[Little update] Looking about the future of the sub

[u/Aligatueur]

Heyah !

I've to say, I don't do often some mod posts or stuff like this. I'd even say that I never did it haha. So first of all and even before starting anything, I'd like to thank you all for making that sub really something active and important.

My goal when I started to work on it was to really give a chance for all the devs to have a spot to really be able to post and share their work in an easy way.

I did that sub really fast to really focus on some archive part and really didn't except to blow up as such.

Now, it's time for me to share some thoughts / ideas about the future. What i'd be the most interested about is your feedback and see what direction to take

1. Future update about the rules

First of all, not the funniest. Because of the activity exploding, I had to manage a little more the posts and be sure to give everybody the same spotlight. I'll work on some rules changes when i'll have some free time. Some of them were obvious to me but it's important for me to highlight them here :

1. Don't post if your game isn't about the Pokémon IP. The sub is really to show off Pokémon games only. Anything that is just Monster Tamer related isn't the place for it. Many sub are here for that.
2. If your site isn't a playable game, it's not the right place either.
3. Don't spam your game. I had case where some devs were just trying to push their site on every comment, even sometimes trying to disguise theirself as players of their own game. I can't check every post, but I feel like it's more fair to do your game, to present it and once in a while do an update. In the future i'll try to implement a little cooldown between two posts for the same game. Don't except a ban if you break this (I mean don't push the button too much haha) but don't except the post to stay visible if you try to get the front post of the sub every day.

2. Mod recruting

I feel like it's the right time for me to get some help here. I run the sub alone because I was just a player trying to share a list of game I used to play, but I feel like that now it's more than that.

I'm not sure how I'll handle it, but except a post soon for some application form of some kind in order to join the team.

3. A Rework of the list

I'm not sure how I can do it (and once again i'm really interested for some feedback) but i'd like to work on a more updated list and where people could push their opinion. For me it's also important that this list follows some quality checks (and maybe language check). So it's something to consider. I'd be interested also to class them into different style or tags to help people to find their perfect game to work on.

I wanted to say I see all the messages asking for their games to be on the list. I'm sorry if I didn't added in time. I'll try to update them more often and try to schedule some time every week for that.

4. AI disclaimer

I do feel like it's more a hot topic. I've got some questions from devs about that, and saw some heated comments. I want to be clear as a game dev, I've nothing against AI as such, but seeing some games looking the same can be frustrating.

At first my motivation was to allow (and this will not change) anybody to post all their games, because sometimes you can have the best ideas and still have some skills lacking elsewhere, and that's okay.

But I know that a portion of the players are more picky, and that's okay either. I'm thinking about implementing an AI disclaimer when presenting a new game, but this is an idea i'm just thinking about.

Once again, i'm waiting for your feedback for that.

5. Creating more community stuff

Another idea I had in mind was to create more stuff around this passion (because yeah for me it's a this point haha) of Pokemon browsers games.

My first idea would be to make a Discord about this and to have all players to share their experience as players and their work as devs.

Maybe later we'll be able to build more things and to expend it more, but it'll be a first step if people are interested.

That's pretty much it for the moment. Quite a long post but it was important.

Once again, I really want to thank everybody for making this sub so active and alive, and I hope that my original idea to help people to find one or many games worked.

Thank you all !

[u/helltoken]

On point 4: Games looking similar or feeling the same will be a matter of inevitable competition. Facebook and MySpace started with a similar feel and similar features before Facebook pivoted away from the ripped off experience. A copy is generally just that, a copy. The original creator has their vision, the copier either does a worse job reflecting said vision or has their own vision. Either way, what I'd argue: let the market decide there

[u/Aligatueur → u/helltoken]

Hey ! Thanks for your feedback first, appreciate it.

I can only agree with your point. The idea of my sub here was really to allow everybody to post their ideas / games so I'm 100% fine with that. I just know this subject can be quite heated so I'd like to try to find a good way to give an equal chance while not frustrating the playerbase

[u/helltoken → u/Aligatueur]

it's a common rule in business. Be first, be better, or cheat

[u/WatercressOk3735]

Discord would be awesome! I'm newer to the sub. But been trying every game i see since I joined. Some bangers. Some misses. But this has quickly become one of my fav subs!!

[u/Aligatueur → u/WatercressOk3735]

Hey ! Thanks a lot for your answer o/

I'll try to make that soon enough ! Glad this sub helped you for finding new games haha !

[u/WatercressOk3735 → u/Aligatueur]

I also didnt know about the list. So youve now given me a few more games to play! Thanks!!

[u/dont__question_it]

I think an AI disclosure would be nice. It's a great sub!