Popularity

[mikey]

Okay, just for fun (I did have useless free time though) - I ran all the renai.us and related games through google and was interested in which place the official site of that game would pop up.

I first entered only the title - and when that search wasn't really good, I added "game" which produced better results. In some cases I added how the games were mentioned on other prominent sites - in many cases atp's encyclopedia (atp) or ren'ai.us (raa) popped up earlier.

Okay, here it goes...

Gakuen Redux - #1
Milk Swim - #1
River Trap - #1
Marry Me Misato - #1
Heikou - #1
Kasuka - #1
Tales of Lemma - #1 - #2-atp
The PK girl - #1
Summer Schoolgirls - #2
Moonlight Walks - #3 (with "game" #1)
Transfer Teacher - #4 (with "game" #1)
Metropolitan Blues - #10-raa - #3-mt, #5-atp
Amatire - #10-raa - #4-atp
Black Pencil - #18 (with "game" #4)
Amgine Park - #20 - #1-atp, #2-ab, #3-raa
Garden Society Kykuit - #25 - #5-atp (others before are download.com mirrors)
When I Rule The World - n/a (with "game" #42)
Kaori - n/a

The only surprising thing for me was that Renaigames' titles weren't getting the official pages . Plus, it seems that the download.com and its sister sites sort of take over (in the case of SSG and GSK) due to the popularity I suppose.

[PyTom]

Clicking here brings up a somewhat hilarious back-translation from the Portugese... I'ts good to know that the license is gratuitious, and that the game does not possess any limitations.

At least in the case of my games, this wouldn't be "ripping off" the game, as the license specifically allows people to mirror it. That's why I do think people need to start including licenses with their games, even if it's a "don't mirror without my permission" license.

[mikey]

^_^ that's great. It's interesting to see that even asian languages are possible, but not any of the Slavic languages - maybe it's because of the many suffixes? Anyway, I guess when one language (I suppose Russian) is done, it would be easy to implement that technique on others, because they are mostly the same (if not identical in many aspects).

PyTom >> I wouldn't have any problems with others mirroring my games. I like to think of renai.us as an "official" mirror and whatever else happens I don't really care. Strangely enough I don't want to actively submit anything, but this sort of thing doesn't bug me. I'm complicated (and sound like a woman ).

[PyTom]

^_^ that's great. It's interesting to see that even asian languages are possible, but not any of the Slavic languages - maybe it's because of the many suffixes? Anyway, I guess when one language (I suppose Russian) is done, it would be easy to implement that technique on others, because they are mostly the same (if not identical in many aspects).

Babelfish.altavista.com has Russian -> English, but not Slovak. I think that might largely be due to the amount of work required compared to how much they'd get from advertising to support it. The equation might change in a few years if Google's new approach pans out. They're taking documents that should be identical in multiple languages, and using them as rosetta stones that allow computers to automatically learn how to translate languages.

[rioka]

The only surprising thing for me was that Renaigames' titles weren't getting the official pages . Plus, it seems that the download.com and its sister sites sort of take over (in the case of SSG and GSK) due to the popularity I suppose.

I get better results for AP if you put the search in quotes. Results: #4 (ATP #1, AB#2, RAA #3)

Anyways, yes, I think it has to do with the amount of traffic/page rank the other sites get. Since my move/change of address, my page rank is now zip for RG (i.e. page rank for .com = 3, for .net = 0).

At least in the case of my games, this wouldn't be "ripping off" the game, as the license specifically allows people to mirror it. That's why I do think people need to start including licenses with their games, even if it's a "don't mirror without my permission" license.

Personally, I wouldn't class this as ripping off as well. Ripping off, imo, would be someone who a) took my images or blatantly copies them and used them for their own game, and/or b) panders my game as their own. I don't mind others mirroring my game. And how is this complicated, mikey? It's perfectly sensible, imo.

[mikey]

I agree with the quotes, they do have better search results. Although most of the time I am somehow too lazy to put them in.

BTW, what's a page rank?

BTW2, I'm also very pleased with the attention the encyclopedia gets, lately it's been featured in IGDA's adult games blog and seems to bring in more and more people.

And how is this complicated, mikey? It's perfectly sensible, imo.

I knew it!

[ShiraiJunichi]

Personally, I wouldn't class this as ripping off as well. Ripping off, imo, would be someone who a) took my images or blatantly copies them and used them for their own game, and/or b) panders my game as their own. I don't mind others mirroring my game

I guess I didn't really mean "rip off", but more like "copy and redistribute". Which, under a free license, is completely legal.

I wouldn't have any problems with others mirroring my games. I like to think of renai.us as an "official" mirror and whatever else happens I don't really care. Strangely enough I don't want to actively submit anything, but this sort of thing doesn't bug me

*wonders what would happen is some unknown third party impersonated Mikey and submitted his games to download.com*

[JackalAndromeda]

*wonders what would happen is some unknown third party impersonated Mikey and submitted his games to download.com*

I think he'd be pretty angry. As far as I understand, he's not after that kind of popularity.

[mikey]

They are free games, redistributable and all so that's generally alright, but the impersonating part really doesn't sound too good As for download.com, I wouldn't even know which game to submit. Plus as I said, my idea was/is that the community is more visible rather than the games - this way whoever enters the websites/forums is automatically somehow interested - of course this has the drawback that there are less casual players trying out the games via an interesting-sounding download. It's simply a matter of choice.

[rioka]

BTW, what's a page rank?

Page rank, in short, "The PageRank system is used by the popular search engine Google to help determine a page's relevance or importance."

but for a longer explanation

"PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important.""

Source: Wikipedia

In other words, the higher your relevance, the more likely you'll place higher in their searches.

[PyTom]

IIRC, the original PageRank had something to do with the probability that a user starting on a random web page and randomly clicking links on web pages would eventually stumble upon your web page. While the chance of this will always be small, the more links to your page, and the more links to pages with links to pages that link to your page, and so on, the more likely it is that your page will be reached, and the higher the PageRank.

They've probably permuted the algorithm some, though, to deal with spammers and other evildoers.

[mikey]

It's really something fundamental to me as well - I want those people to reach my site who are interested - hithunting isn't the point. I know there have been improvements in automatic link/site processing, but I kind of still favor the old fashioned picking by hand - be it in link portals like anipike or similar - I don't even mind a long waiting period because I know the link is being validated and put in an appropriate category. I haven't really seen any better ways of reaching the people you really want to reach - even webrings seem to be hit-based. It's sort of a problem, not only with this special kind of gaming, but any other thing you're really interested in - just how can you put quality first?

[bookie]

Have you tried listing any of these games with dmoz? It's a human run directory (of which I am a member) that aims to list useful content and make it more accessable to people who are looking for it. I don't know if there's a renai cat, but you guys should submit your sites anyway. It wouldn't hurt.

[mikey]

Actually I did submit it to dmoz, (one year ago), but nothing has been done. Well, might as well try again .

[rioka]

Hey, looks like Metropolitan Blues is up at download.com - since Wednesday, actually. It's classed under Modern, First-Person in the Adventure section.