New tag for Dishonest Developers?

[anne O'nymous]

You don't understand and can't see the bigger picture.

You clearly aren't better.

"It's not my money, so why should I care?" um, because you just, care? do you not care about other people? so, you are fine with them getting taken advantage of, etc? those people are clearly too blinded by their like/love/want for the game, that they can't stop or see the truth (like an addict)

Who can seriously believe that a tag here would change anything to the pledge on Patreon ? Of course, a part of the patrons come from here, but it's not because someone will tell them that they are supposedly abused, that they'll suddenly stop pledging.
And anyway, people aren't as idiot as you present them. By example, this year DarkCookie lost 7% (~3,000) of his patrons, and 15% (US$ ~11,000) of his earning. And they don't needed a tag to think that they now gave enough support.

If you were getting milked/scammed/whatever, wouldn't you want someone to let you know? try to help you see?

Would I want it ? Yes. But not from a total stranger who decided that I'm scammed just because he's grumpier than me and/or came to hate a particular dev. Especially when this stranger don't know what is effectively happening, because there's 99% chance that those who ask for this tag to be added never ever pledged for the game.

Perhaps am I pleased by the exchanges with the author, and what I can effectively see of the development advancement ?
Perhaps is (s)he one of those authors who freeze the pledges when (s)he's really late on the release ?
Perhaps have (s)he a secret place where in progress purely alpha update are available, and none among the patrons who are also members here decided to leaks those release, due to their purely alpha state ?
This, only those who pledge, and do it at a higher tier than the lowest one, can know it. And like I said, there's really few chances that they would also be the ones asking for the tag to be added.

How would we know this, that or whatever else? we would have proof, have the research and evidence to back it up.

Well, finally I agree with the idea...

The only way to do the research, and then have the proof you talk about, is to pledge at the highest level. And like the vast majority of those who complain about authors supposedly milking their patrons are stingy, there's few risk that it happen. In the same time, the few who will do it will give money to an author who probably need it.
You didn't believed that there where another way to know for sure, right ?

 

[dusty stu]

Is this your alt account or something: https://f95zone.to/threads/development-hell-status-tag.140405/

No XD

 

[whizwart]

This seems like that kind of thing that csn backfire. Who decides its a scsm? Admi ? Backers? What if the dev goes dark for 2 months, then comes back and was in verifiable medical distress? Just seems like word of mouth in the comments is better than a formal tag.

 

[nulnil]

No way. That'd mean all the games I like on here get one of these tags, if not more.

 

[dusty stu]

I think consensus is trending towards the fact that any such tag like "development hell" will be inherently biased.

Instead, would an "average length between updates" feature help users identify games that are being updated very slowly?

Example: There is an extension for fanfiction that adds the average time between updates.


(Extension is

You must be registered to see the links

btw).

 

[Winterfire]

I think consensus is trending towards the fact that any such tag like "development hell" will be inherently biased.

Instead, would an "average length between updates" feature help users identify games that are being updated very slowly?

There is an extension for fanfiction that adds the average time between updates.
View attachment 2243994

(Extension is

You must be registered to see the links

btw).

Bad idea.
There is a big difference between the time an uploader updates the thread, and the game's release date.
At the very least it couldn't be automatic, and if you have to do it manually, that'd put extra work on the uploaders which is not good.

 

[Tomoushie]

Need this for Scam Games, Shady Patreon and Predatory Monetization

 

[peterppp]

How about doing your own research on games and developers instead of wanting the site to serve you everything like you're a baby?

 

[dusty stu]

Bad idea.
There is a big difference between the time an uploader updates the thread, and the game's release date.
At the very least it couldn't be automatic, and if you have to do it manually, that'd put extra work on the uploaders which is not good.

How about number of total updates?

If a user sees that the game has been updated six times in three years, that's a useful hint to foreshadow slow development.

 

[Catapo]

How about number of total updates?

If a user sees that the game has been updated six times in three years, that's a useful hint to foreshadow slow development.

And what if hypothetically a dev would make really large updates with a lot of content ?
It would still require the users to look over the content of those updates to determine whether is actually a slow development

 

[ClockworkGnome]

How about number of total updates?

If a user sees that the game has been updated six times in three years, that's a useful hint to foreshadow slow development.

Conversely it doesn't really give enough information to be meaningful or useful.

To such a system, a dev who only updates once a year but who drops 10+ hours of new content all at once would be seen as being inherently inferior to a dev who updates once a month but only updates a single scene with a few renders each time. That would actually give a very flawed impression of development to anyone who simply relied on the tags.

On top of which, unscrupulous devs would just game the system by releasing tons of low-content updates to boost their own numbers while the quality of the game suffers. If anything, it could drag down the quality of actual good devs who feel compelled to chase the same bullshit metric in order to appease their potential audience.

There are games on this site where I would happily wait for a dev who takes a year to update because I know when the update comes it will likely be fantastic. There are also games on this site where even an update every month wouldn't be a selling point because what's being updated is mostly trash.

And since such an update counter doesn't really indicate the quality level of any given update, it's not even really a good indication of whether or not a dev is milking Patreons, which would be about the only reason to care about that sort of thing in the first place.

 

[morphnet]

How about number of total updates?

If a user sees that the game has been updated six times in three years, that's a useful hint to foreshadow slow development.

It wouldn't be very accurate unfortunately, some dev's released updates every 3 months with 10 minutes of gameplay and others every 3 months with 30 minutes. Both would show 4 updates a year but not accurately show development or content.

 

[Winterfire]

How about number of total updates?

That is meaningless, and if the versioning is not dumb (so not random numbers), you can tell how many releases it had from it as the standard versioning is: Major release.Minor Release.Patch, so a 0.40.0 would mean the game got 40 releases (without counting patchs).

 

[anne O'nymous]

That is meaningless, and if the versioning is not dumb (so not random numbers), you can tell how many releases it had from it as the standard versioning is: Major release.Minor Release.Patch, so a 0.40.0 would mean the game got 40 releases (without counting patchs).

It would also need to answer a question: If a game is restarted, do the updates pre-restart count ?

There's one game (that I'll not name because I'm not here to shame devs) that have been restarted four time in more or less four years. It's at 0.4 if I remember correctly, but counting all the updates since the starts it should be something like the 20th update.
Counting all the updates would present the game as having frequent but really small updates, and not counting them would present it as having a long wait between each updates. Both would be misleading and not represent the reality.

 

[Tomoushie]

How about doing your own research on games and developers instead of wanting the site to serve you everything like you're a baby?

Isn't that what this site is for? Or maybe instead of giving your money in support, you should buy glasses to see better. Because if it's to download corrupted games or put a game that can't be played because you have to pay to play it first, there's no use to post it here. Especially since I'm told it's a pirate site.

 

[fidless]

I think consensus is trending towards the fact that any such tag like "development hell" will be inherently biased.

Obviously. Some people can't differiant and understand why 2D drawn games take longer to make.
I imagine instances people giving "milking" tag to devs because for simple reason, 2D drawn art need to be created instead of reused and rendered like daz3D in 10 minutes.

How about number of total updates?

If a user sees that the game has been updated six times in three years, that's a useful hint to foreshadow slow development.

Some devs update 3 times a month with 5 minute content. Some do update every 2 month with 1 hour content, some do 2 updates a year, maybe each 1 hour like later but done 2D drawn art by hand that's x100 more quality than some honey select/koikatsu mass rendering.
Some can do 100 updates a month spamming AI art.

Obvious outcome that such idea is totally useless and pressuring some devs do it for quantity rather than quality.

Not to mention development time differences for different game types/genres.

And even if development is slow, who are you (or someone else) to judge tagging it milking game if dev doing it just as a hobby and being upfront?

 

[cooldude33]

 

[peterppp]

Isn't that what this site is for?

No. A tag like that wouldn't be objective at all. A 100% subjective call is something you should make yourself or you're a baby.

Or maybe instead of giving your money in support, you should buy glasses to see better. Because if it's to download corrupted games or put a game that can't be played because you have to pay to play it first, there's no use to post it here. Especially since I'm told it's a pirate site.

Wtf are you talking about?

 

[russianbot]

I would like changelogs to include dates, but I think that's already a planned feature, along with a whole slew of other things that would make F95 more archival.

 

[dusty stu]

versioning is not dumb (so not random numbers), you can tell how many releases it had from it as the standard versioning is: Major release.Minor Release.Patch, so a 0.40.0 would mean the game got 40 releases (without counting patchs).

Unfortunately, this is not the case atm on f95. Unifying update numbers is also subjective on the part of the uploaders.

An "automated update-version numbering system" would also just be another way of saying "total number of updates." Devs could post many, small updates to make their game look more complete than it actually is.

Finally, as discussed many times elsewhere, the review system is also fairly uninformative. Too many people just wanna show support for the game and give 5 stars without thought. And there appears to be a lot of bots/paid-reviewers leaving 5 stars. And not enough people take the time to leave a constructive criticism review and leave any score other than 5 stars.

Here is my suggestion to help with many of the discussed issues:
a "Certified Community Reviewer" role.

• They are vetted and elected by f95 staff
• To apply, they must have X reviews and Y time as a member.
• Reviews they make get a "Certified Review" badge.
• Users who are game devs can likewise get a "Certified Game Dev Review" badge
• Reviews can be filtered to only show Certified reviews
• The role can be revoked if the user has been absent for a long time

Here is my second suggestion:
Allow users to upvote reviews. Here is an example from Steam: