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NeverSilent
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CloseThat makes sense. I think I get your perspective now. I don't necessarily entirely agree with it, but I think I at least understand it.
But I'm actually glad we're having this discussion, and not just right before the end of the month, either. Let's see if and how the current situation and all this input from different people is going to affect the site's policy on Features.
But I'm actually glad we're having this discussion, and not just right before the end of the month, either. Let's see if and how the current situation and all this input from different people is going to affect the site's policy on Features.
Dyhalto
7536
author=Pizza
For what? For supporting a developer who made a game worthy of community recognition and wants to sell their game to support themselves and their future game making ambitions.
See, that's exactly the problem. When did it become RMN's role to be an umbilical cord for aspiring gamedevs, and why do you want to transform it into such? Reives and harmonic were cited earlier, but the two of them will be the first to declare that they never waited around or lobbied for RMN to adapt to their commercial desires. They accepted RMN as a hobby-centric site and instead directed their attention outwards into a much wider world. Archeia_Nessiah did the same, which is why we don't see much of her these days.
So with that said, what fanciful service does RMN provide to commercial gamedevs by giving them the Featured Game slot?
30 days of free advertising. That's it. That's all.
Meanwhile, what does that do to the hobby community? It gives them the realization that they have to compete with money now. No matter how one spins their words or tries to argue for "worthy of community recognition" or other such jingoism, the reality is that demos for games purchasable on Steam will get center stage from time to time, and that leaves a bigger impression on a greater number of people than anything you, me, or anybody else in this thread will ever discuss.
Dyhalto
See, that's exactly the problem. When did it become RMN's role to be an umbilical cord for aspiring gamedevs, and why do you want to transform it into such?
In case you weren't aware, this is a development centric community. Everybody here that makes games is an "aspiring gamedev" no matter what degree of success they hope to reach. What other fucking job does the site have besides supporting those goals and providing grounds for discussion with other developers?
What else should it be? Somewhere for people to come and piss their ideas and work away into an abyss?
Dyhalto
So with that said, what fanciful service does RMN provide to commercial gamedevs by giving them the Featured Game slot?
30 days of free advertising. That's it. That's all.
30 days of free advertising for your RM game on the front page of a popular RM community seems like a pretty big deal to me. I'd love to get 30 days of huge advertising space on this site. Besides, it's not like Badluck, EnHouse Studios, harmonic or any indie dev at all is rolling in money as soon as they sell their game. Support and advertising make a difference.
Dyhalto
Meanwhile, what does that do to the hobby community? It gives them the realization that they have to compete with money now. No matter how one spins their words or tries to argue for "worthy of community recognition" or other such jingoism, the reality is that demos for games purchasable on Steam will get center stage from time to time, and that leaves a bigger impression on a greater number of people than anything you, me, or anybody else in this thread will ever discuss.
This is a shitty argument considering the hobby community already competes with money, in the form of AAA games and indie games outside of our own sphere.
Yeah, sure, harmonic, Nessiah and whoever else promoted their stuff elsewhere like smart developers would. I'd gather a lot of the reason behind it was that RMN doesn't provide support for it, because people are scared of all these imaginary bad things that will "obsolete the site" or "ruin the hobby scene" or whatever.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
author=Dyhaltoauthor=PizzaSee, that's exactly the problem. When did it become RMN's role to be an umbilical cord for aspiring gamedevs, and why do you want to transform it into such?
For what? For supporting a developer who made a game worthy of community recognition and wants to sell their game to support themselves and their future game making ambitions.
I think Pizza just explained why in that very quote. To support themselves and future game making ambitions.
Meanwhile, what does that do to the hobby community? It gives them the realization that they have to compete with money now.
Unless commercial devs start paying people behind the scenes to recommend their games, I don't see how this would happen. We, the community, decide what should get featured. Not money. There are plenty of games with money behind them that aren't good and don't deserve to be featured. So they won't. The Featured Game spot goes to the games that are good enough to deserve it, recommended by those who played it.
By the way, is there any reason RMN's store doesn't sell games? If we sell resources and engines, why not games?
Dyhalto
7536
author=Pizza
This is a shitty argument considering the hobby community already competes with money, in the form of AAA games and indie games outside of our own sphere.
The freeware scene having it's own sphere is what I'm talking about. Just because there IS a commercial indie scene doesn't mean RMN is obliged to join it. And your nonsense regarding "development centric community" et al is exactly the meaningless jingoism I was talking about. Take it elsewhere.
By the way, cut it out with the swearing and passive aggressiveness. What are you, twelve? You're better than that, Pizza man.
author=Red_Nova
I think Pizza just explained why in that very quote. To support themselves and future game making ambitions.
He didn't explain a thing. "To support themselves and future game making ambitions" is as vague as "To combat global warming". It's just hollow, subjectivist rhetoric and all it does is obfuscate the discussion of real problems.
lol my "nonsense" about RMN being a game development community and "vagueness" about supporting yourself financially
Fuck off, man. Don't start talking down to me about swearing, jingoism, and "subjectivist rhetoric" if you can't even be bothered to read my goddamn posts.
Fuck off, man. Don't start talking down to me about swearing, jingoism, and "subjectivist rhetoric" if you can't even be bothered to read my goddamn posts.
Well, this is really unnecessary. We were having a good, constructive discussion so far, and neither aggression nor patronising attitudes are helpful in any way. If either of you really care about what's best for the community, you should know better than to act like this.
I do want to draw extra attention to one point Red_Nova makes, because it's a perspective I hadn't consciously considered yet, but I believe actually makes a lot of sense:
I still think that in order to get featured on RMN, a game should actually be directly available on RMN (which Ara Fell isn't). But this is an important point to consider. We don't feature games because RMN gets any direct benefit out of it, but because we want to encourage others to try out those gems that we enjoyed and would like others to enjoy as well. Is there really a good reason to risk potentially alienating some devs and players alike by so severely restricting the choice of games we consider fit for the spotlight? At least, I'm starting to second-guess my own judgement a little here.
I do want to draw extra attention to one point Red_Nova makes, because it's a perspective I hadn't consciously considered yet, but I believe actually makes a lot of sense:
author=Red_Nova
We,the community, decide what should get featured. Not money. There are plenty of games with money behind them that aren't good and don't deserve to be featured. So they won't. The Featured Game spot goes to the games that are good enough to deserve it, recommended by those who played it.
I still think that in order to get featured on RMN, a game should actually be directly available on RMN (which Ara Fell isn't). But this is an important point to consider. We don't feature games because RMN gets any direct benefit out of it, but because we want to encourage others to try out those gems that we enjoyed and would like others to enjoy as well. Is there really a good reason to risk potentially alienating some devs and players alike by so severely restricting the choice of games we consider fit for the spotlight? At least, I'm starting to second-guess my own judgement a little here.
Yeah, Red Nova brought up a good point. As long as what gets featured is what people want and agree to be featured, then commercial shouldn't be too much of a problem. In fact, featuring Ara Fell is a tremendous sign of support to our fellow devs who do want to make commercial games. I don't think we should discourage them from making commercial games, but rather encourage them to achieve their dreams.
author=CashmereCat
In fact, featuring Ara Fell is a tremendous sign of support to our fellow devs who do want to make commercial games. I don't think we should discourage them from making commercial games, but rather encourage them to achieve their dreams.
See, this is the part that I feel is problematic. As far as I'm concerned, no, RMN as a site should not encourage people to make more commercial games. Neither should we discourage doing so. I would suggest that, at least officially, RMN should stay absolutely neutral on this question.
The recent popularity of commercial indie game development has visibly affected the RM scene, but it brings as many problems and challenges with it as it brings chances and advantages - as evidenced by the controversy in this thread alone. Therefore, I think that showing open hostility towards these new tendencies would send the wrong signal just as much as explicitly trying to show "signs of support" to commercial RM development would.
Again, we're not Steam. It is not and should not be our task to encourage people to start making money off of their RPG Maker games. It is our task to offer support to people who enjoy making games, and encourage the creation of good games - absolutely regardless of whether they are commercial or not. If we start playing favourites because games are being sold for money or aiming at a wider audience, that's completely missing the point.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
author=NeverSilent
I still think that in order to get featured on RMN, a game should actually be directly available on RMN (which Ara Fell isn't). But this is an important point to consider. We don't feature games because RMN gets any direct benefit out of it, but because we want to encourage others to try out those gems that we enjoyed and would like others to enjoy as well. Is there really a good reason to risk potentially alienating some devs and players alike by so severely restricting the choice of games we consider fit for the spotlight? At least, I'm starting to second-guess my own judgement a little here.
I'm not sure about the first sentence, which contradicts the rest of the paragraph due to the lack of game sales on the site (unless someone is selling their full game here?). Other than that, this is pretty much what I'm getting at.
author=NeverSilent
I would suggest that, at least officially, RMN should stay absolutely neutral on this question.
So then featuring commercial games is okay? Because refusing to do so is taking a very clear stance on the issue.
author=NeverSilent
If we start playing favourites because games are being sold for money or aiming at a wider audience, that's completely missing the point.
When did including commercial games as an option for the community to vote on become playing favorites?
... When did anyone even remotely suggest playing favorites to commercial games?
Quite frankly, if a game is great it should get the spot. We're not taking bribes for putting the spot up - not every tom, dick and harry game is going to be put up because it's commercial. We choose what is put up one the front page and it has to be above a certain threshold of quality shown.
Showing favouritism for/against games because they're commercial/free is silly. I'm not saying to plaster the front page with pay-for games, but if it does come up that there's a game that could be showcased and it's commercial I don't see the issue of doing so. There's been more than a few times I've wanted to showcase a neat looking game on gamespot but couldn't because it was a commercial game, even though there weren't any other games to showcase. I've had to go digging for something else to showcase when there was something cool and interesting to show off already... It just happened to be commercial.
So personally I am 100% fine with a commercial game being featured as long as there's something for people to download of it on the game page. Ara Fell does have a demo on the page that can be downloaded by players.
Besides, with the sheer amount of games on the site that are free, there'd be maybe one or two commercial games a year that would show up on there. It's not like there'll be this sudden influx of commercial games taking over the front page, stealing all the spotlight from free games.
Showing favouritism for/against games because they're commercial/free is silly. I'm not saying to plaster the front page with pay-for games, but if it does come up that there's a game that could be showcased and it's commercial I don't see the issue of doing so. There's been more than a few times I've wanted to showcase a neat looking game on gamespot but couldn't because it was a commercial game, even though there weren't any other games to showcase. I've had to go digging for something else to showcase when there was something cool and interesting to show off already... It just happened to be commercial.
So personally I am 100% fine with a commercial game being featured as long as there's something for people to download of it on the game page. Ara Fell does have a demo on the page that can be downloaded by players.
Besides, with the sheer amount of games on the site that are free, there'd be maybe one or two commercial games a year that would show up on there. It's not like there'll be this sudden influx of commercial games taking over the front page, stealing all the spotlight from free games.
Housekeeping
3571
I think RMN does get something from featuring commercial games. It's hard to see this from the bubble of the community, but there are actually people--quite a few--who don't know that rpg maker is a thing. If a commercial rpg maker game does well and the community acknowledges partial ownership of that--which it deserves since a lot of commercial devs honed their chops here--then that's going to help RMN expand its user base and, more importantly, get more people interested in game dev. RMN gets noticed more by tying its name to successful commercial games (or, really, just good games in general). On the other side, Pizza's already covered the virtues of advertising for a struggling commercial dev.
It's mutually beneficial, and I really don't see a downside. This is coming from someone who basically entered the community to work towards commercial development, so me not being part of the old brass is going to hurt my argument, but there you go.
It's mutually beneficial, and I really don't see a downside. This is coming from someone who basically entered the community to work towards commercial development, so me not being part of the old brass is going to hurt my argument, but there you go.
Toaster_Team
966
The freeware scene having it's own sphere is what I'm talking about. Just because there IS a commercial indie scene doesn't mean RMN is obliged to join it. And your nonsense regarding "development centric community" et al is exactly the meaningless jingoism I was talking about. Take it elsewhere.
Website management needs to be coherent. Commercial games used to be ostracized from RMN a while back. Then the decision was made on the managerial level to include them. There's no going back now. I think that's something you'll need to come to terms with.
It was decided that commercial games were allowed on RMN. There's no reason to discriminate anymore about commercial games because of that by stating that they can't be in the spotlight or benefit from other perks other games on the website benefit from. You can oppose to commercial games being on the website, but your opposition should be on the managerial level, not with the games themselves.
To sum it up, you either accept something and then treat it like everything else or you don't. There's no middle ground here where you'll accept some games but disadvantage them because they have a commercial status.
I personally have a commercial game I'm working on. If it weren't allowed on RMN, I would host it somewhere else and I wouldn't try to impose it here. Since it *is* allowed here though, I expect my game to have the same "rights" as the other games here.
author=Red_Novaauthor=NeverSilentI'm not sure about the first sentence, which contradicts the rest of the paragraph due to the lack of game sales on the site (unless someone is selling their full game here?).
I still think that in order to get featured on RMN, a game should actually be directly available on RMN (which Ara Fell isn't).
This was my fault, as until Liberty pointed it out, I wasn't aware that Ara Fell does in fact have a playable demo available on RMN. For some reason, I was convinced this wasn't the case. Sorry about not getting my facts straight before trying to make an argument.
author=Red_Novaauthor=NeverSilentSo then featuring commercial games is okay? Because refusing to do so is taking a very clear stance on the issue.
I would suggest that, at least officially, RMN should stay absolutely neutral on this question.
Yes. Personally, I still don't like the idea of featuring a commercial game, but you've all made very compelling arguments that made me realise my personal preferences and ideals would not necessarily make a good official site policy. I do not represent RMN on my own, and I'm not and don't want to be some kind of all-powerful ruler who decides what's best for the site (that's kentona's job ;P ).
But you are correct, the community should be the judge as to which games deserve to be featured and which don't. I do hope that doesn't mean that in the future, commercial games are going to take over the Featured Game spot constantly, but as far as I can see, the danger of that happening isn't too great, at least at the moment.
author=Red_Novaauthor=NeverSilentWhen did including commercial games as an option for the community to vote on become playing favorites?
If we start playing favourites because games are being sold for money or aiming at a wider audience, that's completely missing the point.
... When did anyone even remotely suggest playing favorites to commercial games?
This was in response to Cashmere's post, which to me seemed to imply RMN is somehow obliged to show a "sign of support" specifically to commercial game devs by featuring a commercial game specifically for that purpose. To be fair, I may have completely overinterpreted that post.
So yes, on the level of site policy, I'm giving up my opposition towards featuring commercial games, as long as they have some playable, free content (like a demo) available here, and as long as we can basically guarantee this practice is not going to push non-commercial games out of the spotlight and into the dark. I do believe that RMN's focus should remain on supporting the free hobby gamemaking scene, but not necessarily only and exclusively so. Everything else I could add has already been expressed better by the people above me.
SnowOwl
5188
author=Sated
Honestly, I'm against commercial games being on the site period.
Seconded. There's enough sites to get commercial games if you want to. I like the hobbyist focus of the site.
Toaster_Team
966
I prefer the taste of apples to oranges. Based on this, apples should be on sales while oranges shouldn't because that's what I like.
author=SnowOwlauthor=SatedSeconded. There's enough sites to get commercial games if you want to. I like the hobbyist focus of the site.
Honestly, I'm against commercial games being on the site period.
The hobbyist focus of the site isn't going anywhere - the majority of games on the site are free to play and putting up a couple of featured games that are commercial isn't going to change that. Ever.
Fact of he matter is, we can't compare with other places like Steam and the like and we wouldn't want to, so that's a complete non-issue, however we are a community and people within the community will want to share their commercial endeavours with the fellows who were part of their growing into commercial developers and I see 0 reason why they shouldn't be allowed to do so. We are about games, yes, and a primarily hobbyist community, yes, but that doesn't mean we exclude our own when they decide to move upwards.
We instead include them as we always have, because we are a community and a community is built with people who interact. Cutting people out just because they now have a game or two that aren't completely free is asinine and stupid, and ignoring great games just because they have a price tag added to them is the same.
There won't be an overrunning of the front page with commercial entities for various reasons:
- we are primarily a hobbyist site and that is our focus... but it's not our ONLY focus
- games that get featured need to be of a high quality and very few completed commercial games in the community reach that standard (seriously of the games on the site that are commercial and completed I can name maybe 2 who would sit well as a featured game. One of them is Ara Fell. Remnants of Isolation has already been Featured. There's a few upcoming ones that I'm looking forward to featuring if they get completed and reach the quality necessary, though.)
- there just aren't that many commercial games in comparison to non-commercial ones. The sheer overload of non-commercial games means that they heavily out-weigh commercial names, even in the high-quality arena, so there's always going to be a bigger focus on them and more attention given to them by the community in general.
- we like to mix things up. things will never be all of the same thing
- the community floats the names, so there's always going to be a bias towards non-commercial except when it comes to games that are well known within the community (such as Ara Fell which has been around for longer than most of the people in said community and thus is very well known). It is what it is.
