The Game Crafter is a great website. After spending 3 years tossing an idea for a game around in my head, I was finally able to throw together a prototype for testing. It's a great feeling: opening a package to see your game in the flesh (cardstock?), printed beautifully, ready to play. Especially if it's the first game you've ever worked on and the first time you've ever created a game from scratch.
Understandably, I was excited to have the game in hand, and just as excited to get it into other people's hands. After a quick question to TGCs forum asking if it was appropriate to publish a beta version to the shop, and getting what I thought was an OK, I published the game. In the game description, I also described that it was a beta version, and that if anyone would want to grab a copy (I knew sales would be slim, so why not offer incentive?), that they would get the game for $0.14 above cost.
After publishing, a flurry of things happened in the chat room and forums that I only became aware of days later. 1) A member (as far as I'm aware, not TGC staff) suggested that I not publish a beta version. 2) A few members alerted each other via chat that the game was published. 3) Comments were left on my game's page by a handful of people about the mistake I had made, and the game was rated incredibly poorly (1-2 stars our of 5, with none of the raters actually purchasing and playing the game).
Once I found out what had happened, I un-published the game. It's still available for anyone who would like to check it out at https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/whistle-blower-beta , but it remains unavailable for the general public. As finished as it might be (I put a lot of time and effort into Whistle-Blower - a "stick figure beta" it is not), it is still a beta version, and has the word "beta" tagged onto the game, so it is apparently inappropriate to allow the general public access to it. Also, I really don't want the low ratings from people who haven't ever even held the box of the game to effect how other potential customers might view the game as a whole, so it had to be taken away from a potential audience. I'd rather limit access than have my game associated with 1 star on a 5-point scale.
After the whole debacle, I've chatted with everyone involved, and we all understand that all parties involved made mistakes. The first two are easy: I shouldn't have published early, and they shouldn't have used the rating system to alert me to that fact.
But there are some other things that I learned as well...
1. Never attach the word "Beta" to a game and publish it. Even if it *is* beta, it seems that the thing to do would be to call it a first edition. Then, the ideas that the game has been hastily put together, not tested, or just that it's generally crap will not enter into the equation until after someone makes a purchase. I'm not saying that you should publish crap games, but I am saying that calling your game Beta, especially if you're a first-timer like me, will hit the "crappy" button in your audience's head, and that needs to be avoided.
2. Never ask people to pay to playtest your game. Sadly enough, this didn't even occur to me. I'm a guy just starting out in this scene, and yeah, at this point, it's more of a hobby. It's my first game and I don't have money rolling in from other games' sales, and I've got a life to live - money's tight. I thought I had a great idea by selling my game so that I only made $0.10 of profit (and that's only because TGC only allows their games to be sold at 10.99, 11.99, 12.99, etc. Had it been my own decision, it would have been at cost). But after shipping has been factored in, the total would have been close to $19.00. And asking people to test a game for $20.00 is unrealistic. I see that mistake now, and this would have made it useless to publish the game anyway.
3. Never explain any weaknesses in your game's design. I included the phrase " This version is very bare-bones, and includes just enough on the cards to make it playable and fun." Bad idea. It sounds like I made a crap game and didn't care that my buyers were paying for crap. That's not the reality of the situation, but that's how it came across. Not only did everyone perceive that I has produced a crap game, but they were worried that my crap game would bring TGC to a lower level.
4. The Game Crafter's rating system is flawed. Maybe it was more the way that people used the rating system that was flawed, but still, the system allowed for that usage, and that's how it is being used. As it is, the ratings remain, and my game still has a 1 star out of 5 rating by a group of people who have never played my game. This has effectively shut me out from publishing my game. Even if it is a bad idea to ask people to pay to playtest my game, that should be my bad decision to make, not the decision of the community. If someone happens by my game's page and is nice enough to front the money to help a new designer out, why shouldn't they be allowed to? (As a side note, this actually happened. In the 24 or so hours that Whistle-Blower was published on the site, a friend of mine bought a copy, all $19.00 worth, to help me playtest it. Some people don't mind helping others out.) The other problem lies in how you are allowed to publish a game. You may be thinking that I could just start another game page and re-publish, thereby dissociating my game from the previous ratings. This would work, but you cannot publish on TGC without first purchasing your game, and another game page would count as a new game, so I'd still have to fork over more money for another copy of my game just to publish again without the negative ratings. If the game was changed enough, sure that would be acceptable, but if my game were to remain the same past beta, that would be silly. As it is, the rating system effectively allows a handful of people to rate a game poorly, without requiring them to buy a copy, necessitating removal of the game from active published status without anyone actually playing it.
Even though all of this might sound very negative, I'm glad that the whole thing unfolded the way it has. I've learned a lot about how the system works; I've learned some rules about publishing; I've met a lot of people in TGC community, and I've gotten some really great feedback from them, and I'm sincerely thankful for that.
Publishing round 2 will proceed differently.
Comments
Yuck
The people who posted "reviews" at TGC should be ashamed, and should delete the posts. You don't post a "review" of a game you've never played, period.
It might not have been an awesome idea to create a game and ask people to pay to test it for you, but there's nothing wrong with trying that, and it's clearly not prohibited by TGC, which offers great freedom in how you use their service. Likely nobody would buy it, and nobody would be harmed by your experiment.
Maybe TGC ought to add a discussion forum for each game to prevent this, although those often decay into trolling, and people could just use the regular forums if they cared enough to talk about it. You should definitely be able to delete "reviews" on your sales page from people who clearly haven't played the game and are just commenting on your marketing choices.
Very insightful
I think sharing your experience in this manner is very insightful. Especially something like TGC rating and how to be carefull who rates your game. Also the part about "Beta" was also a good read.
As for play testers, well I usually find the strangest places to test my game. For example, I was going to a wedding. My mom said to me she wanted to buy my game. I was surprised and asked why. She told because there were going to be children at the wedding and she wanted to give the cards as a gift. I said why not?!
Oddly enough two kids, one aged 8 the other aged 10 INSISTED on learning how to play the game!
So sometimes you never know where you'll find "testers" to try and play your game...
Valuable feed back
Thanks for sharing about your experiences. You can always find play testers here if you create a print and play version (PDFs) of cards etc, keeping in mind that less page count will probably get more people willing to try it out and give feedback!
All the Best!
Kirioni
I wonder if any of those
I wonder if any of those "reviewers" who had never played the game, have ever tried to design one or produce one.
Unfortunately, the Zeitgeist now seems to be to tear down everyone else to bring them down to the lowest level (where people like the "reviewers" sit).
The reviewers were actually
The reviewers were actually game designers themselves. Although everyone got off on the wrong foot in this situation, the aftermath has been pretty positive and we're all in a dialog now about how it all went down.
They've all been really helpful and very willing to help a new designer like myself.