Lemma Soft Forums

trooper6 wrote:Making a thread so that people can tell you they want your thing and that being the deciding factor of if you think you are wasting your time or not, rather than making a game because you like it and it is important to you, is exactly the sort of problematic need for external validation I'm talking about.

I guess big corporations spending millions on marketing research and focus groups also in dire need of external validation...

drKlauz wrote:

trooper6 wrote:Making a thread so that people can tell you they want your thing and that being the deciding factor of if you think you are wasting your time or not, rather than making a game because you like it and it is important to you, is exactly the sort of problematic need for external validation I'm talking about.

I guess big corporations spending millions on marketing research and focus groups also in dire need of external validation...

There is a big difference between big corps doing marketing research and a person who feels like if they don't get likes their work sucks and everything is pointless.

Big Corporations don't care if something is good or bad, just if it will sell--and sell to the people they want it to sell to. If something is the greatest quality in the world, but they can't find a market for it? They'll drop it, without feeling like that thing is bad quality and they won't think that they are somehow not good people (also corporations are not people). Corps don't take it personal. They'll also drop something if the demographic that loves their thing isn't the demographic they want, regardless of how much those people love it. They also don't care if people like them or not, as long as people buy their stuff. They are not looking for validation, they are looking for sales.

Young Justice had great ratings and lots of external validation. But the corporation that put it out didn't care about that external validation. The show had a heavy female viewership and they didn't want a female viewership so they cancelled the show. People said over and over that EA was the worst company ever and that their endless Madden games were uninspired and bad...fans said bad things, critics said bad things. Lots of negative validation there. Guess what? They didn't care because they made money.

People here are often not selling anything. They are making a free game. They are not doing market research and then making whatever it is the market says it wants regardless of their own taste, they are making a game they say is important to them. But when people don't give them enough ego strokes they get depressed and say things like "no one likes my work" "my work is terrible" and then wither in despair. You know who doesn't post things like that? I've never seen Winter Wolves say, "No one comments on my thread, there is no point making my game." I don't see Hanako games saying that either. The pros don't seek validation in that way.

And look at the WIP threads, many of them are not asking market research questions, they are asking "do you like my work please" questions. That is not a market research question, that is a seeking validation question. Looking at the number of views you have on your thread and then comparing it to the number of comments you have on that thread and if the comment number is too low assuming that people don't like your work is making unfounded negative assumptions that come from the search for external evaluation not a desire for market research.

Mixing teenage psychology therapy and game development process is kinda bad idea tbh. Doubt if you write in big letter "LIKE YOURSELF!" at forum header they will suddenly become mature, confident people.

From gamedev perspective, forum feature telling if viewer actually liked topic/post is useful. Not just for kids with low self esteem, but for people who want to see if their work (not themselves) is good enough for another people to actually spend couple seconds giving feedback.
To keep like-hunters at bay, such feature could be available only at WIP/Complete games subforums.

"I like/don't like your work because this and this, here take my money" post is best.
"Looks nice" post is good.
"User [name] liked this post/topic" button is less good, but still give some feedback.
If you get views, but no feedback you get doubts is your work any good.

And yes, negative feedback is ok. It's ok to do thing what suck while on road to making proper thing. So if kid make something, and people tell it suck, then kid should try different things, it's learning process. If you just tell him "oh your doodle is amazing, here $5", he get wrong idea, and when reality actually bite his ass off it will be much worse and will lead to much deeper depression and can completely ruin already formed personality.

It doesn't matter if it's free game or commercial product or building new house, if you ignore valid negative feedback you doomed, if you get no feedback at all you have chance of failing because you haven't noticed when you took wrong turn, if you get valid positive feedback you have more motivation, it never hurt.

About Winter Wolves. There actually polls on his forum about what people like/don't like, art style, gameplay preferences etc. And i have slight feeling it's not just to keep forum activity.

Hello everyone,

I would like to post a link to my ko-fi page, as I recently made one and would really love the help and support. I'd like to post it in the General Discussions section but I don't know if this would be considered spam and I don't want to break the rules. So I'd like to ask here whether it would be ok to do so before I actually do it.

whiteserenity wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 23, 2017 5:13 am

Hello everyone,

I would like to post a link to my ko-fi page, as I recently made one and would really love the help and support. I'd like to post it in the General Discussions section but I don't know if this would be considered spam and I don't want to break the rules. So I'd like to ask here whether it would be ok to do so before I actually do it.

Post it on your signature, don't make a thread for it since it doesn't directly have anything to do with development.

whiteserenity wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 23, 2017 5:13 am

I would like to post a link to my ko-fi page, as I recently made one and would really love the help and support. I'd like to post it in the General Discussions section but I don't know if this would be considered spam and I don't want to break the rules. So I'd like to ask here whether it would be ok to do so before I actually do it.

Posting a thread just for that is basically spamming the forum. It's off-topic, and benefits only you, not the readers.

Ok, thank you for the replies. I went ahead and placed the link on my signature. ^^

Looking to start a recruitment thread.

I have a demo build ready but I was wondering what are the preferring hosting sites, or sites allows.

I'd prefer to link via mega, but wanted to make sure if that site was okayed.

Thanks in advance for an answer.

We don't have a particular list. Mega seems fine, although they've gotten into trouble before, so keep backups.

PyTom wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 16, 2017 10:08 pm

We don't have a particular list. Mega seems fine, although they've gotten into trouble before, so keep backups.

Ok thanks for letting me know.

I made a Work in Progress thread for the launch of my KS and Demo.

And I was wondering if I could post new posts that coincide with my KickStarter updates.

Generally, you should only do that it people reply to your first post.

PyTom wrote: ↑

Tue May 08, 2018 10:15 pm

Generally, you should only do that it people reply to your first post.

Okay. That's why I was asking. Wanted to know if it was considered spam/bumping or not.