasts built around their work in progress, eagerly awaiting each gorgeous screenshot. I once accused BlindMind of being a producer of not games, but screenshots, to supply the demand of a kind of "screenshot industry" in the community, and he is far from the only developer I've encountered in my history that this is basically true of.)
The problem with the second extreme, the stealth release, is that while it may seem like a great fit for someone who loves making games and hates promotion/marketing (like me), no matter how great your game is, no matter how much love and attention you pour into it, the way the greater community works, the way RMN's very WEBSITE is structured (leaving alone the fact that nowadays greenhorns seem to think they can go commercial and/or put their fucking RPG Maker game up on Kickstarter and/or STEAM Greenlight like it ain't even a thang, that's a topic for another day) if you "fire and forget" a complete game project, rather than building up an audience of "followers" before you have anything playable, it's very likely your game will only reach a tiny fraction of the audience it potentially could. Sadly--or not, YMMV--gam mak is not a perfect meritocracy.
I know I've tried every possible split of my attentions and my time between "making" and "promoting" in the course of the time I've been around, but I also know I haven't found an internal division of labor that's felt comfortable for me since around 2004. And even then it seemed like getting attention for my games was a lot less work. At that point I was kind of a (positive) "name" in the "scene" so my projects drew attention--not overwhelming hate, that would happen later, heh--automatically.
So anyway, the questions for the class.
How do you split up your time between actively developing your game (everything done in the RPG Maker Editor, basically, plus whatever other programs you're working with) and actively promoting your game (managing your game page, responding to comments, posting screenshots, blogging, cross-posting to other communities, interacting with fans, soliciting or seeking reviews and let's-plays, etcetera)?
Do you ever struggle with needing to split your limited "RPG Maker Time" and your attention between these two things?
When you only seem to have time for one or the other (actually building new content, or showing off the new content you've built in some form), which do you usually wind up doing?
At what point in a project's life cycle do you even think about making a "game page" or otherwise building public awareness? 10% Completion? 50% Completion? 80% Completion? As soon as you have an idea or some graphical mockups to show off? Never?
And what are some of the best practices for "game promotion" or "marketing" that you've found to be the least stressful, the most effective, and the most cost-effective in terms of your limited time as a hobbyist developer?
So, full disclosure...my old pattern used to be:
- Get excited about a new game idea.
- Work passionately and feverishly for a few weeks or months ...
- ...until I reached the point where a) my resolve/motivation was seriously flagging AND b) I felt like I'd already created something that was i. playable, ii. substantial, and iii. really, really impressive.
- Create a gamepage on RMN and throw more and more energy into community awareness raising, forum discussions (not related to the game), and promotion/"marketing" until almost all the time I spent working on the game wasn't actually spent "working on the game" at all but trying to work within RMN's frontpaging system to get people's eyes on it so my hard work wasn't for nothing.
- Release a demo, hoping that the resulting buzz and/or hype and/or interest and/or attention will catalyze me to feel refueled and recharged and throw myself back into game development proper.
- Receive "community" "feedback" that was "inadequate", whether it meant not getting enough attention or getting attention that was caustic, toxic negativity (usually poorly disguised as "constructive criticism" from someone much younger than me and/or with no real understanding of what I was *trying* to do in the first place.)
- Become hopelessly, helplessly obsessed with the unwinnable uphill battle of "managing" this situation. This Sisyphean task eats up more and more development time, until nine times out of ten when I'm "working on RPGMaker" that means logging on to rpgmaker.net to check for Notices on a game rather than opening the RPG Maker Editor to actually work on a game.
- Motivation sapped, abandon project. Cycle repeats 8-14 Months later.
More recently, my new pattern (and why you haven't seen posts and games from me) has been:
- Get excited about a new game idea.
- Work passionately and feverishly for a few weeks or months.
- Don't even consider making a game page or poking around RMN. You enjoy MAKING games, not trying to MARKET them, Devon. Fuck demos. No gamepage, no "promotion" until you have a full length game that's at least 90% complete.
- Gradually, the new project loses its shine and becomes more work/drudgery than fun and creativity. Motivation and resolve to continue slowly drains away. The feeling that no one will ever see it/play it anyway, so what's the point, doesn't help.
- Motivation sapped, abandon project. Cycle repeats 8-14 Months Later.
Now obviously this second, newer pattern doesn't get any more games completed. But it's still a major improvement over the first pattern, because it omits several steps in the cycle that have caused me major, measurable, permanent, irreparable physical and psychological harm over time, exacerbated my stress-based autoimmune disorder, made my long-term romantic relationship more dysfunctional and abusive, etcetera. Thank God I realized these ugly, disgusting truths and I was able to take a HUGE step back from all of it. So even if it doesn't produce more complete games, at least it's less horribly self destructive and tragic, and I retain RPG Maker as an occasional creative outlet.
But now because this isn't a confessional I'm going to open this topic up to be about more than me and my personal hangups/neuroses/psychoses/destructive behavior patterns/what-have-you. Because I think, even if it's never harmed anyone else's real life and happiness (and I can't say that for sure) nonetheless this issue of "how much time working on your game do you spend in actual development versus in marketing and promotion" is a MAJOR issue that effects virtually EVERY hobbyist game dev on here.
Personally speaking, I've been around forever. I am an ancient, antediluvian THING from the bottom of the abyss. I have been GAM MAK CERTIFIED since before the year 2001. So I have tried everything from spending more time promoting and hyping than actually making the goddamn game (Iron Gaia 2) to doing absolutely no promotion work and "stealth-releasing" a game when it was already complete (various projects) and of course everything in between. The problem with the first extreme is obvious-at least if, like me, you find "making games" to be a fun and challenging intellectual exercise and "seeking/keeping people's attention on the internet" to be wretched, abhorrent, stressful, and whorish drudgery.
(However, as a footnote, a lot of vaporware peddlers of yore were OBVIOUSLY more interested in being publicly observed "game developers" then in the actual development of actual games, and there is nothing INNATELY wrong with that if that's what you enjoy. For them, the thrill wasn't in actually finishing a project (and maybe moving on to the next) but in having a community of enthusiasts built around their work in progress, eagerly awaiting each gorgeous screenshot. I once accused BlindMind of being a producer of not games, but screenshots, to supply the demand of a kind of "screenshot industry" in the community, and he is far from the only developer I've encountered in my history that this is basically true of.)
The problem with the second extreme, the stealth release, is that while it may seem like a great fit for someone who loves making games and hates promotion/marketing (like me), no matter how great your game is, no matter how much love and attention you pour into it, the way the greater community works, the way RMN's very WEBSITE is structured (leaving alone the fact that nowadays greenhorns seem to think they can go commercial and/or put their fucking RPG Maker game up on Kickstarter and/or STEAM Greenlight like it ain't even a thang, that's a topic for another day) if you "fire and forget" a complete game project, rather than building up an audience of "followers" before you have anything playable, it's very likely your game will only reach a tiny fraction of the audience it potentially could. Sadly--or not, YMMV--gam mak is not a perfect meritocracy.
I know I've tried every possible split of my attentions and my time between "making" and "promoting" in the course of the time I've been around, but I also know I haven't found an internal division of labor that's felt comfortable for me since around 2004. And even then it seemed like getting attention for my games was a lot less work. At that point I was kind of a (positive) "name" in the "scene" so my projects drew attention--not overwhelming hate, that would happen later, heh--automatically.
So anyway, the questions for the class.
How do you split up your time between actively developing your game (everything done in the RPG Maker Editor, basically, plus whatever other programs you're working with) and actively promoting your game (managing your game page, responding to comments, posting screenshots, blogging, cross-posting to other communities, interacting with fans, soliciting or seeking reviews and let's-plays, etcetera)?
Do you ever struggle with needing to split your limited "RPG Maker Time" and your attention between these two things?
When you only seem to have time for one or the other (actually building new content, or showing off the new content you've built in some form), which do you usually wind up doing?
At what point in a project's life cycle do you even think about making a "game page" or otherwise building public awareness? 10% Completion? 50% Completion? 80% Completion? As soon as you have an idea or some graphical mockups to show off? Never?
And what are some of the best practices for "game promotion" or "marketing" that you've found to be the least stressful, the most effective, and the most cost-effective in terms of your limited time as a hobbyist developer?
I'm glad you figured out a better way to go about game-making that's less stressful for you, especially since you have a stress-based autoimmune disorder, which sounds awful. ;_;
However, I have to say, that the current setup of RMN has actually helped my productivity a lot rather than hindered it.
I'd say it's 85% Gam Mak, 15% RMN time, roughly. And either of those can change depending on current real-life circumstances. I don't actually post blogs or screenshots unless I've done a lot of work and have actual new areas to show off, and I try to have something new around every month.
Sometimes. It's never to a major degree, and I'm pretty disciplined about making sure that most of my free-time that's not goof-off time goes to actually making games.
Building the content, for sure. Creating things is my passion, and honestly if I take too long off from it, I start to crave it. I could ignore the RMN entirely and just make stuff (I did for years before joining) but I've found a lot of joy with being part of the community.
I've found a lot of inspiration comes from making a gamepage and getting input from the community. I've had the luck to meet a lot of honest and helpful people, many of whom have a lot of experience and good ideas that have helped me improve.
I think the best time to make a gamepage is when you've got all of your ideas together and have more than an hour of gameplay to show off.
I suck at marketing. It stems from my introverted nature. However, on RMN, I found a way around that. I'm really passionate about making RPGs so talking about them comes much easier. Also, by participating in the community, playing other people's games, and giving my own honest feedback, I've gotten plenty of people to give my stuff a try.
So while I can't really call that marketing, it's more of a "participate in the community when you can, and you just might find the community giving something back to you." And while it does take some time, I feel like I've learned a ton just from seeing what so many others are doing with their games.
Bottom line, I don't worry about marketing. I'm not selling anything, and don't plan to anytime soon. I want people to give my games a shot, of course, but I've never been good at getting my game out there. But I don't have to worry, because people find it anyways, and through all the interaction, I've found a lot of other developers who are really awesome :D
However, I have to say, that the current setup of RMN has actually helped my productivity a lot rather than hindered it.
author=Max McGee
How do you split up your time between actively developing your game (everything done in the RPG Maker Editor, basically, plus whatever other programs you're working with) and actively promoting your game (managing your game page, responding to comments, posting screenshots, blogging, cross-posting to other communities, interacting with fans, soliciting or seeking reviews and let's-plays, etcetera)?
I'd say it's 85% Gam Mak, 15% RMN time, roughly. And either of those can change depending on current real-life circumstances. I don't actually post blogs or screenshots unless I've done a lot of work and have actual new areas to show off, and I try to have something new around every month.
author=Max McGee
Do you ever struggle with needing to split your limited "RPG Maker Time" and your attention between these two things?
Sometimes. It's never to a major degree, and I'm pretty disciplined about making sure that most of my free-time that's not goof-off time goes to actually making games.
author=Max McGee
When you only seem to have time for one or the other (actually building new content, or showing off the new content you've built in some form), which do you usually wind up doing?
Building the content, for sure. Creating things is my passion, and honestly if I take too long off from it, I start to crave it. I could ignore the RMN entirely and just make stuff (I did for years before joining) but I've found a lot of joy with being part of the community.
author=Max McGee
At what point in a project's life cycle do you even think about making a "game page" or otherwise building public awareness? 10% Completion? 50% Completion? 80% Completion? As soon as you have an idea or some graphical mockups to show off? Never?
I've found a lot of inspiration comes from making a gamepage and getting input from the community. I've had the luck to meet a lot of honest and helpful people, many of whom have a lot of experience and good ideas that have helped me improve.
I think the best time to make a gamepage is when you've got all of your ideas together and have more than an hour of gameplay to show off.
author=Max McGee
And what are some of the best practices for "game promotion" or "marketing" that you've found to be the least stressful, the most effective, and the most cost-effective in terms of your limited time as a hobbyist developer?
I suck at marketing. It stems from my introverted nature. However, on RMN, I found a way around that. I'm really passionate about making RPGs so talking about them comes much easier. Also, by participating in the community, playing other people's games, and giving my own honest feedback, I've gotten plenty of people to give my stuff a try.
So while I can't really call that marketing, it's more of a "participate in the community when you can, and you just might find the community giving something back to you." And while it does take some time, I feel like I've learned a ton just from seeing what so many others are doing with their games.
Bottom line, I don't worry about marketing. I'm not selling anything, and don't plan to anytime soon. I want people to give my games a shot, of course, but I've never been good at getting my game out there. But I don't have to worry, because people find it anyways, and through all the interaction, I've found a lot of other developers who are really awesome :D
I don't really worry about how many people play my games as I used to.
I more enjoy the process of making a game.
I spend too much time in RPG Maker.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
author=Max McGee
So, full disclosure...my old pattern used to be:
- Get excited about a new game idea.
- Work passionately and feverishly for a few weeks or months ...
- ...until I reached the point where a) my resolve/motivation was seriously flagging AND b) I felt like I'd already created something that was i. playable, ii. substantial, and iii. really, really impressive.
- Create a gamepage on RMN and throw more and more energy into community awareness raising, forum discussions (not related to the game), and promotion/"marketing" until almost all the time I spent working on the game wasn't actually spent "working on the game" at all but trying to work within RMN's frontpaging system to get people's eyes on it so my hard work wasn't for nothing.
- Release a demo, hoping that the resulting buzz and/or hype and/or interest and/or attention will catalyze me to feel refueled and recharged and throw myself back into game development proper.
- Receive "community" "feedback" that was "inadequate", whether it meant not getting enough attention or getting attention that was caustic, toxic negativity (usually poorly disguised as "constructive criticism" from someone much younger than me and/or with no real understanding of what I was *trying* to do in the first place.)
- Become hopelessly, helplessly obsessed with the unwinnable uphill battle of "managing" this situation. This Sisyphean task eats up more and more development time, until nine times out of ten when I'm "working on RPGMaker" that means logging on to rpgmaker.net to check for Notices on a game rather than opening the RPG Maker Editor to actually work on a game.
- Motivation sapped, abandon project. Cycle repeats 8-14 Months later.
This is very close to where I'm at, except change the last two steps to this:
- Give up all pretense of actually working on my game and spend 100% of my "game development" time contributing to forum discussions about other people's games. This fills the game development void in my soul without actually producing anything of my own.
- Game flounders in extremely slow development for approximately a decade, never being abandoned, but rarely being worked on. Eventually none of the people I tried to get interested in it even remember it.
...That's not the whole story though. A ton of my energy goes into developing my MUD instead of my RPG Maker games. My typical excuse is that there are no graphics to work on, and I hate working on graphics. But a big part of the actual reason is that there's no "release", just patches and updates for an ongoing online multiplayer game. I can see the players, immediately trying out what I just made, and so my motivation never falters. It doesn't matter that my RPG Maker game has far more subscribers than my MUD has active players (seriously there are only nine people online right now and three of them have been AFK for half an hour). They are visible, I can talk to them and watch them play, and so my puny illogical human brain cares way, way more. My brain would rather have six physical people than six billion tally marks by my list of subscribers.
When I do work on my RPG Maker game, every time, it's because someone talked to me about it. It turns out that, while I certainly would feel proud if lots of people played my game, what I really want is to hear about or watch them enjoying it. And for this goal, I don't necessarily need great marketing. It's a matter of who my game reaches and how they can reach back to me, not how many people it reaches.
I'd say I'm 50/50 for gam mak and informing my subbers about blog updates and the like. As for marketing, no. I find it a mite shameless in the 'plugging' sense. All fine and well if you're taking the commercial route, but if your RM game spreads because it is a good game and not because of endless marketing campaigns ( seriously, those enormous signatures for games I see on some forums screams 'play my game please! only to check it out and it's far from good', then you have nothing to worry about. =)
I don't have the experience to back my comment, but here goes...
The time I spend between "Making" and "Showing" is not exactly set in stone. I just do what I can do at that moment. Example: if I'm connected to the net, I'll go ahead and spend time on the net. If I'm not, then I work on my game.
But really, I only have one finished game. Based on what I did, I only plugged after I finished making it. The hype increased gradually by itself, after aseries of misclicks wave of curious people found it. It got better after the game got reviewed and all. Basically, I did close to nothing; promotion-wise. No "Pls play my game! Iz de best in da wurld!". More on, "Help me out guys, it's my first game..."
As I have said, I'm still inexperienced. I haven't run into the problems you guys have faced yet.
Have a nice day ;D
The time I spend between "Making" and "Showing" is not exactly set in stone. I just do what I can do at that moment. Example: if I'm connected to the net, I'll go ahead and spend time on the net. If I'm not, then I work on my game.
But really, I only have one finished game. Based on what I did, I only plugged after I finished making it. The hype increased gradually by itself, after a
As I have said, I'm still inexperienced. I haven't run into the problems you guys have faced yet.
Have a nice day ;D
95% Showing, 5% Making.
I roll like that.
Then I don't get things done.
But like you said, I tend to be OK with that.
That said, my projects all eventually will finish. One day.
I roll like that.
Then I don't get things done.
But like you said, I tend to be OK with that.
That said, my projects all eventually will finish. One day.
I, with my current project, am going with "stealth release" thing. I'll do "some" marketing before (just as I gave it to Fidchell to stream, but it won't be really much and bulk of promotion I'll do after I'll release it.
This promotion would consist of writing to sites that review free indie games, like IndieStatik, RPS (to some extent), etc. I'm not going to stick ONLY to RM corner of the Internet, but get a word out on as many game sites as possible.
Anyway, I don't do demos anymore since I've found out that after I released demo I am losing interest in a project. Anyone remembers The Missile? That was one of many victims.
This promotion would consist of writing to sites that review free indie games, like IndieStatik, RPS (to some extent), etc. I'm not going to stick ONLY to RM corner of the Internet, but get a word out on as many game sites as possible.
Anyway, I don't do demos anymore since I've found out that after I released demo I am losing interest in a project. Anyone remembers The Missile? That was one of many victims.
AubreyTheBard
1801
Interesting for me that you should post this topic now. I've been hovering around the site for around a month now, getting familiar with what's on offer, and I'm just now starting to force myself to get into the community aspect of it. The question of how to go about introducing my game project to the world at large (or at least, people who have an interest in such things but don't know me personally) is a pretty fuzzy unknown to me.
As for what I've been doing up until now, my only promotion has been to provide tiny updates about development as part of my monthly post in my personal LiveJournal (which I'm pretty sure is only read by one other person anymore), and occasionally discussing design issues with members of a certain online role-playing community on which my game is based and who are my primary audience. So, probably 99% development and 1% promotion.
As I haven't been doing much promotion, splitting focus between that and development hasn't been an issue for me, although it might become one as I get something worth showing. I have more trouble just finding time to do development period, although I shouldn't complain as my job actually involves a fair bit of lull time and has me working 36 hours per week rather than 40 yet still gives full-time benefits.
Similarly, I haven't had to grapple much with whether to build new content or show off what I've been making lately.
The time when I'm thinking of making a game page is, well, now (emphasis on "thinking of"). In terms of playable content, my project is probably less than 1% complete, but I've wound up doing crazy amounts of scripting to implement a custom battle system and a random dungeon generator (for context, this is an RPG Maker 2003 project). So in terms of overall work that needs to go into the game, it's...I hope somewhere around 50% done. c.c
Finally, I don't have much to recommend in terms of best practices for publicizing games. All the projects I've done in the past were primarily done for fun and learning and were released, if at all, in small communities that I knew would be interested. I'll be interested to see what recommendations others provide, though.
As for what I've been doing up until now, my only promotion has been to provide tiny updates about development as part of my monthly post in my personal LiveJournal (which I'm pretty sure is only read by one other person anymore), and occasionally discussing design issues with members of a certain online role-playing community on which my game is based and who are my primary audience. So, probably 99% development and 1% promotion.
As I haven't been doing much promotion, splitting focus between that and development hasn't been an issue for me, although it might become one as I get something worth showing. I have more trouble just finding time to do development period, although I shouldn't complain as my job actually involves a fair bit of lull time and has me working 36 hours per week rather than 40 yet still gives full-time benefits.
Similarly, I haven't had to grapple much with whether to build new content or show off what I've been making lately.
The time when I'm thinking of making a game page is, well, now (emphasis on "thinking of"). In terms of playable content, my project is probably less than 1% complete, but I've wound up doing crazy amounts of scripting to implement a custom battle system and a random dungeon generator (for context, this is an RPG Maker 2003 project). So in terms of overall work that needs to go into the game, it's...I hope somewhere around 50% done. c.c
Finally, I don't have much to recommend in terms of best practices for publicizing games. All the projects I've done in the past were primarily done for fun and learning and were released, if at all, in small communities that I knew would be interested. I'll be interested to see what recommendations others provide, though.
Blind
2262
author=Max McGee
(However, as a footnote, a lot of vaporware peddlers of yore were OBVIOUSLY more interested in being publicly observed "game developers" then in the actual development of actual games, and there is nothing INNATELY wrong with that if that's what you enjoy. For them, the thrill wasn't in actually finishing a project (and maybe moving on to the next) but in having a community of enthusiasts built around their work in progress, eagerly awaiting each gorgeous screenshot. I once accused BlindMind of being a producer of not games, but screenshots, to supply the demand of a kind of "screenshot industry" in the community, and he is far from the only developer I've encountered in my history that this is basically true of.)
....
How do you split up your time between actively developing your game (everything done in the RPG Maker Editor, basically, plus whatever other programs you're working with) and actively promoting your game (managing your game page, responding to comments, posting screenshots, blogging, cross-posting to other communities, interacting with fans, soliciting or seeking reviews and let's-plays, etcetera)?
Do you ever struggle with needing to split your limited "RPG Maker Time" and your attention between these two things?
When you only seem to have time for one or the other (actually building new content, or showing off the new content you've built in some form), which do you usually wind up doing?
Haha it's interesting, because I essentially spend 0.01% of my energy these days investing in any sort of hype-train antics or what-have-you, although I suppose that's a direct result of my shortcomings in the past.
But I'd maintain to this day that for a young kid fresh in the scene, the community back then was very much centered around that sort of attention-seeking novelty of posting a new screenshot, etc etc. The atmosphere in the scene during 2004-08 honestly encouraged it. Although I'm probably the most (in)famous example, I think I was far from the only guilty one, as you mentioned.
When I returned to the RPGMaker scene many years later and now post-grad, I was no longer filled with the need for validation from my fellow developers, but rather, the freedom to revisit why I enjoyed the hobby in the first place (developing!). I think the structure of RMN was definitely helpful in that sense, as it's much less forum-centered and more conducive to development and putting out tangible content.
Similarly, when I inevitably grow tired or lose interest in development, rather than seeking external motivation, I allow myself the freedom to take a prolonged break from what I'm doing. For a lot of us, I think this is ESSENTIAL. Most of us are adults with jobs, college coursework, social lives, etc. Therefore, any prolonged period of time spent with your game production (especially freeware projects) can lead to intense burnout.
It's only when I'm very "proud" of a certain scene or segment of visual interest that I'll toss up the occasional screenshot or video onto the site. As someone who's been on both sides of the coin, I think this is honestly the best way to work and cope with the immense burden of developing a sizable RPG.
Blindmind, just to be clear, I didn't mean to poop on ya.
"But I'd maintain to this day that for a young kid fresh in the scene, the community back then was very much centered around that sort of attention-seeking novelty of posting a new screenshot, etc etc. The atmosphere in the scene during 2004-08 honestly encouraged it. Although I'm probably the most (in)famous example, I think I was far from the only guilty one, as you mentioned."
Absolutely, I totally agree with you and there WERE a lot of others. You weren't the worst; just the one I happened to remember (because I was somewhat taken with your game at the time!). And while I was definitely not one of the top offenders, I myself was very much crucified for this at the time.
Anyway...I definitely know we've all gotten a lot older and mature since those days. : )
Yeah. For those few of us lucky (you may add inverted commas to this word at your discretion) enough to be doing game dev (in one sense or another, electronic or not) as a sole and full time occupation, though, the dynamic of motivation and burnout cycles is quite a bit different.
Now I'm curious. How much of your energons do you spend on RPG Mak as a whole?
Everything else in a separate post I was just really surprised to see BlindMind post!
"But I'd maintain to this day that for a young kid fresh in the scene, the community back then was very much centered around that sort of attention-seeking novelty of posting a new screenshot, etc etc. The atmosphere in the scene during 2004-08 honestly encouraged it. Although I'm probably the most (in)famous example, I think I was far from the only guilty one, as you mentioned."
Absolutely, I totally agree with you and there WERE a lot of others. You weren't the worst; just the one I happened to remember (because I was somewhat taken with your game at the time!). And while I was definitely not one of the top offenders, I myself was very much crucified for this at the time.
Anyway...I definitely know we've all gotten a lot older and mature since those days. : )
Similarly, when I inevitably grow tired or lose interest in development, rather than seeking external motivation, I allow myself the freedom to take a prolonged break from what I'm doing. For a lot of us, I think this is ESSENTIAL. Most of us are adults with jobs, college coursework, social lives, etc. Therefore, any prolonged period of time spent with your game production (especially freeware projects) can lead to intense burnout.
Yeah. For those few of us lucky (you may add inverted commas to this word at your discretion) enough to be doing game dev (in one sense or another, electronic or not) as a sole and full time occupation, though, the dynamic of motivation and burnout cycles is quite a bit different.
Haha it's interesting, because I essentially spend 0.01% of my energy these days investing in any sort of hype-train antics or what-have-you, although I suppose that's a direct result of my shortcomings in the past.
Now I'm curious. How much of your energons do you spend on RPG Mak as a whole?
Everything else in a separate post I was just really surprised to see BlindMind post!
...That's not the whole story though. A ton of my energy goes into developing my MUD instead of my RPG Maker games. My typical excuse is that there are no graphics to work on, and I hate working on graphics. But a big part of the actual reason is that there's no "release", just patches and updates for an ongoing online multiplayer game. I can see the players, immediately trying out what I just made, and so my motivation never falters. It doesn't matter that my RPG Maker game has far more subscribers than my MUD has active players (seriously there are only nine people online right now and three of them have been AFK for half an hour). They are visible, I can talk to them and watch them play, and so my puny illogical human brain cares way, way more. My brain would rather have six physical people than six billion tally marks by my list of subscribers.
This is exactly why I've spent so much more time working on my tabletop roleplaying games (and the company I own that publishes them) than I have working on RPGMaker for the past three years, and almost exactly how I'd have put it, too. Instant feedback and instant audience engagement is MUCH more gratifying. Even if the tabletop RPG industry/audience is a tiny, infinitesimal fraction of the video game audience/industry.
When I do work on my RPG Maker game, every time, it's because someone talked to me about it. It turns out that, while I certainly would feel proud if lots of people played my game, what I really want is to hear about or watch them enjoying it. And for this goal, I don't necessarily need great marketing. It's a matter of who my game reaches and how they can reach back to me, not how many people it reaches.
I'll say again, promotion is a better word than marketing. But also...I would probably argue that "who your game reaches and how they can reach back to you" is just as much a part of promotion (or "marketing") as how many people your game reaches. At least, I say this in light of my experience in my "other" game making business.
I'd say I'm 50/50 for gam mak and informing my subbers about blog updates and the like. As for marketing, no. I find it a mite shameless in the 'plugging' sense. All fine and well if you're taking the commercial route, but if your RM game spreads because it is a good game and not because of endless marketing campaigns ( seriously, those enormous signatures for games I see on some forums screams 'play my game please! only to check it out and it's far from good', then you have nothing to worry about. =)
I don't think anyone would disagree that game development is not a perfect meritocracy; no one can tell by mystical osmosis if a certain game is good or not. Whether a game strikes you or me as good depends on the way it is presented just as much as anything else. And keep in mind that engaging your core audience (i.e. "informing subbers about blog updates and the like") is a very important part of marketing (and yet again, since most of us I think still aren't commercial devs, promotion is a way better word).
To admins, any: Would it be alright if I were to post up this forum post as an article? Or is it more appropriate here? I'm not sure how much articles are supposed to be based on generating/fomenting discussion versus just sharing information.
The time I spend between "Making" and "Showing" is not exactly set in stone. I just do what I can do at that moment. Example: if I'm connected to the net, I'll go ahead and spend time on the net. If I'm not, then I work on my game.
Actually, limiting your internet access (artificially or otherwise) is a freaking GREAT way to ensure you focus on development more than promotion, for anyone who is struggling with that. (The only drawback is that often I need to look up something about a script I'm using or look for some graphics and then oops I've plugged my internet back in and I'm on RMN again.)
That said, my projects all eventually will finish. One day.
Suuuuuurrrreee they will. : P XD
This promotion would consist of writing to sites that review free indie games, like IndieStatik, RPS (to some extent), etc. I'm not going to stick ONLY to RM corner of the Internet, but get a word out on as many game sites as possible.
Great idea, Rave. Share some of that "etcetera" with us all, won't you?
Blind
2262
Now I'm curious. How much of your energons do you spend on RPG Mak as a whole?
Hmm. Quite a bit more than I ever imagined I would be, considering I'm pushing 25 now. ;p
The less coy answer is that it varies from week to week, but I try to spend to at least an hour or so per day on development. With that being said, I participate in the "community" a lot less than I used to lol. I'm not one to write spontaneous reviews for fledgling projects, give or take a few of my friends on here.
Absolutely, I totally agree with you and there WERE a lot of others. You weren't the worst; just the one I happened to remember (because I was somewhat taken with your game at the time!). And while I was definitely not one of the top offenders, I myself was very much crucified for this at the time.
Anyway...I definitely know we've all gotten a lot older and mature since those days. : )
Yeah, it was almost a hypocritical dynamic because the very community that encouraged the most outrageous ego-inflating game promotion was also the first to swoop in and lambaste it. But we won't get into that lmao.
But for a positive spin on the whole thing; the amount of actual promotion I have to do these days is pretty minimal, considering I have somewhat of a "built in" fan-base, if you will. I'm sure these are mostly older members who have lingered around from the Rm2k3 days and were familiar with my work from all those years ago. I'd say most of the community has moved on to VXAce, etc...
The bottom line is that I returned to the hobby to appease no one here but myself. Marketing definitely has its role in Game Development, but not at the expense of feeling fulfilled creatively.
I'd say ( although a game should be basically for oneself) that if you want input or new ideas or even a sounding board to check your mistakes and keep you going, then marketing after creating a conceptual prototype is useful.
Then again, I'm new and that is all I have done, but I have gained lots of great info .
Or consider marketing in proportion to the material you have available.
then again, if you want constant feedback you should constantly be marketing.g in new ways to new people to get those new perspectives.
That's just my ramblings for the day,
I've been sensualpopcorn and you've been great. I look forward to people telling me I'm wrong.
Then again, I'm new and that is all I have done, but I have gained lots of great info .
Or consider marketing in proportion to the material you have available.
then again, if you want constant feedback you should constantly be marketing.g in new ways to new people to get those new perspectives.
That's just my ramblings for the day,
I've been sensualpopcorn and you've been great. I look forward to people telling me I'm wrong.
Thinking of time spend on activities that are solely for promotion, I probably only do 1% or 0.5% or such! I can't be bothered to do things like splash art or character portraits just for promo purposes. I'd only put up such a thing if it is appearing in the game itself and would also just happen to stand alone as a promo piece.
For a personal amateur project I would never bother to create a project page until I have at least a demo ready. I'm always worried about looking like a fool for promoting stuff that never gets done. It's a lot easier to live with having abandoned crap if no one ever knows about it.
For a personal amateur project I would never bother to create a project page until I have at least a demo ready. I'm always worried about looking like a fool for promoting stuff that never gets done. It's a lot easier to live with having abandoned crap if no one ever knows about it.
SnowOwl
5188
I tend to do the most promotion during the week I first release a demo. I then release a screenshot or write a blog every now and then just to keep people from thinking I abandoned the project and keep interest somewhat consistent.
Then, after I finish my project and release the game, I do pretty much the same amount of promotion I did when I first released a demo again.
Now, I say promotion, but what I do is just make game pages on a couple of game sites, make some neat looking banners, icons and that kind of stuff (alot of pages require these) and maybe make a news post/blog on the game page.
Generally just try to make the gamepage look good, because alot of people decide if they will play a game from these and screenshots (which I try to pick good ones).
I actually finished a game just a few days ago, and this time I also asked a couple of youtubers that did playthroughs of my former games (and seemed to like them) to play this one too. That's the most amount of promotion I ever did.
Then, after I finish my project and release the game, I do pretty much the same amount of promotion I did when I first released a demo again.
Now, I say promotion, but what I do is just make game pages on a couple of game sites, make some neat looking banners, icons and that kind of stuff (alot of pages require these) and maybe make a news post/blog on the game page.
Generally just try to make the gamepage look good, because alot of people decide if they will play a game from these and screenshots (which I try to pick good ones).
I actually finished a game just a few days ago, and this time I also asked a couple of youtubers that did playthroughs of my former games (and seemed to like them) to play this one too. That's the most amount of promotion I ever did.
eplipswich
2728
For me, I usually save the promotion for the beginning of production and after production or near the end of production. That would really be the best times to go all out in promotion. Doing too much promotion in the midst of production would only hinder production in some way for me.
author=Gibmaker
Thinking of time spend on activities that are solely for promotion, I probably only do 1% or 0.5% or such! I can't be bothered to do things like splash art or character portraits just for promo purposes. I'd only put up such a thing if it is appearing in the game itself and would also just happen to stand alone as a promo piece.
For a personal amateur project I would never bother to create a project page until I have at least a demo ready. I'm always worried about looking like a fool for promoting stuff that never gets done. It's a lot easier to live with having abandoned crap if no one ever knows about it.
Gibby, you're a rare case of a developer whose games thankfully find the audience they deserve on their own merits. Trust me that this is more the exception than the rule.
I tend to do the most promotion during the week I first release a demo. I then release a screenshot or write a blog every now and then just to keep people from thinking I abandoned the project and keep interest somewhat consistent.
Then, after I finish my project and release the game, I do pretty much the same amount of promotion I did when I first released a demo again.
Now, I say promotion, but what I do is just make game pages on a couple of game sites, make some neat looking banners, icons and that kind of stuff (alot of pages require these) and maybe make a news post/blog on the game page.
Generally just try to make the gamepage look good, because alot of people decide if they will play a game from these and screenshots (which I try to pick good ones).
I actually finished a game just a few days ago, and this time I also asked a couple of youtubers that did playthroughs of my former games (and seemed to like them) to play this one too. That's the most amount of promotion I ever did.
Well first off, SnowOwl, if you're actually finishing complete GAMES, *plural*, you're lightyears ahead of 90% of amateur devs. Secondly, I'm wondering about this... if the reaction to one of your demos was EXTREMELY NEGATIVE (i.e. toxic, caustic, etcetera), do you think you'd still be able to finish the game, or do you think your motivation would be sapped too much?
I mean the result we all hope for is that the demo gets some reasonably positive attention and create some buzz with a demo, not to mention having fixable flaws pointed out, but sometimes that's not a case and a demo is either ignored or viciously trashed.
I mean, I'm speaking from my own experience, where I can have (what I consider to be) an impressive, hour or two long demo done by the time I'm no more than 10-20% done with the game as a whole. If the reception of that demo tells me no one is going to want to play the game...it's very hard to slog through the remaining 80-90% of the dev cycle when it feels like it's for nothing. Anyone else feel the same way?
Hasvers
1298
I think you're pointing out an important problem of promotion.
As authors, we work on a game foremost because we love it and want to see it complete, if only for our own sake, so we should never do the sort of promotion that endangers its completion.
What this entails really depends on the personality of the author, but those who can afford to do a lot of promotion should neither be easily tempted into spending all their time on it, nor very sensitive to negative reactions (whether justified or toxic). Some people are able to shrug off any amount of negativity, like Peter Molyneux who continues to work on his grandiose plans no matter how much he is the laughingstock of the world; there's something admirable in that, but I certainly couldn't do the same.
So if a negative review can have this impact of you (and you're clearly not alone in that), that's simply a pragmatic detail to work around. There is no way to ask feedback and have the guarantee that it will be positive.
One solution is learning to dispense with feedback entirely. Once your game is complete, there will be positive and negative reviews (your target audience can never extend to the whole universe) but at least you will have done justice to your ideas and your talent.
The only other possibility is to learn to ignore what you cannot deal with. If you see a review with a bad score, just don't read it, in case its potential toxicity could discourage you. (In my experience, people often sound more harmful than they are trying to be, but it's a moot point if you realize that only once the harm is done.)
In any case, I recommend never to do the kind of promotion attempted by this author posting 58 comments with quotes of his own novel to demonstrate that the mildly unconvinced reviewer was wrong about him not being Keats. He is now quite famous and strictly no one wants to buy his book (except perhaps to laugh at it).
As authors, we work on a game foremost because we love it and want to see it complete, if only for our own sake, so we should never do the sort of promotion that endangers its completion.
What this entails really depends on the personality of the author, but those who can afford to do a lot of promotion should neither be easily tempted into spending all their time on it, nor very sensitive to negative reactions (whether justified or toxic). Some people are able to shrug off any amount of negativity, like Peter Molyneux who continues to work on his grandiose plans no matter how much he is the laughingstock of the world; there's something admirable in that, but I certainly couldn't do the same.
So if a negative review can have this impact of you (and you're clearly not alone in that), that's simply a pragmatic detail to work around. There is no way to ask feedback and have the guarantee that it will be positive.
One solution is learning to dispense with feedback entirely. Once your game is complete, there will be positive and negative reviews (your target audience can never extend to the whole universe) but at least you will have done justice to your ideas and your talent.
The only other possibility is to learn to ignore what you cannot deal with. If you see a review with a bad score, just don't read it, in case its potential toxicity could discourage you. (In my experience, people often sound more harmful than they are trying to be, but it's a moot point if you realize that only once the harm is done.)
In any case, I recommend never to do the kind of promotion attempted by this author posting 58 comments with quotes of his own novel to demonstrate that the mildly unconvinced reviewer was wrong about him not being Keats. He is now quite famous and strictly no one wants to buy his book (except perhaps to laugh at it).
SnowOwl
5188
author=Max McGee
... I'm wondering about this... if the reaction to one of your demos was EXTREMELY NEGATIVE (i.e. toxic, caustic, etcetera), do you think you'd still be able to finish the game, or do you think your motivation would be sapped too much?
I mean the result we all hope for is that the demo gets some reasonably positive attention and create some buzz with a demo, not to mention having fixable flaws pointed out, but sometimes that's not a case and a demo is either ignored or viciously trashed.
I mean, I'm speaking from my own experience, where I can have (what I consider to be) an impressive, hour or two long demo done by the time I'm no more than 10-20% done with the game as a whole. If the reception of that demo tells me no one is going to want to play the game...it's very hard to slog through the remaining 80-90% of the dev cycle when it feels like it's for nothing. Anyone else feel the same way?
I have actually got several of those kinds of reviews. One guy even puts up negative reviews on several of my games. Luckily I have the oversight to see that alot of the points made in a couple of my negative reviews are just nitpicking because the player doesn't like the genre or because there was some small thing that upset the player. I don't mean that they have no valid points at all, but some people seem to review games only to lower their scores and find faults with them.
