Of Community and Funding

[Pimmeh]

Massive wall of text. I'd love some criticism on both content and writing style. More on content, as I mean every word.
Note: In this writing I will mostly be referring to Markus 'Notch' Persson's current situation as an easy example. Bear with me.
Today's gaming market is split between two very distinct sides. There's the gaming developers with relatively large budgets and publishers, and there's the 'indie' developers. There are people like Markus Persson, the creator of the wildly popular Minecraft, and the production manager of the similar-but-different indie hit Terraria's: Blue. These people have recognition from peers and fans over the whole world, and their games are very successful. Now the question is: Why are these games so successful even though they have relatively simple groundings? And another question that is maybe more relevant for the community: How could Graal benefit from the findings of that question?

First off, there is a clear and logical reason that the creators of popular games have a certain fame and community following. From the start of the Minecraft alpha's, players/fans of the game have referred to Notch as their 'God'. And even though this is obviously a big exaggeration, it just shows the respect that fans have for him when even popular YouTube shows mention the 'Church of Notch'. Looking at Notch's behavior it is clear to see why:

1. He communicates with his fans. Through media he responds to a lot of interesting shenanigans that the community is up to.
2. He, and his team as well, keep the community updated constantly on what they are doing, and are honest with delays, setbacks, and mistakes made in the process of development.
3. You can see past the job. He shows the fans that he hates this game, loves that one, and had to laugh about this movie. It's easier to like, and to be loyal, to a person who you can relate to. And this seems to hold very true to the gamer world.

But why are the games popular? It cannot be the good marketing, or Duke Nukem Forever would've been amazing, and it can't be the charisma of the game developer. It is, for a any developer, especially if they rely on continuous payments by the players, essential to provide a steady flow of updated content for the player to experiment with and keep interest in the game high. MMORPGs accomplish this through content patches, shooters with DLC, and RTS games with balance patches and expansion packs.

But smaller indie games don't act this way. They add smaller things, like a batch of items, a new enemy, a new game mode, and lots of bug fixes. The players constantly see new features and get to know every individual part very well before a new feature gets added. It allows players to bond to the content and get to perfect the opportunities out of every single addition. So by doing smaller additions in shorter time periods, players keep coming back for the game, and get more involved with the community.

This finally brings us to our current situation. GraalOnline isn't moving forward. It isn't clear to me if the game is dying out, but with the recent shift in focus to iPhone and Facebook Graal, there's a chance that it will.
Aside from that, the community does not know the staff. Stefan posts fairly frequently, but we have no idea what he is working on from a day to day basis. Unixmad rarely posts, and aside from a really vague 'Staff Contacts' list that names him Managing Director, there's no hint to what he does. Having an impersonal staff doesn't bring the community behind them. A community that does not stand behind the developers causes trouble and blocks creativity.

Even then, if the community doesn't know the staff, that would be trivial if the community received frequent updates to move the game forward. But promises and announcements that have been made never got to be released. Flying Technology, Graal3D, a new Level Editor, to name some. This has caused the community to fall back on their own abilities. No new server has been made Classic since Zodiac, and even the prized Zone project started out as a player-run server.

The players are the only reason a game exists. The players bring in revenue, indirect advertising by word of mouth, and enthusiasm for the developers by responding to the content. The players cannot be disinterested, lest the project loses all these things. The players must be looking forward to new content, or they'll stop playing after a while and lose interest. The players must spread the word to others, or new players won't come to look at the game.

How would GraalOnline go about doing this? First, the company would need to create and maintain interest in current projects, and show promise of a long timeline of updates. Second, the game as it is needs the tools for players to develop their own content with greatest ease, as right now the software and facilities are confusing and hard to get into. When players are enthusiastic, quality will follow. Third, players need to see what is going on at the high-ups of GraalOnline. Without someone that players look up to, the players won't have a bar to raise higher and higher in both the game and the development.

So in conclusion: The steps taken in Facebook and iPhone Graal are a step in the right direction, but the management cannot afford to ignore what they came from, and the potential that lies within their roots. Keep in touch with the community and look forward to what the management can do for their players, not the other way around. We aren't living in America from the 60s, you know.

My idea? A lot of the content produced by players is remarkable work that exceeds some works of professionals in the field, and the management should capitalize on that, use the player's content and provide guidance towards hosting player-run games of actual quality. Because I think we can, and I think that we should.