People - promote your open source games

People - promote your open source games

Postby judymattson » 06 Sep 2019, 08:07

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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby Julius » 06 Sep 2019, 20:51

There are many cases where developers for various reasons do not want to promote them, and usually there is no economic need to do... so that is fine.

However for online multiplayer titles you kind of need a bigger player base...
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby GunChleoc » 07 Sep 2019, 08:57

We actually had a topic on this recently https://forum.freegamedev.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=12182

Developers usually aren't marketing specialists and don't always enjoy social networking stuff, so it's also a matter of skills and willingness to spend the time.
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby drummyfish » 07 Sep 2019, 16:30

Julius {l Wrote}:and usually there is no economic need to do


Why always justify everything with just money and economy? :( There exist others needs than money.

Good point about the social media, I am not on FB and things like that so I can't even post there.

Personally I am always very hesitant to promote my work, I can't really tell exactly why, but it's something like this: I feel my code is shit, I am stressed that people will yell at me, want me to maintain the code, fix bugs etc. I get a bit of anxiety of the idea of promoting my stuff very much. I also have a philosophy that a good thing doesn't need advertising, so I simply try to create good things and I don't advertise at all (also advertisement is by definition a lie which goes against my moral code, though I try force myself to at least inform people the thing exists).

One game I made and didn't advertise/promote is e.g. Bombman -- it was kinda fun to play, but the code really is shit (I've written it a long time ago now, and I am now strongly against writing anything else than scripts in Python):

Image

Another one is Steamer Duck (I made the Duck my avatar):

Image

It's really a small game, but actually I've gotten an email once from someone who told me their kind played and loved the game and they asked me if I could add another level for the kid, which I did.
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby Julius » 07 Sep 2019, 16:47

drummyfish {l Wrote}:
Julius {l Wrote}:and usually there is no economic need to do


Why always justify everything with just money and economy? :( There exist others needs than money.


Read what I wrote again, and you will realize that we are in agreement ;)

Most open-source games are non-commercial, so there is no economic need to advertise them.
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby GunChleoc » 07 Sep 2019, 17:28

drummyfish {l Wrote}:I also have a philosophy that a good thing doesn't need advertising, so I simply try to create good things and I don't advertise at all (also advertisement is by definition a lie which goes against my moral code, though I try force myself to at least inform people the thing exists).

I guess that all depends on how you advertise it. You could simply inform people that the thing exists so that they have a chance of finding it in the first place, with a bit of information on what it's like. They can then make up their own minds whether they like it. It does not need to involve lightly-clad females relaxing on a sports car in the sun ;)
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby drummyfish » 07 Sep 2019, 17:34

Julius {l Wrote}:Most open-source games are non-commercial, so there is no economic need to advertise them.


There is also no economical need to create them either, and they get created.

I mean what you say is true and we agree, I just found it curious that the first argument was again economics, even in this tiny little island that exists mostly outside of any business. Anyway don't mind me, this is not important for the thread.
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby Jastiv » 07 Sep 2019, 20:12

You are probably forgetting how much stuff is driven by religion and ideology rather than economics. Also, how much stuff is pure pleasure (like, why do people do things like go to amusement parks).

I'm going to mention Wograld in this thread again. I need to create a new Wograld Signature.
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby smcameron » 07 Sep 2019, 20:52

I have no real idea how to promote my game. I'm not really even sure I would want to. I will occasionally mention it in e.g. reddit game dev threads where appropriate (e..g if someone asks a question about how to do something that my game happens to also do) but I don't generally spam reddit threads. I have an active thread here, and another one over on https://bridgesim.net, and have a twitter account (@CapnSpaceNerd, but have next to no followers) and a patreon and a youtube channel. Most of this only reaches people that already know about my game, or people that are developing their own games (who aren't really likely to want to play my game). To some extent, I'm happy that few people play my game, because that means just that many fewer complete assholes contacting me to tell me that my game sucks and inflict various other unpleasantness. If people do find my game and manage to be able to play it, it's because they *really* *really* want to. If I make it too easy to just try it out on a whim, I'm really not sure that's a good thing.
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby drummyfish » 07 Sep 2019, 21:54

I mean marketing is no art, it's the easiest thing on Earth if you have no moral constraints, so it's definitely not the case that devs don't know how to advertise, they're just sick of the idea.
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby SteveSmith » 09 Sep 2019, 13:11

I agree that there's loads of great open source stuff out there that no-one's heard off. I often browse Github/Bitbucket (that seems to be the easiest way to find it) and sometimes come across some real treasures, but it takes a while of wading through loads of half-finished rubbish.

FWIW, I "promote" all my open source stuff in a Blogger page. I don't think anyone reads it though: https://my-open-source-code.blogspot.co ... -page.html
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby fluffrabbit » 09 Sep 2019, 13:26

That blog URL has a bad case of dashitis.

Also, why not host your own blog on (non-Wordpress) FLOSS? I'm using Flatpress for my film blog, though it only allows a single account. Following that, I can vouch for the popular CMS software Drupal and Joomla. Don't bother with Grav; it can't sit on a LAMP stack properly.

As for games, I'm quietly working on porting Abuse to GLES2 and perhaps eventually mobile platforms (and I know how much you folks love those). The last original open source game I released was Sky Hammer, which I haven't touched in over a year since there is no clean upgrade path from Godot 2 to 3 and I'm all about C99 now so I can't be assed to work on it. There were other games before that, but I've put them out of my mind.
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby drummyfish » 09 Sep 2019, 14:18

SteveSmith {l Wrote}:I often browse Github/Bitbucket (that seems to be the easiest way to find it) and sometimes come across some real treasures


Try GitLab as well, people who prefer GL over GH are usually those who don't care about publicity and don't promote too much, I've found nice things there. Unfortunately it's not so easy to search GL, but you can do it here:

https://gitlab.com/explore/projects?sort=stars_desc

And use "filter by name" to look for games.
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby fluffrabbit » 09 Sep 2019, 14:24

[EDIT: deleted by moderator - charlie]

(Was something about gitlab and communism)
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby Jastiv » 10 Sep 2019, 14:20

When I think of major hosting sites, I think Github, Gitlab, Savannah, and Sourceforge.
I know there are others too, like Bitbucket, and Tuxfamily.
Hosting is not a great way to promote your game because hosting sites are filled with unfinished projects that don't compile and developers who have long since moved on. (If you maybe want to find a dead project to resurrect it sounds good though) Maybe we should make a new hosting site called the graveyard, where projects go to die.
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby fluffrabbit » 10 Sep 2019, 14:24

Maybe we should make a new hosting site called the graveyard, where projects go to die.

I think Julius started one, called the Pet Cemetary game shelter. Repo sites are alright for finding code, but if you want complete FLOSS games, LGW is the only reliable resource I have found.
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby Julius » 10 Sep 2019, 14:27

The proud pet cementary: https://git.freegamedev.net/Games-Shelter

Suggestions for additions welcome.
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby fluffrabbit » 10 Sep 2019, 14:31

fRaBs doesn't need to be in there anymore; I've adopted it. Maybe I'll bury it again soon though.
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby Julius » 10 Sep 2019, 16:01

Yeah, on my todo list to remove. Please don't bury it again :)
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby fluffrabbit » 10 Sep 2019, 16:42

I don't want to, but my private development branch is tied up in GLES2 code, and I had forgotten about glBegin, glEnd, and all that other antiquated NeHe crap. So it's on my list of projects that have been stalling for a few months as I desperately struggle for answers to the more challenging questions I tend to ask.
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby DrAltaica » 11 Sep 2019, 18:43

judymattson {l Wrote}: google code... happypenguin
Did you just step out of 2000?
Now on topic. My FOSS game is a serious sex ed game so most places don't allow it.
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby fluffrabbit » 11 Sep 2019, 19:04

What do you mean by "serious"?
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby dulsi » 11 Sep 2019, 21:53

fluffrabbit {l Wrote}:What do you mean by "serious"?

Serious game is a game designed for more than pure entertainment. Generally they try to teach you something.
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby fluffrabbit » 11 Sep 2019, 22:06

Yeah sure, but I want to know what it means in the context of a sex ed game. Is this a "fun" serious game?
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Re: People - promote your open source games

Postby DrAltaica » 12 Sep 2019, 16:42

fluffrabbit {l Wrote}:Yeah sure, but I want to know what it means in the context of a sex ed game. Is this a "fun" serious game?

Well it's has a textual interface and beats "don't rape people" over your head so I'm sure it's be right up there with Pornhub. :p

From what I know people like there porn to be popcorn flicks so turning sex into a cerebral puzzle is the opposite of titillation.

Thou people like games with Comme il Faut so maybe it will be fun as an overly complex dating sim.
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