BYOND looking for good developers

[Byondo]

Greetings!

BYOND ("Build Your Own Net Dream") has been around for 10+ years and I'm sure many of you have heard of it, so I'll be brief. Basically, it's a free tool to easily write and play multi-player/networked games. The language is fairly comprehensive, but it does handle things like the networking and graphics implicitly. As with all game-engines, BYOND has limitations, and I think that "serious" developers prematurely shy-away from the tool because of these. However, I do try to encourage people to start small with their games and complete a goal rather than dream up the next big thing (which almost always ends up being tossed in frustration). The primary advantages of BYOND (for developers) are thus:
1) Ease of development-- get a game prototyped and working fairly quickly, then refine from there.
2) Not a toy-- the language is syntactically similar to most standard programming languages and thus makes an excellent gateway to later programming endeavors.
3) Built-in community so that you immediately have players for your game, along with other advantages (and disadvantages-- some of the users suck!)

I am posting here because we seriously need an influx of good developers, gamers, and games. Our community is rather large but unfortunately somewhat immature and not all that forward-thinking.

As of the latest 4.0 release, BYOND is capable of making pretty clean games where the developer has full control over the interface elements, but few have taken advantage. I'm particularly interested in strategy & casual game ports-- there are so many good board & card games that don't have an online equivalent and I think we could fill a niche there. If any of you are interested in this sort of thing, please give us a try!

Thanks!

Tom Hehre
Founder, BYOND.com
http://www.byond.com

[SteveZ]

Greetings!

BYOND ("Build Your Own Net Dream") has been around for 10+ years and I'm sure many of you have heard of it, so I'll be brief.

Nope, never heard of it.

-Steve Z.

[GameGlyph]

I have heard of and used BYOND a bit a few years ago. I liked the community and there was more than enough room to gain an audience. My main concern then, and my main concern now is the financial aspect of things. I would definitely make a BYOND game if the large community could be monetized. I do remember a BYOND currency existing, but it seems this functionality has been removed? Are there any plans to reinstate something that could possibly replace this?

[Byondo]

I guess our ad-campaign sucks then :)

[Byondo]

I have heard of and used BYOND a bit a few years ago. I liked the community and there was more than enough room to gain an audience. My main concern then, and my main concern now is the financial aspect of things. I would definitely make a BYOND game if the large community could be monetized. I do remember a BYOND currency existing, but it seems this functionality has been removed? Are there any plans to reinstate something that could possibly replace this?

Hi Mike,

We eliminated the currency because the microtransactions were just a hassle. However, we have recently reintroduced the ability for developers to do "pay-per" subscriptions to their games, where we handle the payment processing and keep track of your subscribers (we charge a small fee for this that is waived in certain cases). You are also more than welcome to simply charge for games yourself and manually update your subscriber list. We've tried to make things straightforward for developers to restrict downloads or game features as needed.

I'll update the docs for this at some point, but please do revisit the site and let us know if you have any questions. We really do try to cater to the developer.

[GameGlyph]

Actually, I just noticed a reference to subscription support on one page, so it seems you can make money off BYOND games. Byondo, perhaps providing any success stories, or maybe a focus on the fact that BYOND games can be monetized might help draw some developers? Also, is the BYOND community even that into paying for subscriptions? With the amount of free games, I can see how it would be easier for users to pass up a game requiring a subscription.

[Byondo]

The main problem we have is that, although our community is fairly large (~50K active), it is comprised mostly of Anime fans, because we happened to be one of the first programs to satisfy that niche (generic RPGs based on Anime series). Like I said, I actually feel that BYOND is more suited to produce casual and strategy games but it has been difficult to encroach upon that market in large part because of our existing audience.

Users have been able to monetize somewhat (not huge amounts-- on the order of thousands of dollars for our top users), but that has been through appealing to the existing audience which has probably become saturated with this same sort of game. I think that the key to success is through new, original games-- there's no reason someone can't produce the next Tetris on BYOND (or any other platform-- BYOND just makes it a little easier).

[Nexic]

I made a few BYOND games before. But as you said, your community is just too full of kids looking for the next generic DBZ/Naruto game. The value for a developer isn't in the community but the tools (which are very good btw).

I haven't tried BYOND 4 but back in BYOND 3 I had to write my own custom client in Flash (with a complicated C++ relay daemon so flash could understand BYOND's output) to give my game what I felt was a professional quality interface. IE, the standard BYOND client and community doesn't look very professional, which damages any financial potential for a BYOND game.

My honest suggestion is to make a 'pro' version of BYOND that developers have to pay for ($500?). It gives them a special version of the client, which is highly customizable, that they can redistribute and it would have no link to the core BYOND community at all. Nobody would know what a BYOND Pro game was made with.

If you could do that I would be one of your first customers.

[Byondo]

My honest suggestion is to make a 'pro' version of BYOND that developers have to pay for ($500?). It gives them a special version of the client, which is highly customizable, that they can redistribute and it would have no link to the core BYOND community at all. Nobody would know what a BYOND Pro game was made with.

Well, the good news is that BYOND 4.0 is essentially this "pro" version, as far as the customizable client goes. And we've recently added features to make games more transparent as far as the community goes (at least for single-player games). The user still needs to have BYOND installed to play, but they don't need an account and they don't need to associate with the community. In practice it may not work this way.

I do think that serious indie developers will probably feel limited by BYOND-- and I'm not going to try to BS and make it sound like we are the perfect match for everyone. At the same time, I hope some of you guys try it out because at the very least it is a useful tool to get game ideas "out there", since one of the biggest problems among indie developers these days is giving up before even really starting, due to overly-ambitious projects. Like many of you, I grew up in the 8-bit days and know that a great game comes more from a great concept than a fancy UI or graphics... and BYOND is the product of that idea.