Post by Kinda Good Games in Rate 4 Rate - Feedback exchange

Brackeys Game Jam 2023.1 » Community

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Everybody wants to get lots of feedback, pushing your game to other people does not take away awareness from other peoples games. If two people play the same game, one game doesn't get highlighted just because of their count of ratings. Neither does this happen during rate4rate, everybody gets equal chances on gaining ratings and feedback. So this argument does not make that much sense from my view. And yes everybodies time is limited, but game jams are mostly about having fun and learning. Just limiting yourself to games with low ratings, can be fun, but it's just not the whole experience. A lot about getting reviews is also about the appearance of your game. If you have a decent game with webgl build and a nice thumbnail, it's probaly enough to get 20+ ratings in the first 3 or so days. I see a lot of people that just don't put effort into their appearance of the game. It's just another part of game development, if your game's appearance isn't good people won't be intrested and won't play your game. And not playing other people's game just makes it worse for you. This is something too that the developers should learn. Pushing your game is just a part of a jam, just like in the real world. Of course there will be someone that finds your game and maybe play it, but it's also a lot up to you, wether you are dedicated enough to try and show other people your game. But of course there are always exceptions, but this is my estimate on the general jam community. People that play more games and try to advertise for their game usually tend to be the ones getting more ratings. If you help others more and try to advertise your game, you usually end up getting more reviews. The more work the better the result. Playing other peoples game is also a passive way of getting ratings.

I agree that helping others can improve your own skills too, especially when explaining topics, but it's in my opinion important too that you actually gain something too, especially in jams. Jams are a lot about lifting each other up, if the other person isn't willing to return the favor, it's probaly time to choose another person.

JK50002 years ago

Game jams is NOT about ME it about US. The idea that you can just play, rate and give feedback other people games was once right, but can clearly see that this not happening very much any more. The main issue here is 'Rate for rate'-posts and other self promotions has taken way too much of the attention. It shall not be a talk about me, but I have now played, rated and given feedback to 87 games and I have gotten 14 ratings. I have played games with a few ratings, but also games with a lot of ratings. Anyway it should never matter, it should be possible to get at least 20 ratings to nearly all games, and when that happens we can open for the self promotion.

Sadly has the issue grown a lot, and now it's become more and more a competition where we have to be begging for attention. This was much less of an issue just a could of years ago. I can as an example say that the first game jam I took part of, I got about 150 ratings without having to do any self promotion, now you have to fight to get just 10 ratings.

So like I have already said, use the promotion to make everybody better game jammers, and in the end it will not just give other people more ratings and feedback, but it will also help you. And then the game jams will be for YOU and ME.

Kinda Good Games2 years ago(+1)

Yea that a good message. The biggest issue today is probaly people being afraid of .exe files, I saw that you didn't have a WebGL build. People are just way more afraid to play dowloadables. Also there are way less people in this jam than it used to be and it isn't like the corona time, so way less people have time. It's just sadly how it is. And also usually jams with lower development time probaly have more ratings, since the games are shorter, while in a 7d jam the games are more complex. Yes it is important that jams are not only about you, but it is like not really possible imo that everyone gets ratings without promotion in a long jam. People that put effort into this should be rewarded, but everyone should atleast get enough feedback to learn, but that's just sadly not possible.

JK50002 years ago

My first game jam was about 8 year ago and it had nothing to do with corona, and it was by the way a .exe file, and yes WEB builds was also normal then. There is more then time enough if everybody understand that they have to do more. In my eyes is self promotion just a bad excuse to get all the attention. And when we give a little or no attention to most of the games, then the interest in doing anything will of cause disappear, so you could help you self by making them interested in being more a part of the game jam. And then will your self promotion not be necessary.

I know you don't like I am saying it, but it is about creating a culture where everyone (or at least most people) take more part of the game jam. And self promotion do not help here.

Kinda Good Games2 years ago(+1)

Okay, that's a pretty unique take on solving this issue, I tbh never heard anyone saying this before. I started game development way past this time that you were describing, how many people were participating in that jam, if I may ask?

Saying that we should recreate this type of culture is easy, but hard to fullfil, a lot of stuff has changed since then and also the motivation and standards have changed. How would you even do something like that, I'm quite curious how you would do that. But from the current view this just doesn't seem time worthy or doable. How are you even supposed to reach out to everyone and what exactly do you propose to do? And is it even timely possible. That's just not possible from my current view

JK50002 years ago

It's not a very unique take, but the self promoters do just yells very loudly.

There is many ways of doing this, and here is just some ideas.

1) Remove all self promotion from the Community page. Especially in the first week of the jam. The same should happen to all peoples that just write 'good game' to all or nearly games.

2) Use the Community page to make a positive and constructive Community, by telling what a jam is and how you are suppose to behave when you are part of a game jam. And use the Community page to;

Bring focus to games that need ratings and feedback.
Tell people how they can write better feedback. Tell them that good feedback is not about self promoting, and tell them that feedback is both to tell what is good, but also bad about the games.
Tell them that 'rating for ratings' is something we just have to do, and it's not something we need to ask for.

3) There should also be a video introducing how we should take part of the game jam. Here it's important that there should be more focus on the community part, then on the game making part. Of cause it should also have a focus on the game development.

4) I would love to see a price given to people fighting for making game jam communities better.

5) Streamers/youtubers that will focus on playing, rating and giving feedback to games that really needs it, could also help. They can also put focus on what we expect from game jammers.

6) I know when a jam starts here on Itch, it's possible to write a email around to everybody that tells things about the jam. Here you can write again what we expect you to do, when your are taking part of a game jam.

7) It's also possible to remined people, when you are given feedback, that they are expected to do the same thing. And I here don't say that you should self promote, but you should tell them to play, rate and give feedback to games that needs it.

8) When we first begin to have a better community, there is high chance that we begin to remind each other how we are suppose to behave. This is the culture I am taking about.

There could be done a lot more things, but the goal should be to make games jams better for everyone and not just for the self promoters. In the end it would create a even more active and better community, that is not just about ME but about US.

I strongly believe it would make game jams more fun for you, and it would make it more fun for everyone else. Self promotion at best helps you, but it does not help the community.

Kinda Good Games2 years ago

1) this is just extra unessicary work for the mods and and admins

2) This is already done in the discord a bit, feedback is usually not about selfpromoting, so idk why this should be relevant. R4R is still relevant, as you cannot force somebody to rate somebody elses game. This just wont work.

3) This is going to be way too much extra work, considering that brackeys quit yt. And not everybody will watch that video, since a lot of people are way to excited to play the games or to start developing.

4) Then people only would care about that and completely forget to rate and play games and besides that, how are you even gonna determine a winner in something like this? And what should the prise be, considering that brackeys nor the staff generate revenue using this jam.

5) Everybody needs feedback kind of, since live feedback is different than just a plain comment, there is no way of determine such a thing. Also how are you going to make the streamers do something like this?

6) This already exists and not everybody checks their emails frequently

7) this is just extra work, not everybody is willing to do that, this would have to be some sort of pop up from itch and I doubt that they would do that.

8) you are literally reminding other people constantly what they are supposed to do, so it's not really about how good the community is, but rather that you tell people the whole time what to do.

Again, just like in real life, if you work harder you get better rewarded. This would demotivate people too since, "why should i play and rate games, if person b gets the same result as me, or even better without even playing games". If you are going for a solution where everyone gets the same treatment, the jam can get demotivating, since you don't get rewarded for your work. As I've mentioned before, promoting your game is as important in jams as in real life, you can't expect to make the next big hit without even telling people about the game, how are they supposed to know about it. Your ideas sound good on the surface, but I personally think it's way more complicated.

JK50002 years ago

A lot of bad excuses for doing noting.

Kinda Good Games2 years ago

Just saying, it may cause jams to be more problematic, if you want to change something major, you have to make sure you aren't making it worse

JK50002 years ago (1 edit)

It will become much better.

JK50002 years ago

I do get it. You want all to keep the self promoting, because you think it's natural and a good thing. I think it bad for game jams, and we loose a lot what game jam should be.

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