SBESTER'S PROFILE

I've said it elsewhere on the site, but I feel like the site will see a greater shift towards featuring Commercial ventures than freeware ones. Banners, banners everywhere.

If you go to the forums, you'll notice we're already experiencing this. And yeah, I have taken issue with it (albeit silently). I have nothing against Sailerius or anyone else who has been lucky enough to get their commercial features advertised on the site, but I do feel like it takes away from the free game advertising. The first time I saw one of these banners, my first thought was "why don't they throw up the banner for the featured game instead? It doesn't get a fixed, non-changing image on the main site anymore, but rather it's just the first of several features to pop up."

Here's my main issue, while I feel that commercial games made in an RM program sometimes have awesome art or at least something worth your buck that other free projects don't (though not all of them do)... most of us are using the same programs to do our work. Free game creators work just as hard (in many cases) to put out a very worthwhile experience for players, and expect nothing in return for their efforts (aside from the occasional download or being seen on the front page from time to time). Commercial developers don't necessarily work harder on their projects, but they want you to give them money for it anyway. It's just my personal opinion, but it feels wrong that we'd be potentially cheating players into buying a less worthwhile game, which could definitely happen ("hmm, this one costs money so it's probably longer/better/more professional than the rest of these free ones").

I mean, to use an example, has anyone ever played Aveyond? You basically tread over the same few maps over and over and over again, making for a longer but cheaper experience than many of the free games you find here. And of course, you wouldn't know it by playing the short demo version of it. This is wrong. And I know that a lot of people will argue that it's a player's own fault for not knowing the difference between a solid, well made commercial project and a cheap, thrown together one, but people who have never seen an RM game before is not going to realize the difference. And, my issue still stands that it's probably going to take away from the advertising of free games that are possibly more deserving of attention.

Here's another issue for you. I'm looking through the list of newly added games, and find a few that I think look pretty cool. Commercial. Commercial. Holy shit, expensive commercial. Commercial... and so on. I don't buy commercial games online. Never have, never will. That's the reason I come to this site, for the FREE games. I don't have to weed through bunches of pages to find free ones, but if commercial games are welcomed into RMN, that will eventually change. Maybe not right away, but somewhere down the line. I know this may not be important to a lot of you, but it is to me.

The thoughts keep coming to me. Everyone sees all the shitty commercial games (like the worst of the worst of them) actually making money, and they decide "hey, mine's better imo, maybe I should make mine commercial too". A bunch of the community shifts towards commercial games, and we have a complete inventory full of average commercial games to compete with. And of course, due to these projects having money to throw around and advertise on other sites, we have even more users attracted to RMN, coming onto the forums and saying they want "shitty, generic, RTP VX game as the enxt featured game". Free games get pushed even further from the spotlight. Free game devs leave RMN.

It's unfair to compare RMN to any oth RM site in existence. It's just better in every way. Allowing commercial games could truly ruin what is so special about it. Maybe I'm wrong, and all these fears are for nothing. But I could be right, and I think most people in my position (a developer {of quite a few games} who knows that they are only in it as a hobbyist and will never EVER be swayed to sell their games) is probably having some of these fears as well.

Hell, I could go on... and I only meant to write a small blurb... so I'll stop here.

Episode 1 has been beta'd, bitches.

Wow, these are some excellent screens. No wonder there's still so much praise and sadness over the loss of these games. The only one I knew of here that I'd been waiting for was Ara Fell, but most of these actually look even more impressive.

Still, as a creator, I respect makers who come up with finished products more than ones who come up with a few really good looking screens here and there. A beautifully crafted game is great, but it doesn't mean shit if no one ever gets to experience it.

You're right, I'm the troll here.

At least I see in colour :)

Damn, thought this was the "hate on Stephen Harper" thread...