Game Development Community

Is it worth it at all?

by iHugMedia · in Jobs · 04/17/2006 (1:44 am) · 4 replies

I'm a bit, no, very frusterated at the state of most gaming communities, especially online. They seem to be full of underappreciative, power-hungry consumers who treat game developers and companies as their own personal genie, offending them to no end for the smallest of bugs and then demanding an update to solve it instantly.
I guess nobody sees the industry as it was 15 years ago, everyone treats games as yet-another consumer product.

I'm thinking - Do I really want to put up with this when I release my game? I've been contemplating my future a bit more, and want to study medicine/biology/nanotechnology/applied sciences but I have the passion of game development. But if the games are for people like these - I don't know.

I guess this is what everyone puts up with.

I would really appreciate anyone elses thoughts.
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Torque Owner Anton Bursch
#1
04/17/2006 (2:45 am)
I think that this depends on your audience. Also, the maturity level of your game. The more mature your game... the more mature your audience. Make a game where the player gets to be an asshole... you will have an online community of people who like to be assholes. Sounds too simple. But I think it's true.

I have been to online communities of more mature games to look for walkthrus for games and it's completely civil and fun. I imagine that it's a pleasure for those developers.

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As for the jerks. It's ussually some minority of the community that are really causing the problems. Kick them out! Or at least tell them to stop. You think that you will lose business... but do you want jerks like that becoming 'loyal' customers that give you crap for years? And people say that unhappy customers give bad word of mouth that speads out a lot. True. But not these huge jerks. These people either don't have friends or their friends are so used to hearing them bitch that they probably ignore them when they do.

That's what I think anyway.

Torque 3D Owner iHugMedia
#2
04/17/2006 (2:52 am)
That helped to clear my mind abit - I'll just try to make the game in the most mature manner possible, and 'Kick out' the abusive ones. I guess, the whole consumer market are a bit hard to judge until you get your product out there.

Torque Owner Matt Fleming
#3
06/01/2006 (3:46 pm)
In my mind, the game is what you want it to be. Design it, let a few people that will tell you the truth beta it (make sure it's people that you want to buy the game - letting your grandmother beta Death Murder Sim 2006 probably wouldn't help much), if they dig the concept there's no reason to not release it.

No matter what you do, you're going to piss someone off and make them mad. That's how it goes. You will also have people who are very, very happy about your game and it'll always sit on their hard drives. The bottom line is, are you proud of your game? Was it worth it?

Torque Owner Kostiantyn Teterin
#4
06/01/2006 (5:11 pm)
Every business involves loyal customers, neutral customers and jerks :) No matter if it is a game development, or medicine. Even if you don't run any business and just sit in the office and work on a big boss, there still can be jerks between your colleagues. There is no way to escape from them, we should learn to live with them.

In my opinion, the best way to deal with them is ignorance. If they threat your website, ban them, delete their posts, or make them looking like fools :) My own strategy is to be a jerk with a jerk, especially when they writting e-mails. And I must say that sometimes when I am starting to talk with jerk on his(her) own language, they are turning into the loyal customers. Maybe, they like that I looks like a man similar to them, who knows :)