The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby farrer » 23 Jun 2017, 12:36

Lyberta {l Wrote}:
rogerdv {l Wrote}:Is there a way to change this? Probably, if we build some network to promote good games using mouth to mouth, via Facebook or Twitter.


I don't think people who value their freedom will ever use Facebook or Twitter.


Yes, they are all bad, but if we keep only preaching to the converted the situation won't change.

As we all live on a non-free/libre world, at one point or another we have to take some compromises or accept some levels of incoherences to live. Otherwise, it will be a lot like an eremite action to the world, which, in my opinion, won't help to attract and spread any more our values. Which level of incoherence each one can tolerate is something very particular and should be respected. For example, I couldn't afford to be used by facebook, but some of the people on this forum have no problem with that - or just use it trying to not compromising their freedom a lot -, and as a lot of people use it - or even think that internet is only it -, I see no reason to just have a sectary position and close the door, where we could use that to reach a great share of people which isn't just aware of the Free/Libre Software movement.
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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby Duion » 23 Jun 2017, 14:03

Not only the mainstream media ignores free software games, but also the alternative media and the alternative alternative media.

Btw I have a metacritic entry: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/uebergame besides that my game was posted on some other games sites, forums and a bunch of small youtubers played it, but all of those generate basically zero clicks.

My SEO research result is, that all websites that mention my game, post news on it, review it, mention it on their forum, youtubers that play it or review it and all of those websites that I promote it myself combined do not generate significant views.
In fact Steam alone generates somewhere around 10-100 times more downloads or even more than all other sources that exist on the whole internet combined.
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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby rogerdv » 23 Jun 2017, 15:02

Lyberta {l Wrote}:
rogerdv {l Wrote}:Is there a way to change this? Probably, if we build some network to promote good games using mouth to mouth, via Facebook or Twitter.


I don't think people who value their freedom will ever use Facebook or Twitter.


Then open source games will keep being ignored, unless you can build a a freedom respectful social network with 200-300 million users.
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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby Duion » 23 Jun 2017, 16:31

"Freedom respectful social network" is an oxymoron.
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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby Lyberta » 24 Jun 2017, 08:24

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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby Duion » 24 Jun 2017, 11:29

Social media was designed to datamine, manipulate and control people, how is that social or freedom respectful?
It's like saying you want to make a freedom respectful prison.

The initial claim from rogerdv was that it is needed for promoting the free games, but the part social media plays in advertising is totally overrated.
You can either pay lots of money for advertising or find someone who has a lot of followers already to talk about your product, everything else is almost useless.
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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby Lyberta » 25 Jun 2017, 11:14

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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby Duion » 25 Jun 2017, 16:21

The irony is the thread creator himself ignores most of the good FOSS games.
A metacritic entry is not a proof of anything, that is just some random site and I think anybody can add reviews there.
I also proven that my game has an entry.
And if you really would want to help FOSS (which is not the case as it seems) you could just add reviews of them yourself, but then you could no longer complain, which seems to be the main goal instead of doing anything.
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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby Lyberta » 25 Jun 2017, 17:41

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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby Duion » 25 Jun 2017, 18:04

You did not get the point, the point was, that using metacritic as argument for mainstream media is illogical, since it is not the mainstream media and everyone can create reviews for anything there, so it is irrelevant.
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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby c_xong » 26 Jun 2017, 01:09

Metacritic scores are very important though, and they are only taken from a list of major sites (like some newspapers and major game sites). User reviews won't affect that. I think OP still has a point that most FOSS games lack coverage from mainstream media.
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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby Duion » 26 Jun 2017, 09:38

FOSS games or pseudo FOSS games that remake popular commercial titles get pretty good media coverage for what they are, I have seen articles on big news sites here and there about them, what more do you expect?
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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby palrogg » 16 Jul 2017, 15:24

Here’s my view as a journalist who works in a mainstream daily newspaper.

I think if you target local media, you can get coverage easily. There’s always need for stories about nice initiatives and portraits of interesting people. That’s not the kind of stuff you’ll find on Metacritic.

As a journalist, your worst enemy is the lack of time. You need to avoid everything which takes too much time and makes your task impossible. Your main concerns are:
- Is it time-effective?
- Can I write a good story?

Three years ago, I wrote six portraits of game developers (here it is, in French). None of them was doing free software. This is just because I didn’t find anyone in my area.

But even if your game isn’t finished, I’m sure you can get local coverage. There’s always stories about game developers who don’t even have an alpha.

The main problem I see the public understanding of FOSS. Most of our readers don’t know what «free software» is. «Open source» is widespread, but a lot of people think it means the sources are accessible.

Explaining what FOSS is can make your story pretty boring.

There’s also the lack of understanding amongst journalists. I hardly ever talk about free software with my colleagues. They associate «logiciel libre» (free software in French) with Libre office. Some use VLC and Firefox but doesn’t know these are free softwares. IMO, this reflects the lack of knowledge in the society.

Also, free software communities (I use plural on purpose) are very hard to approach and integrate. I grew up with Linux and played Freeciv, XEvil and other FOSS games. But I don’t feel comfortable on this forum, neither as a developer nor as a FOSS games player.

Within libre software communities, it’s a bad idea to even mention a social network or a proprietary software. Please don’t take it personally. Some zealots will always react as if someone who use a proprietary software has no value. Despising proprietary software isn’t a problem, but despising people who use proprietary software is not okay.

FOSS communities tend to reject newcomers very aggressively. It seems they don’t even notice it. We’re aware of the ideological infights, like free vs. open source, but I think we’re not very conscious of a lot of other problems, for example sexism in FOSS.

It’s also very difficult to point out these kind of problems without getting very agressive reactions.

Some members of the free software community are great people, interesting and open minded. Some others are worst to deal with than religious fundamentalists (I speak from experience, sadly).

Let’s get back to the first main concern of a journalist: time. The biggest issue is people with whom you can’t talk and who get crazy when you don’t write exactly what they assume you must write. A FOSS zealot looks exactly like this.

Besides, onpon4, Lyberta and farrer talked about our isolation. This isolation concerns at least the whole free software community.

Very few people know that Mac OS’s kernel is free software, Android is based upon free software, the Playstation 4 has an OS based on FreeBSD, the Wii uses a custom version of OpenGL. Very few people know most Web servers run on Apache and nginx.

We live in a computer driven society where most people are computer illiterates. When they reject any IT-related stuff, they’re not in good condition to learn anything about libre licenses either, even if it’s in their greatest interest…

If you have a solution to improve that, hurray.
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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby onpon4 » 16 Jul 2017, 16:14

FOSS communities tend to reject newcomers very aggressively. It seems they don’t even notice it. We’re aware of the ideological infights, like free vs. open source, but I think we’re not very conscious of a lot of other problems, for example sexism in FOSS.

It’s also very difficult to point out these kind of problems without getting very agressive reactions.

I'm all for accepting newcomers, but accepting newcomers doesn't mean tolerating use of the community as a platform to spread an ideology. Also, no one likes to be cast into a net like that, and when you say a community "has a sexism problem", that's what you do with every member of that community. So if someone comes in here as an outsider and claims that we have a problem with "sexism", of course that's going to get an aggressive response. That's going to happen no matter where you go.

Heck, it would happen if someone did that with libre software, too. If you go into a forum about trading card games and you start telling everyone that the community has a "proprietary software problem" for one reason or another, they're going to be pretty miffed and defensive.

In fact, that relates to this point which you made:

Within libre software communities, it’s a bad idea to even mention a social network or a proprietary software. Please don’t take it personally. Some zealots will always react as if someone who use a proprietary software has no value. Despising proprietary software isn’t a problem, but despising people who use proprietary software is not okay.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Don't cast judgment on people like that. We're all human. And when someone does act like that, don't tolerate it: tell that person off and make it clear that it is not acceptable behavior.

But of course, that applies to everyone, not just those already established in the community. It also applies to all such behavior, not just when it relates to libre software.

We live in a computer driven society where most people are computer illiterates. When they reject any IT-related stuff, they’re not in good condition to learn anything about libre licenses either, even if it’s in their greatest interest…

I usually simplify it to, "You have a right to control what happens on a computer you own." Simple, non-technical, to the point, and non-judgmental. There's no need to tell the average layperson about licenses and source code and technical definitions.
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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby palrogg » 16 Jul 2017, 21:01

when you say a community "has a sexism problem"

Quick reply: I didn't write it clearly, but I didn't mean a newcomer would say that. A lot of people talked about sexism in FOSS. I just wanted to provide an example of something which can escalate very quickly (same if you question the fsf funding and its distribution — don't stone me, it's an example again). Other groups of people can talk about these kind of subjects in a smoother way.

"You have a right to control what happens on a computer you own."

Good formulation! I probably stick too much to the four freedoms when I talk about libre software.
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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby leilei » 16 Jul 2017, 22:24

There's indeed been FOSS sexism lately. OGA recently had a dangerous sexist festering the site for years until finally getting the boot. I also feel sexism may be involved in why I can't have a Sorceress player kart (and instead as an unique track decor because women are objects of course -_-).

I'd be more open on other issues that have affected my projects, but we all know exactly what would go down.
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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby Julius » 16 Jul 2017, 22:39

Notice by moderator: please do not de-rail this thread further into at most marginally related topics like sexism. Thanks!
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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby leilei » 16 Jul 2017, 22:42

^ yes, please do silence women. that is totally not a self-serving example not provoked by my presence at all./s
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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby Julius » 16 Jul 2017, 22:43

You are free to start a new thread in "off topic" about it.

Edit: if you have a actual example of sexism in FOSS gaming or FOSS game development it can also be in "general discussion" of course.
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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby Lyberta » 17 Jul 2017, 10:10

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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby copperunite » 17 Sep 2017, 23:19

Lyberta {l Wrote}:Apart from 100% story driven games like Passage, I have never seen free software games that I can call finished. The source code is public so a lot of people want to add something to it. These games are in a state of perpetual development.


Lyberta is making a very good point here. Most of theses games are not « finished » and in a state of perpetual development.
Mainstream culture is very different from libre culture in a sense that a product always reaches a « final » state (eg: books, movies, etc…).

But on the other hand, it wouldn't hurt to have some games reaching a definitive 1.0 version, like SuperTuxKart or 0 A.D..
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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby c_xong » 20 Sep 2017, 04:38

Version 1.0 is a mostly arbitrary milestone. A lot of projects start from version 0 because most of the features are unimplemented, but hitting 1.0 is a matter of whether the goals of the project have been reached, and that goal depends on who you're asking. Everyone has a different opinion.

Even if you follow semver, major version numbers are reserved for major compatibility breaks, something that most projects avoid deliberately. Backwards compatibility is a virtue, so there is no reason to suddenly jump from 0.x to 1.0.

On the other hand, I've seen some projects hit 1.0, then soon 2.0, 3.0 because they focus on new features above stability. It's a reflection of the project's priorities rather than quality or completeness.

My opinion is that new projects should just start from version 1.0 (instead of 0.x), because the modesty signalled in a version 0.x number will always come back to bite, as lots of people assume the project is incomplete or substandard.
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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby eugeneloza » 20 Sep 2017, 05:45

c_xong {l Wrote}:lots of people assume the project is incomplete or substandard.

I agree. It's a very important psychological issue.
0.9 is something "not ready", and 1.1 is something not just ready to play, but with lot's of bugs fixed.
Alpha is not-a-game, a prototype, maybe. Betta is something you can play if you can't wait, but Release is the way to go.
However, despite the numbering the game quality may simply equal.
Another important psychological issue is the "release date" which is often anticipated by players and a source of additional (but motivating) stress for the developers :)
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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby charlie » 20 Sep 2017, 08:33

Personally I think some open source projects are getting version numbering wrong.

STK should have already had a 1.0 release. Possibly even a 2.0 release as well. Once a game becomes sufficiently playable, it should be released as 1.0 and minor updates 1.x with any breaking or major changes bumping to 2.0 etc. The last release with all the old tracks should be 1.x and the current updated graphics/tracks STK 2.x at least.

SuperTux is in a similar boat. The old milestone 0.1.4 or whatever the number was, that should have been SuperTux 1.0 and the current version 2.0 at least. It would disambiguate it for players who would be able to look back at specific versions as indepedent versions of the game.

I guess there's nobody stopping someone from forking the old releases and publishing SuperTux Classic and STK Classic, but I think it would have been better done internally with the projects. As long as you jump at sensible points in the versioning, it'd give a clear way for people to stick with the verison of the game they like the most. Nobody is going to go back to SuperTux 0.x releases unless they remember them specifically.
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Re: The mainstream media ignores free software games :-(

Postby Arthur » 20 Sep 2017, 11:42

charlie {l Wrote}:I guess there's nobody stopping someone from forking the old releases and publishing SuperTux Classic and STK Classic, but I think it would have been better done internally with the projects. As long as you jump at sensible points in the versioning, it'd give a clear way for people to stick with the verison of the game they like the most. Nobody is going to go back to SuperTux 0.x releases unless they remember them specifically.

I kinda agree that they should have been versioned differently, but that should have happened from the start. Like, STK 0.3 could have been called 1.0. Now we're so far along changing versioning plans should not happen until we reach 1.0 in my personal opinion.

To address what I specifically quoted, I honestly think that if people don't remember a release because of the version number, any continuation fork will not have legs to stand on. SuperTux, while revived, is still barely alive by itself, and desperately need more people in order to not die off again. STK is in better shape but honestly we could use at least five times the human resources we have right now. If we lose one or two key people I'm not even sure if the project would be able to continue active development without someone else stepping in. It would probably not die completely but be severely limited in terms of new stuff.

So who are those people who would have kept any 1.0 series going while STK or SuperTux continued into 2.0?
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