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walas74

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I wanted to start this discussion for a while, are people okay with developers constantly spamming their threads with things that appear like advertisements? Posts like “Kickstarter finishing in 5 days! Pay now and get bonuses!” and “Sale on my game! 90% off!”

Regardless of whether or not it’s allowed (I assume it is because it’s happening, and that’s the owner’s choice) do people think posts like this belong in a discussion area? I personally like the forum as a place to express opinions and don’t want it to be turned into a playground for developers to spam their product. I’m fine with developers posting, not so much with this. I don’t really have any other intention than to express that, and to hear others. This isn’t a petition for change or a complaint.

     
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I think there should be a separate developer’s section where game updates, Kickstarter info and technical stuff is posted. It would be the perfect place for a member to ask questions that only the dev can answer. The members’ game discussion threads should remain in the appropriate game genre area. This should not preclude a dev from posting a response to a member’s comment in the general areas if appropriate.

There is a separate #game-development channel on the AG Discord server and that seems to work well. I’m also a member at Agustin Cordis Senscape Discord server (https://discord.gg/a8AeYFq) and there are separate dev channels under the heading of Workshop (gamedev-news, gamedev-projects, gamedev-chat and fan-fiction). It’s very lively and gives devs a place to talk to each other, compare notes, ask for advice, etc.

I don’t really have a complaint about the current format either. But it would be much tidier and subject specific if devs had their own area.

     
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We discourage devs from continually spamming their own threads, but it happens very rarely and is usually only temporary when it does, so we’d rather be lenient than heavy-handed about it. (But if it gets out of hand, we’ll step in. I’ve cautioned devs in the past about overuse.)

I don’t really see much point in having a separate sub-forum just for developer threads. I’ve seen similar things elsewhere and they’ve been all but dead. If dev threads were continually pushing aside relevant community discussions, that’d be another matter, but that’s really not the case. It’s just a few such threads sprinkled in with many-days-old discussions, so not really disrupting anything at all.

Personally, I just wish more forumites would actually contribute to a developer thread about a new game. If they got more response, I suspect they wouldn’t feel the need to update as often. They all want feedback, and I’m sure it’s discouraging to be met with only silence. (But that’s not because of where the thread is located.)

     
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Jackal - 23 July 2020 12:19 PM

Personally, I just wish more forumites would actually contribute to a developer thread about a new game. If they got more response, I suspect they wouldn’t feel the need to update as often. They all want feedback, and I’m sure it’s discouraging to be met with only silence. (But that’s not because of where the thread is located.)

i suggest a sticky thread, that does not discourage devs from posting, but encouraging them to contribute their games into discussions, like the last thread from starseeker, i myself like to communicate thru these silent dev’s thread to take their posts more into the core of their games rather than just promoting them, but to be honest i am not here to do this.

and also, to be honest, i have seen Jackel many times thru the years ending devs threads that really went too far, but just to understand that most devs don’t really have a clue !! about the nature of this fourms esp. so it would not hurt to direct them into how its ok to be promoting thru a thread but it is not ok to spam on it, thats simple, and its up to you man.

     
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Jackal - 23 July 2020 12:19 PM

Personally, I just wish more forumites would actually contribute to a developer thread about a new game. If they got more response, I suspect they wouldn’t feel the need to update as often. They all want feedback, and I’m sure it’s discouraging to be met with only silence. (But that’s not because of where the thread is located.)

It works both ways too, doesn’t it? I appreciate that developers like Agustin contribute to discussing other games, it makes him seem human. At times a lot of these developers seem more like spambots. That doesn’t exactly make me want to engage with them, or buy their games.

     
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Jackal - 23 July 2020 12:19 PM

Personally, I just wish more forumites would actually contribute to a developer thread about a new game. If they got more response, I suspect they wouldn’t feel the need to update as often. They all want feedback, and I’m sure it’s discouraging to be met with only silence. (But that’s not because of where the thread is located.)

I wonder if it’s slightly like the ‘scene of the day’ and other similar series of threads that many here have been involved with. They don’t tend to get too many responses because ‘here is a screenshot’ or ‘here is my new game’ generally leads to one of two reactions - ‘Cool, that’s interesting’ or ‘I don’t really care’, neither of which make for great posts.

I’ve certainly been interested in and have read ‘here is my game’ threads from developers and ‘screenshot of the day’ threads from forumites, but mostly there isn’t too much to say in response, for me at least.

I also understand why people can feel like there are too many of those threads, or that they should have their own area. If you look at the AGS forums there are something like 19 separate areas/forums/boards/whatever you call them, only one of which is for threads announcing games in production and another one of which is to announce released games. Forums like Unreal engine have one board out of loads - and thees are from forums which are dedicated to the production and release of games!

That’s not the only way to do things of course, but it is nice to have some delineation.

     

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Well, we can always find reasons not to do something. And I’m not trying to guilt anyone into being more communicative. I’m just saying that there’s a lot of us and only a few of them (developers), so there’s more we can do as a community than just shun their unwanted* threads off into their own little corner.

Intense Degree - 24 July 2020 09:51 AM

If you look at the AGS forums there are something like 19 separate areas/forums/boards/whatever you call them, only one of which is for threads announcing games in production and another one of which is to announce released games.

AGS has a particular interest in games in development, so it makes sense to have its own sub-forum(s) there. And for sure, if we had as many dev threads announcing their games here as we do there, with an equal amount of community engagement on those threads, it might make sense here too. But we only have a few, generally without a lot of input. Splitting those off is just begging to become a thread graveyard. (And that’s happened here before with other sub-forums, which is exactly why we condensed things in the first place.)

* Word used facetiously, of course.

     
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Jackal - 24 July 2020 01:23 PM

Well, we can always find reasons not to do something. And I’m not trying to guilt anyone into being more communicative. I’m just saying that there’s a lot of us and only a few of them (developers), so there’s more we can do as a community than just shun their unwanted* threads off into their own little corner.

yeah, right on.
i take that back, it would be somehow pushed, not natural, which’s no one would want.

     
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Nah, I’m not talking about anything forced or unnatural. I’m just talking about the sort of thing you did on the Alien Function thread. Asked a couple simple questions and then suddenly we all know so much more about a new game we didn’t know before, and THAT inspired a couple other people to chime in as well. And now a developer doesn’t think the whole AG community could care less about his game. But it took one person (in this case, you) to make that first move.

I’m not asking anyone who isn’t interested in a game to pretend they are. Just suggesting that for those who are interested to consider that SOME kind of response can be more beneficial than none, even if it’s minimal. You never know what little contribution might make a difference. Smile

 

     
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i get it Jackal.

just to make sure my previous post is well understood (not you Jackel) ‘i take back’ referring to what i said about making a sticky note for devs.

     
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Ah! Gotcha. Smile

     
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Luhr28 - 23 July 2020 08:38 AM

I wanted to start this discussion for a while, are people okay with developers constantly spamming their threads with things that appear like advertisements? Posts like “Kickstarter finishing in 5 days! Pay now and get bonuses!” and “Sale on my game! 90% off!”

Personally I don’t mind developers on starting a thread ‘advertising’  their kickstarters etc -  I really don’t see your problem with Indie developers doing their best to promote their games & I really don’t understand how mentioning a thing like ‘kickstarter’ amounts to spamming & also how you could object to any Indie developer with no other backup doing everything to promote their game in the absence of a backer.

No, there’s no ‘spamming’ from genuine developers here - ignore the thread if you don’t like it.

     
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A lot of the devs even PM the mods to ask if it’s ok to make a thread about their game (in which case, I send them straight to Jackal so we can have a news item about them as well).
I reckon most contact him directly even.

Very few of them feel like they’re really spamming, and the few that do tend to get shut down.

Lack of response is often understandable if you just get a screenshot and a vague description. Responses, and interesting threads, do happen if the dev manages to present something interesting, be it a novel concept, or great art. Stand out and you will get noticed…

The more generic-seeming ones wind up as threads where the dev just posts updates on occasion with crickets chirping in the background and a tumbleweed passing by… Meh

     

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chrissie - 24 July 2020 05:36 PM
Luhr28 - 23 July 2020 08:38 AM

I wanted to start this discussion for a while, are people okay with developers constantly spamming their threads with things that appear like advertisements? Posts like “Kickstarter finishing in 5 days! Pay now and get bonuses!” and “Sale on my game! 90% off!”

Personally I don’t mind developers on starting a thread ‘advertising’  their kickstarters etc -  I really don’t see your problem with Indie developers doing their best to promote their games & I really don’t understand how mentioning a thing like ‘kickstarter’ amounts to spamming & also how you could object to any Indie developer with no other backup doing everything to promote their game in the absence of a backer.

No, there’s no ‘spamming’ from genuine developers here - ignore the thread if you don’t like it.

I’m trying to figure out my problem with it too. I guess it could be that I want this to be a community, and at times it feels like a one-way barrage of notifications. A little bit like I don’t reply to junk email in my inbox (“50% off weight loss pills! buy now!”), it’s unsolicited, i’m not interested and yet it keeps appearing. Ignoring it is an option - one which I take - and so is expressing my opinion about what I’m feeling, which is what I’m doing now.

 

     
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I do understand what you’re saying Luhr but I think there’s a big difference between junk mail sent to your personal email account which I consider to be an infringement of privacy (as where did they get your mail address from in the first place?) & game developers doing some self-promotion on a public forum dedicated to games.

We have a discount thread on the main forum - do you consider that ‘spamming’ too? I have no problem with developers letting us know when their games are on sale here as how else would the very people who would buy them know? Isn’t that what this site is about - all things adventure games? You seem to see it differently but the community is here too! Smile

     

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