There are things I don’t like about Lemmy, but they are minor, not much of an issue. I don’t understand what good federation does here, but it does no harm either. It’s very light, I love that aspect. I tend to prefer traditional forums, but not all of them are good. Some are terrible, like they’re trying to kill off forums, hahaha!

But for me, personally, Lemmy satisfices, and it’s already in place.

I have tried Matrix once, didn’t like it. Could change my mind about that. But what would it be like? I need some structure, and I’d probably run away from something more chat-like.

Hm, I don’t know. 2020 is still pretty recent! I imagine a game has to be around for a bit of a while before a modding scene can appear. And the game has to be popular enough to for there to be a “scene”, but the long tail keeps getting longer, which makes it harder.

I remember reading somewhere (I wish I could remember where) that more complex games are by their nature less friendly to modding, and companies that used to facilitate it don’t bother doing it anymore.

One could maybe suspect corporate fuckery, but that could easily go in the other direction (“oh yes make mods, but first sign this little contract, don’t read much into it…”).

Argh, the painful question! The truth is, playing opportunities are limited. I’m having to come to terms with that, and my second favorite, go, will probably drop out of my games rotation soon. And I don’t wanna try different games all the time, especially these games, they ask for some dedication. And my friends are usually more interested in other genres.

So mostly fascination, very little actual playing. =/

The community I follow most closely is the Abstract Games subforum on Board Game Geek. BGG’s defitinition of abstract games is broad, but the people who hang out in those forums are mostly concerned with two-player combinatorial games. The community is small, but some designers are quite prolific.

The games are non-commercial by nature, but not necessarily by intention. Every once in a while someone comes in asking if it’s possible to make money from abstract games. The answer is no, and exceptions are far too few. Money aside, some folks try to design for mass appeal, for pleasant first experiences, which has led to heated debates about how that affects the design in possibly bad ways.

But yeah, it’s mostly weird games in a genre that’s not entirely unpopular (see chess), but the people who play them prefer to focus on one game (see chess).

What else? I used to read the FreeGameDev forums, but I’m slacking hard (hi ffaf?). I’ve been playing Space Station 14, one of Space Station 13’s successors, so that’s underground, right? But most of the community seems to gather on Discord, and I don’t do that. I also read The Trick-Taking Guild on BGG, but at this point I start wondering if that’s underground enough. The whole mOdErN bOaRdGaMeS sCeNe is not exactly mainstream, but it’s VERY commercial! But yes, there are people making new games for ye ole deck of cards, or something else available as print-and-play. And I cannot, for the life of me, place those boutique Japanese card games on the commercialness scale.

Oh, quick edit: Gemini is fucken cool! But I haven’t read anything in there in ages, and I have yet to put up my own capsule…

So I’ve been mulling about one thing mentioned here, this “demand for uniqueness”. So what if you like something so much that you make it your own, give it your own twists? Wouldn’t forcing yourself to be “original” the same as bending to the will of the market? It’s just a different perception of the market, or of a different market. Variations and mods should be okay. Sometimes their value might not be obvious to someone outside whatever niche-within-a-niche you’re in, and that should be okay!

Now for yet another different, but related angle, I quote mino_dev from the video’s comment section:

As an indie developer myself… I dunno. When I started out I think I believed what this video is saying, because on some level it’s what all your friends and the Youtube essayists say. Indies must be unique, and make what truly speaks to them, market be damned.

I made something that I thought was really unique for my first game, and it did okay. But, just okay. It does have its players who have played it to death, clocking in 4 digit hour counts, but in general I don’t think there’s a lot of people that have even heard of it. When you make something like that people at conventions will often remark, “I bet there would be some people who would be REALLY into this… but it’s not my thing”. And you’ll hear it a whole lot.

The next game I’m making is a roguelike, and there seems to be a lot more excitement about it. When I take it to conventions, I don’t hear “I bet other people would really like this”, instead I get “so when’s this coming out? How much? Will there be more classes? Will there be modding?”, the kind of questions asked by people who have already decided to buy the game. And maybe they’ll tell their friends about it too.

Sometimes you forget that “the market” is people. Then you meet people and are reminded of that.

While we may admire the lyrical artist who just pours the contents of their heart, not minding whether anyone will appreciate it… community has value too. I just wanted to mention it en passant, cause it’s a conversation that could branch out a lot…

If by drama you mean the issue with The Escapist and their (former) team, I only know things superficially, but it seems that the company that owns The Escapist has decided to cut costs and is firing a lot of people. Frost (the one narrating the video) and Yahtzee, the “face” of The Escapist videos, along with other less visible folks, probably, have quit in solidarity. They are forming their own new channel.

But I didn’t see anything in the comment section pertaining that matter.