NTC3'S PROFILE

I can't recall if I ever commented on a FADE blog before, but I just wanted to say it's always great to see blogs laying out such large and detailed skillsets! Now, if only more new developers were to follow, and not drop the player with spacebar-mash combat at the start...

Holy shit... that's an incredible amount of information to share on here. Thank you for that, and I hope that all of this will finally work out.

Oh well, goodbye, Clover Chronicles. We hardly knew ye, but still we mourn as you're about to trade the welcome pastures of RMN for the barren wastes of commercial 3D development and the desolation of Steam Greenlight.

Seriously, this is a terrible idea. By "upgrading" to 3D and commercial, you cast away basically all of the nostalgic feeling you had before, in exchange for studio-level player requirements. Moreover, making huge open areas as a first-time Unreal user leads to at least one of these things:

Bugs

Practically empty levels everyone wants to leave as fast as possible,

And/or

World filled in entirely with pre-bought assets, a favorite mockery target of veteran Steam users.

Don't forget the AI, etc. Essentially just don't go there, unless part of a more experienced team.

I doubt that suggestion idea will help all that much, unless done in a highly specific way. I suppose you could have a system whereas downloading a game tagged with "horror" will always show Ib, The Longing Ribbon & Desert Nightmare, Shoot-em-up will link to Zero Base and SkyE, roguelike to. A Hint of a Tint, dungeon crawler to Soul Sunder, etc. Basically, only the 2-4 games per tag we all consider good enough get to suggested stage. This way, visitors are far more likely to form positive experiences upon visiting the site, which is the best, most proven way to keep people returning and hold the traffic up.

Of course, that approach will NOT benefit the newer/less proven games, or at least not as much as simply suggesting a random genre-relevant game. However, said approach is likely to backfire in the long term for everyone, while only elite/featured provides constancy.

EDIT: And of course, there's still TVTropes. It's unflashy, but ensuring good games on here have pages over there provides long-term exposure. The thing is, a lot of games on here already have TVT pages (some very extensive ones, too), but pretty much none of them are properly cross-wicked, which is what actually gets people to see the thing. Statistically speaking, an average RMN game let's play nets about 150 views on YouTube. Wicks on trope pages get that many views in, let's be conservative and say two weeks. The only downside is the amount of time consumed: even I, a quite experienced troper, won't be able to cross wick stuff in earnest until another month or two elapses.

@ Corfaisus: Certainly agree on the review part. As for the rest, I can't quite conclusively agree with either of you, so I'll just subscribe instead, to see how this whole conversation goes.