Ethics of announcements/releases

[Memfis]

Is it okay for me to make a big project announcement/release thread if someone already announced/released a notable megawad today? Or should I be nice and wait a while so that they can have all the attention? If so, how long does that "while" need to be? Does this stuff matter at all?

Edited July 10, 2018 by Memfis

[Not Jabba]

There's always a lot of cool stuff going on in this community, and I don't think it's worth worrying about too much.

 

I'd say it's not an ethical concern at all -- there's plenty of room for all of us here. For purely pragmatic reasons, it could be worth mapper A waiting a couple of days after mapper B's stellar release for the benefit of both mappers getting sufficient attention, but on the other hand, i'm not convinced it works that way. Chains of exciting releases in close succession seem to get people even more excited, if anything.

[Deadwing]

I was planning to release Moonblood X in the next few weeks, but due to so many new big things released in the last few days (Struggle, REKKR, Bloodline, Baculus, Golden Souls 2, Diabolus EX, etc), I wonder if I should wait a bit more?

[Pure Hellspawn]

Well you technically just announced it in this thread...

 

congrats on on the release! Looking forward to it!

[Dragonfly]

I'm with not Jabba on this one, if you have something you want to show, just do it! :)

 

I wonder if my thread caused this thread to happen, or if you have a project you do indeed want to show off? I personally hope you have some content,  that would be awesome. 

[FrancisT218]

I think you should just release your project (or put it in public beta/RC) whenever you honestly feel it is ready for a release, regardless of its timing relative to other releases.

[boris]

Do it like the gaming industry starts doing: make an announcement that you'll make an announcement on date X. That way everybody else can plan accordingly!

[Pegleg]

I tend to agree. Assuming both projects are legitimate, they'll both probably generate enough buzz. One may outshine the other for some reason, but in the long run, it will probably not be enough to justify waiting a day or two or three.

 

When you're ready to release your project, just release it.

[The_SloVinator]

I have another question while we are discussing this topic.

 

Should we announce project after we finish it or in the middle of creating it?

Here's what I was thinking. If I announce a project during the development, it might be risky cuz anything can happen to stop the development on its tracks BUT it will get more people interested in it or even hyped.

 

However, if I announce it after the project is nearly complete, it won't be the same risk but you won't get enough people to be interested in the project.

 

I might be wrong, though.

[HAK3180]

Ethically, I see no problem at all.

 

Strategically, you may consider waiting, depending on the circumstances.

[Liberation]

Interesting topic, considering our projects are free then I don't see an issue personally.

 

I'll elaborate on that, when companies release games they look at a) compete with a similar game to take sales away or b) release at different time not to compete. That's when money is involved for obvious reasons.

 

With our community I don't think much slips through the cracks tbh, if its good then people will get behind it. My last wad released had 50 downloads but very little feedback (2 bits). It looked good enough to download but people clearly didn't enjoy it, that's not down to the other releases at the time as it had plenty of downloads.

 

One exception, REKKR... that's has fucked everyone up, its basically a new game for us to play and while we are playing that, we wont be doing anything else :-) 

[eharper256]

20 minutes ago, Liberation said:

My last wad released had 50 downloads but very little feedback (2 bits). It looked good enough to download but people clearly didn't enjoy it, that's not down to the other releases at the time as it had plenty of downloads.

Do keep in mind that this is the internet and vast majority of people stay lurkers. You can have thousands of views but two dozen comments, I know from experience with my isekai webnovel and my RPG, where this has happened.

 

But yes, releases are staggered in the game market because sales are involved. Heck, Steam used to negotiate with indies to determine a good release date for their titles as well until it became too much for them to bother. If you want to optimise total instant impact, choosing a downtime is a good plan, but in a community like Doom's people will gradually play your content in the end.

[Crunchynut44]

I actually like seeing multiple projects up in the forefront, makes the forums feel so alive! The excitement tends to spread.

[Searcher]

Ethically, no problem

 

Strategically, you may want to consider not getting your project overshadowed by another project.  Slip it in on a somewhat quiet day and make it the big news of the day.

 

Which way are you leaning?  Dump it out there, or time it for effect?

[Capellan]

I think there's probably value in trying to separate the announcement of your project from those of others, in order to allow each the maximum possible attention from the community, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it an "ethical" decision. 

["JL" was too short]

I glanced at the title of this thread and assumed it was going to be about announcing amazing projects and then blueballing everybody for literal years about them.  

 

Fuckers.

[riderr3]

I noticed a trend when projects are getting almost ready for the release, people for them often vote in the DW Megawad Club.

[Memfis]

What do you guys think about this new practice of pinning big projects?

[Ribbiks]

I'm guessing it's reflective of the recently released projects that had garnered attention on various non-doomworld sites? Like, person browsing kotaku or whatever reads article about project --> is directed to doomworld --> is promptly greeted with the thing they were interested in.

 

the subtext of your question feels like it's prodding at politicking/favoritism, which could be a fun memfisian hypothetical to go down for potential pot-stirring or general amusement ;D

[Remilia Scarlet]

44 minutes ago, Memfis said:

What do you guys think about this new practice of pinning big projects?

It's a cool idea, but it makes me curious what the criteria are.

Edited July 15, 2018 by YukiRaven
better wording to reflect my actual feeling

[Archanhell]

2 hours ago, Memfis said:

What do you guys think about this new practice of pinning big projects?

Pretty cool, it's sad I can't even map a single room though.

 

...I just don't want to have a lot of stuff to practice on my holidays...

[Nevander]

3 hours ago, Memfis said:

What do you guys think about this new practice of pinning big projects?

It's going to upset some people, especially authors of older big projects that never got the same treatment.

[Grain of Salt]

4 hours ago, Memfis said:

What do you guys think about this new practice of pinning big projects?

 

I don't like thing

[Nine Inch Heels]

What ribbiks said.

[Pegleg]

7 hours ago, Memfis said:

What do you guys think about this new practice of pinning big projects?

I agree with YukiRaven and Nevander. I wonder why some projects get pinned and others don't. Yes, I've only been registered here for ~10 months (lurking a few months longer than that), but I don't recall seeing many (if any) projects get pinned.

 

And there have been plenty of seemingly big projects that never get pinned. They often generate a fair amount of interest, so they stay near the top of the lists of threads, but still, they were never pinned. And then there are other threads (not even just projects) that seemingly should be pinned because they get referred to all the time (the list of top wads comes to mind), but never are.

[boris]

I never look at pinned posts (when do they ever change,  really?), so I missed the release of REKKR.

[Urthar]

14 hours ago, Memfis said:

What do you guys think about this new practice of pinning big projects?

 

If it can be gamed, count me in! Wait, did I say that aloud?

[Bauul]

Big new new releases was something the News articles were particularly useful for.

 

Rather than pinning the threads themselves, a pinned thread that someone just listed the new releases would be ideal. Of course the difficulty is finding someone who the mods trust to actually spend the time.

 

I too missed the release of Rekkr because I clicked the thread, saw it was posted in 2016, and presumed it was an old wad. I thought it was bumped because of a 1.1 bug fix release.

[gaspe]

7 hours ago, boris said:

I never look at pinned posts (when do they ever change,  really?), so I missed the release of REKKR.

This, at first I thought that the thread disappeared.

[Pegleg]

12 hours ago, boris said:

I never look at pinned posts (when do they ever change,  really?), so I missed the release of REKKR.

That's just the thing, it wasn't originally pinned. REKKR only got pinned after it was released and there was some excitement about it. The same thing with Doom 64 in Doom II. That went from just a normal thread to being pinned above the Cacowards Mentionation thread and the Find a Specific WAD thread.

 

As of the time of this writing, both are unpinned and "relegated" back to normal status.