Showing Very Early Demos?

[Nexic]

I'm roughly half way through my current project, with almost all of the core gameplay done. I'd like to hear from some people who run portals or large affiliate sites, as to whether they would rather see the game in an early stage to give feedback, or whether they'd rather wait to see the finished thing incase I might be wasting their time? There also seems to be the risk that if the early version isn't good enough they may not even look at a the finished product.

I'm mainly talking about portals and sites I've already got games with, so I'm not a total nobody, but I'm not making them megabucks at the moment either.

I'm also interested in what other people think, would you prefer to get early feedback, or would you rather wait until it's finished? What possible reasons can you think of (other than what I've mentioned) which I should consider?

[bentlegen]

Well, I've been aching to show people on these boards my project, but I've been afraid that some company working for RealArcade will swoop down, steal my idea, and finish the game before I can.

Is that something worth worrying over? (Sorry to answer your question with a question!)

[Coyote]

The long and short of it:

No.

They don't have time to look at unfinished games. They don't have time to act as your focus group / testers. Blow their socks off with your finished game that just seers their brain.

If you think you need someone else's approval before deciding whether or not to finish your game, quit now. Archive up the project until you know how to make it rock. As a designer once told a lecture room at GDC (back when it was still called CGDC, and was more about game developers than game industrialists), "If you aren't having fun making your game, how do you expect your audience to have fun playing it."

[cliffski]

I disagree. feel free to show people your game. let them know this is beta 0.9 or whatever. You might be sat there thinking 'i need to increase the number of maps before i release this' and all your potential customers might be thinking 'screw more maps, it needs better sound effects'.
As long as you make it clear its unfinished, I think its worth asking for feedback. getting 100 peoples first fresh impressions of your gme is noly going to help make it better.
And if its a space shooter lemme see!

[Battleline]

If you think you need someone else's approval before deciding whether or not to finish your game, quit now. Archive up the project until you know how to make it rock.

I've been showing people on these forums my unfinished game for a few months now. Not because I'm looking for anyone's approval to finish it, but because I think it's good to get feedback. I've had dozens of excellent suggestions on how to improve my game from people in forums like indiegamer (most of the suggestion I still need to implement... but that's another story). I personally think it's really good to show people what you have, and listen to their ideas.

I don't think anyone is reading these forums looking to poach ideas... but maybe that's just naive, this is the first game I've created for more than just myself and a few friends.

[Coyote]

Well, I've been aching to show people on these boards my project, but I've been afraid that some company working for RealArcade will swoop down, steal my idea, and finish the game before I can.
I read a great quote the other day:

"Don't be afraid of people stealing your idea. If it's original, you'll have to ram it down their throats."

If you are such a humongously big name in gaming that you'll generate over 100,000 sales just because your name or your company's name is attached to it, then you will need to worry about legions of pathetic losers who will try and create early clones with similar packaging to try and dupe the market into buying their knock-off.

If your idea is truly novel and original - well, like the quote says, most people will crap all over it and call you an idiot or simply ignore you altogether until you prove them wrong, and then they'll be scrambling to copy you after-the-fact.

If I were to create a detailed description of a game in 5000 words, and give it to 10 different game developers who I somehow conned into building the game for me - and left it at that, what would happen is this: I'd have 10 completely different games upon completion, bearing only the faintest resemblance to each other. (Assuming all the developers actually COMPLETED the project, which is a huge assumption).

Quite frankly, every developer on this board probably has dozens of their OWN ideas they'd rather work on than my crappy game idea.

It's all in the execution, baby.

Paranoia over people stealing your ideas is a sign of a n00b.


P.S. No I'm not gonna tell you what I'm working on now, because I'm afraid you'll steal my idea... ;)

[Nexic]

If you think you need someone else's approval before deciding whether or not to finish your game, quit now. Archive up the project until you know how to make it rock. As a designer once told a lecture room at GDC (back when it was still called CGDC, and was more about game developers than game industrialists), "If you aren't having fun making your game, how do you expect your audience to have fun playing it."

I'm not asking for approval, I just realise the value of good critisism. Even if everyone in the industry said it was doomed to failure I'd still finish it. I am having fun making it, and I have fun playing. But my year and a half experience has told me that people telling you what is bad about your game will help a lot.

@Cliffski: I'll send you a copy this time next week. Oh and P.S, make Democracy work on one of my win98 machines! I've been dying to try it but it won't have it.

[bentlegen]

It's all in the execution, baby. Paranoia over people stealing your ideas is a sign of a n00b.
I suppose you're right though. People don't go to the effort of mimicking a game idea or style unless it's already a proven success, i.e. Zuma / Zzed / Luxor / Beetle Bomp / and so on.

Still, when it's all said and done, you didn't have to call me a newb :(

[cliffski]

Arrgh. Win98 is my bane, although I might have fixed that issue in version 1.0.1 (current). How come you use such an awful O/S? :eek:

[Spaceman Spiff]

The question to me is who are you showing the demo to and why?

If you are looking for feedback to improve the game [design] before it is finished, then the portals are probably the wrong people to solicit feedback from as that's not the business they are in. Since they are in the business of selling and promoting games, then they will probably see evaluating, critiquing, and providing useful feedback on a partially implemented game as something that takes away from what they do to bring in the bacon, while not providing any certainty that the game will even be completed, or be a product that will want to carry.

I understand that what you hoping to do is to get the portals to tell you what would make your game more attractive to them and of course for it to sell better.

But I don't think they could give you any better feedback that what you can get elsewhere beyond the obvious stuff (don't make the download too big, have a clean easy-to-use UI, don't require reading the manual first, don't require a Geforce 6800 BFG, etc)

For game design feedback, especially of an unfinished game, cultivate a few like-minded (and trustworthy) friends / developers. For game testing use the same until it nears completion when you might need a larger number of people banging on it.

And remember this: in all cases, 90+% of the feedback you get will be junk. That's the percentage used by teams making AAA games for the feedback they get from their internal test teams. Don't think it gets any better on our level.

Finally, don't be afraid of making a game for the portals without having them tell you exactly what to do. Part of your job is to show them a game that they haven't seen before; A game with polish and play that is up to their standards. If you’re not sure what level that is, do some industry intelligence --- download the games they currently have, play them and pick them over with a critical eye. You should think to yourself that you could do [much] better (I know I think that). And if you don’t think can do it, maybe you shouldn’t.

[Coyote]

Well, the original contention (at least how I read it) was about showing it to portals & affiliate sites early. If you are close friends with someone there - then sure, go for it. But it would be more in the capacity of a friendly eye that knows a bit about games than as a portal.