The economics of Spring mod users - Page 2

The economics of Spring mod users

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Gota
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Re: The economics of Spring mod users

Post by Gota »

Regret wrote:BA is god
:roll:
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AF
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Re: The economics of Spring mod users

Post by AF »

Have you read this thread? Did you know I actually wrote a lobby client? BA has a user base, but it is spectacularly failing to attract more users to it.

People are ignorant of this and instead of complaining BA needs more players, they say spring as a whole needs more players. In 4 years BA and its predecessors have only increased by the player pool maxima by 100-150. This is an apalling rating. If even mediocre basic marketing of an installer and website and banners was put out, we could easily be past the 1000 BA players point by now
Regret
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Re: The economics of Spring mod users

Post by Regret »

AF wrote:Have you read this thread? Did you know I actually wrote a lobby client? BA has a user base, but it is spectacularly failing to attract more users to it.

People are ignorant of this and instead of complaining BA needs more players, they say spring as a whole needs more players. In 4 years BA and its predecessors have only increased by the player pool maxima by 100-150. This is an apalling rating. If even mediocre basic marketing of an installer and website and banners was put out, we could easily be past the 1000 BA players point by now
You didn't answer either question.

PS: I helped you test said client.
tombom
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Re: The economics of Spring mod users

Post by tombom »

AF wrote: Regardless of what the non BA mods are doing, BA itself is failing to attract players itself, and suffers greatly.
Lie. I know for a fact "TA clone!"/"Free game BA" regularly attracts people. Is there a lack of advertising? Certainly. That doesn't mean it "fails to attract players"
As for mass marketability, the mere presence of content such as BA CA or their forks, is a huge NOGO sign to filesites and listings. Most places outright refuse to advertise spring before they hear a word because of this.
Any evidence?
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Argh
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Re: The economics of Spring mod users

Post by Argh »

Well, if we're going to talk about economics, let's talk about it.

1. The Spring system was never designed for multiple games. It was designed around XTA and maybe SWTA.

This stuff about "multi-game aggregators" is a bunch of fairy-dust, not a serious analysis of the key differences between such things and how Spring works.

Commercial developers know that matching up people who own a particular game with like-minded folks is great... but they would never, EVER show them some other game that dominates their backbone. Just the games that player owns. Which is a very big difference.

2. In terms of online play, it's a zero-sum game for the indie designers, because of the core design flaw pointed out in point 1. Period.

3. Most people who play RTS games do so offline. Not online. Go check the research if you think I'm wrong, but it's true, you will find. IIRC, Gamasutra has a bit about it, and there are various papers available elsewhere.

4. There is no equal benefit to the current system.

People like the OP want to say, "rah rah, we're all in this together"... but the fact is, we aren't, and if you embrace that illusion and pour time into a game's development under the current system, you're probably a hobbyist with apparently unlimited free time.

Nothing wrong with that, but let's be real. Not everybody wants to play under those rules. I'm just the first to recognize this, and do something about it.

If you wanted the short version, there you go. The rest of it's details and analysis of the situation's causes and possible solutions.
****************************************************

Let's look at a system with equal benefits, and compare it with the current system, for the sake of argument. This is all theoretical, of course. Not my policy or even a serious plan.



That said... let's pretend. Let's say that Spring was sold as a package with every indie game without IP problems for $10 a copy. Complete installer, single-player gameplay for each game, full multiplayer and decent polish.

Just $10- a fair, Open Source price for a lot of Fun in a Box.

Now... let's say that, of the 65,000 people who come to the Front Page every month, one 1/10th of them bought it. The other 9/10ths just downloaded BA and stayed in the current system.

That's $65,000 per month. Not a fortune, by AAA standards, but certainly enough to be a Really Serious Thing.

Let's say that all indie developers and the engine devs (through a foundation grant of some kind, due to the ownership of the GPL source) got an equal cut of that pie, no matter whose game was selling the copies- maybe they bought it for KP, maybe for P.U.R.E., or THIS or... you get it.

There you go. That's a system with real equal benefit for all players. It's put in economic terms, but it doesn't have to be- that's just to make it simple to understand.

Everybody's in it together, and everybody wins (so long as whoever serves as central publisher does their job, of course).

In such a scenario, there's nothing to fight about, and everybody on the dev side, whether engine or game... would want to help everybody.

You don't fight over players, you don't fight over IP (between projects), you share code and help other projects out, because it makes you money.

Simple economics at work, really.

Human nature being what it is, the way that incentives are designed is very important. A system that has incentives to do bad things will produce bad behaviors. Not that there's a utopian solution, of course- people will do bad things in any system. But they'll do less bad things, and the bad things they do will tend to get dealt with earlier, if the community's incentives are properly structured.

This mock proposal is cool and I like it as a sample argument about incentives, because even though I'm a Capitalist at heart, it's essentially guiltless, coercion-less Communism.

And it doesn't require any change in the way that Engine development works, screw players who just want BA... or require some central power having authority, other than some reasonable QA to keep the games on offer fresh and innovative (i.e., a Producer somewhere), and some sort of voting system whereby the current participants decide to let a new project into the collective.



The current system is designed almost completely the opposite. It was designed to make people want to cut each others' throats, frankly, and it's no surprise that the number of active participants on the game-development side here has mainly shrunk over the last couple of years... even though the engine is vastly more powerful and cool.

When the software's better than it's ever been... when there are Open Source tools available that are better than ever... when all of that is working, but the community is dysfunctional and mainly unhappily partisan, and people can't even post about what they're doing without flames and trolling behavior, which isn't moderated because even the moderation staff is involved in the intrigue...

My analysis says that it's a fundamental design flaw. That the system is basically social engineering that's not working.

I assume that everybody doing dirt unto each other means well, for the most part. It's just that they're fighting over resources, because they have no choice. They may not see it that way- they may think it's mainly personality-clash stuff... but frankly I think that it's really that there are so few incentives to be nice and get along and cooperate. That so much of it happens anyhow... says to me that the dream remains very strong, even if the reality is different. And that most of that sharing is in the space where the least time is invested, and the incentives towards collective good are highest- i.e., Widget design- is where the most sharing occurs... is not an accident or a collection of exceptionally sharing-minded people.

Now, do I think that Spring can adopt this model, or other models of equal benefit? Do I think that things can be reformed? Yes.

Do I believe that it'll ever happen here, with this community being as polarized as it has become? No, I don't. Sadly, that's my conclusion. I think that there's just too much ancient hate around here, frankly.

Therefore it's up to people to leave the box, if they recognize the truth, and try new models of social development, where the benefits aren't stacked so poorly.

Do I have some Master Plan that will guarantee my success? No.

I just have a little indie game that's selling all right, and may stop selling tomorrow, for all I know. Maybe somebody else will come up with the Twitter solution for these things, and I'll just be a bit player. Who knows.

But I am, as usual, an optimist. I think that, in the long run, it'll work, if not here and not under the current methods, and I welcome anybody who wants to try something new, when I have a better idea of how to make it happen. If others have ideas, I'd welcome further discussion. If there are flaws in my analysis, feel free to pick at it if you'd like.

But frankly I think that I see the truth here, even if there minor holes in the argument. It's not a truth that I expect will be welcomed by all.

But it's still the truth, and we should face it and deal with it. Spring as a free-for-all, everybody-with-everybody system has mainly been a success for the engine developers polishing their CVs, but hasn't made them money, and is counter-productive to the game developers, because it creates the wrong incentives entirely. Where we should all be together, and pulling together, the system is designed to cleave us apart, and it has.

Time for a better system, imo. I can't build it here, but there's nothing stopping me from doing it outside this place's politics, and there is no reason why people shouldn't explore other alternatives. There are probably other good solutions, after all. But pretending things aren't broken is denying yourselves the truth, tbh.
Regret
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Re: The economics of Spring mod users

Post by Regret »

Argh wrote:1. The Spring system was never designed for multiple games. It was designed around XTA and maybe SWTA.
If you start your wall of text with a false statement such as this don't expect people to read what you have to say.
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Argh
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Re: The economics of Spring mod users

Post by Argh »

Go look at the history, kid. That's how it all started. That's what the Server, which has remained pretty much unchanged, was developed for.

The Lobbies are a lot different, yes. But the Server's been the same, other than bug-fixes, for ages. I honestly don't think SJ and his crew ever imagined where we'd be these days, and their design choices in that area haven't ever been addressed (other than the UberServer, which remains vaporware).
Last edited by Argh on 31 May 2009, 02:31, edited 1 time in total.
Regret
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Re: The economics of Spring mod users

Post by Regret »

Argh wrote:Go look at the history, kid. That's how it all started. That's what the Server, which has remained pretty much unchanged, was developed for.

The Lobbies are a lot different, yes. But the Server's been the same, other than bug-fixes, for ages.
You said Spring, which is an RTS engine designed for developing of games. Kid.
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Argh
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Re: The economics of Spring mod users

Post by Argh »

Spring is a system.

It's not just the engine- it's the rest of the executables as well. Looking at it in that context- that there is no "Spring" without its myriad support apparatus... is vital.

Anyhow, I'm sorry, but this isn't something where picking at semantics is helpful. You're not a game developer anyhow, so none of this really has any bearing on you. I'm not proposing any policy changes here, anyhow- I'm just presenting my analysis of where things stand, and why I think that it was inevitable.
Regret
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Re: The economics of Spring mod users

Post by Regret »

Argh wrote:Spring is a system.

It's not just the engine- it's the rest of the executables as well. Looking at it in that context- that there is no "Spring" without its myriad support apparatus... is vital.

Anyhow, I'm sorry, but this isn't something where picking at semantics is helpful. You're not a game developer anyhow, so none of this really has any bearing on you.
There is no Spring system, there is Spring engine.
Lobbies, server applications and other apps are not Spring engine.

Also, I am not a game developer? Oh wait, since you are working on a commercial project, you have attained the ability to see what others do in their spare time.

EDIT: http://springrts.com/wiki/About
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Argh
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Re: The economics of Spring mod users

Post by Argh »

There is no Spring system, there is Spring engine.
Lobbies, server applications and other apps are not Spring engine.
I really, really doubt that there is a single, serious person who takes that proposition seriously :roll:

Anyhow... let's say that the current system really was designed for 30-40 mods / games. Let's say I'm entirely wrong, and I wasn't around when most of those decisions were made.

I'd still be saying that it's a very badly-designed system.
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jK
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Re: The economics of Spring mod users

Post by jK »

At the latest since the switch to git engine developers don't have any access to those 2nd & 3th party programs, so yes there is just the Spring engine! (and even in the past those subprojects didn't always followed the way of the engine devs)
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Argh
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Re: The economics of Spring mod users

Post by Argh »

I did not say you controlled them. But their projects would cease to exist without yours... and vice versa.
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AF
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Re: The economics of Spring mod users

Post by AF »

I was hoping youd remember regret

My point is, that there are 100-400 players on at any time. This is not what it should be like in 2009 after 4 years of opportunity. Wether it's because BA doesnt attract enough players to get a 1000 strong playerbase regularly, or ebcause its abysmal at holding onto players, which is quite an insult to BA.

Regardless of the contents of the BA sdz, there's no reason why it shouldn't be capable of drawing in regular 1k+ playerbases at peaktimes on a daily basis if it was handled correctly. The same was true of AA and all the other mods, but BA is the one that stands out as the elephant in the room. BA is not successful, it just happens to dominate spring, thats all.

BA is like a fat bird that won't leave the nest. Its not that it won't fly away and catch its own food, it wont even reach out for food right next to the nest within reach
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lurker
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Re: The economics of Spring mod users

Post by lurker »

Argh wrote:vice versa.
When there could be a barebones replacement in a week?
Argh wrote:1. The Spring system was never designed for multiple games. It was designed around XTA and maybe SWTA.

This stuff about "multi-game aggregators" is a bunch of fairy-dust, not a serious analysis of the key differences between such things and how Spring works.

Commercial developers know that matching up people who own a particular game with like-minded folks is great... but they would never, EVER show them some other game that dominates their backbone. Just the games that player owns. Which is a very big difference.

2. In terms of online play, it's a zero-sum game for the indie designers, because of the core design flaw pointed out in point 1. Period.
Point 1 about new players, point 2 extends that into zero-sum? That doesn't add up.

Argh wrote:3. Most people who play RTS games do so offline. Not online. Go check the research if you think I'm wrong, but it's true, you will find. IIRC, Gamasutra has a bit about it, and there are various papers available elsewhere.
So what? We want more lobby players and are largely ambivalent about offline ones.
Argh wrote:In such a scenario, there's nothing to fight about, and everybody on the dev side, whether engine or game... would want to help everybody.

You don't fight over players, you don't fight over IP (between projects), you share code and help other projects out, because it makes you money.

Simple economics at work, really.
Feel free to give me money, but I'm here to make something fun and see it used. If you give me enough money to disregard that, okay, but now it's a job and it doesn't have the same kinds of effort.
Argh wrote:The current system is designed almost completely the opposite. It was designed to make people want to cut each others' throats, frankly, and it's no surprise that the number of active participants on the game-development side here has mainly shrunk over the last couple of years... even though the engine is vastly more powerful and cool.

When the software's better than it's ever been... when there are Open Source tools available that are better than ever... when all of that is working, but the community is dysfunctional and mainly unhappily partisan, and people can't even post about what they're doing without flames and trolling behavior, which isn't moderated because even the moderation staff is involved in the intrigue...

My analysis says that it's a fundamental design flaw. That the system is basically social engineering that's not working.
What aspects cause that, and what do you think should be done about it? Giving people some money doesn't change this a lot, and causes other bitter issues.
Argh wrote:Do I believe that it'll ever happen here, with this community being as polarized as it has become? No, I don't. Sadly, that's my conclusion. I think that there's just too much ancient hate around here, frankly.
Polarized how?
Argh wrote:Therefore it's up to people to leave the box, if they recognize the truth, and try new models of social development, where the benefits aren't stacked so poorly.
What benefits?
Argh wrote:But it's still the truth, and we should face it and deal with it. Spring as a free-for-all, everybody-with-everybody system has mainly been a success for the engine developers polishing their CVs, but hasn't made them money, and is counter-productive to the game developers, because it creates the wrong incentives entirely. Where we should all be together, and pulling together, the system is designed to cleave us apart, and it has.
Counter-productive in the sense of competing, but you haven't said anything that lessens that much.
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Pxtl
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Re: The economics of Spring mod users

Post by Pxtl »

@AF "or ebcause its abysmal at holding onto players, which is quite an insult to BA."

I'll make that insult: BA is terrible at retaining new players. I came into BA having played AA on the old TA engine, so I never had to experience BA as carte blanche... but I doubt most that do can take it. BA as it is right now is an unforgivingly difficult game to get into. This would almost be excusable if there was an extensive single-player campaign that walked you through the economy, the various hidden gameplay aspects of the units, etc. But as a stand-alone multiplayer game, it is incredibly user-unfriendly.

Imagine if you're a new player. The first game you get jeffy'd into oblivion. Next you decide to try a big teamgame on DSD... and find yourself comnapped by Regret. So the next game you decide to start air, and become totally useless for the whole game. People tell you to spec, but you're here to _play_.

You start playing teamgames porcing in the back, and then flounder trying to figure out this exponential economy that the hardcores know like the back of their hands. Some other guy rapes you with a fleet of krows just as you get your L2 fac up, and you have no idea how - he was actually fighting, while you were doing nothing but porc.

And so it goes. Even when you finally figure out the basic "spam smaller vehicles, then larger vehicles" you get raped by simply failing to juggle economic expansion and aggression.

At some point, you act like a zookeeper talking to the last living male Panda Bear and just say "fuck that."*

* Joke stolen from Zero Punctuation
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smoth
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Re: The economics of Spring mod users

Post by smoth »

some of us work for more than money argh, I guess for YOU that is the concern. I have always been the starving artist type except oh wait I picked a career that could fund my art!

Not all of us want to make money on something we make. Some of us want to be above dirty things like that.
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Argh
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Re: The economics of Spring mod users

Post by Argh »

Um... the money part's just a demonstration of incentives, man.

Let's say that it's about the number of players, or hours logged per month- it doesn't matter what the metric is, there are ways to measure success.

Most here measure it in terms of online hours played. I think that's a mistaken metric, myself.

Really, the key metric, for the engine developers, should be successful games made with the engine. Successful can mean lots of downloads for free things, or sales for commercial things- it doesn't really matter.

So long as it's "players on the Official Server" that's used to determine success, you'll see very little progress, imo.
Last edited by Argh on 31 May 2009, 04:19, edited 1 time in total.
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smoth
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Re: The economics of Spring mod users

Post by smoth »

WHY?!?! I don't understand, what happened to doing things untainted by materialism?
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Argh
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Re: The economics of Spring mod users

Post by Argh »

You're not after a material reward, in the sense of money or cars or whatever, but you can't pretend that there isn't a metric there that matters.

Otherwise, you wouldn't even release it at all. After all, if the work's the sole reward...

Meh. Sorry, but I can't take that one seriously. I'm 100% ok with the "I do this for free because I want to" argument... but meh, everybody wants their work to be enjoyed, if possible.
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