Should I be a little leary about posting rules to a game i am working on? I want everyones opinons, but lets face it, you just cant trust everyone.
Also if I do chose to post it whats a goof free hosting site.
Posting rules online
Fri, 08/06/2004 - 00:59
Fri, 08/06/2004 - 06:20
#1
Posting rules online
This one? :)
I wouldn't worry too much about putting game rules to your own games up online (especially not here). I would guess that most people here are too busy working on their own games to steal someone else's (and even if we all decided to borrow a mechanic idea, everyone would do something different with it anyway!) And secondly, this might act as a part-step towards establishing an idea priority: you'd get lots of witnesses to say that they saw your idea here. It might not be legally binding but it sure helps...
Fri, 08/06/2004 - 10:09
#3
Posting rules online
I agree with David and Steve, I don't think there's too much to worry about. As David says, most designers have access to ideas and don't need to steal yours. Given how hard it is to bring a game to market, it's unlikely someone who wasn't a good designer already could take your idea and make money off of it.
Of course, if you don't feel comfortable sharing your rules, you shouldn't, but my feeling is that paranoia is absolutely crippling in this hobby, and while it's reflexive, I think it must be overcome to get anywhere.
One case where I would potentially keep an idea under wraps is if you have an idea for a theme or mechanism that is so unique that no one has thought of it, but it's so profound that everyone will want to start thinking about it and designing their own game in that area. I think that if you have something that no one else is thinking about, there's no sense getting them thinking about it. Now, the ideas that you've mentioned thus far -- Puerto Rico-inspired Pirate-themed game, and Alhambra-inspired zoo-themed game -- don't strike me as falling in that category. Not that they won't be great games -- I'm sure they will -- but rather, that they're not so mind-blowingly original that just by mentioning them you're giving away the store.
I would say, do whatever you feel comfortable doing, but as for stealing, there's little to fear from the "regulars" around here. There are, of course, hundreds of members who view the site but don't post, and probably many others who aren't even members. I don't seriously worry about those people, for the reasons I mentioned above. But someone else might, if they wanted to...
-Jeff
Fri, 08/06/2004 - 10:57
#5
Posting rules online
I think the risk is worth the benefit, especially for me, as I'm still learning so much about game design. My game in the GDW improved leaps and bounds in one week by having outside eyes looking at thinks and challenging rules and assumptions.
One thing I noticed when I posted links to my rules was that the site is indexed by Google, and my pages were getting hits from searches for "african violet ultra" or "earthworm head tail". I think it only happened when they were in the Recent Posts box on the main page, otherwise it was too deep to find, I guess. Once they were no longer top topics, the Google hits went away, and now you can't hardly find them unless you search for "ultra violet goadrich".
If that bothers you, I'd suggest posting the links from your Game Journal, which can only be seen by registered users and is not crawled for links. Of course, Game Journals don't get as much feedback as forum posts...
Mark
Fri, 08/06/2004 - 13:12
#6
Posting rules online
You should never post the rules for your game anywhere online; you should only email them directly to honest, trustworthy me. (Wah-ha-ha-ha-ha!)
Fri, 08/06/2004 - 13:42
#7
Posting rules online
I just sent Setarcos my rules via email and....
Hey...wait a minute...I just saw him laughing all the way to the bank.
H...HEY! :)
Fri, 08/06/2004 - 17:31
#8
Re: Posting rules online
galeninjapan wrote:
Also if I do chose to post it whats a goof free hosting site.
I might be able to offer free hosting for game designers if there is enough interest.
Early this year, I was working on building an online store for independant board games. I didn't really get very far with it though.
I still have the domain (www.indieboardgames.com) until January, and to host a few of my other sites I have a web account that lets me create completely isolated sub-accounts.
I can use that set-up to host accounts with the domain [yourname].indieboardgames.com. Is there any interest in such hosting for free? I can also host any other domains, but you're on your own for registration fees (.com, .net, and .org are around $10/year).
It is a very complete hosting package, it has a control panel to let users self-manage the account, there's statistics tools, scripting and database, webmail, and fantastico (a cool little program that automatically installs web software - even phpNuke).
Of course, there has to be enough interest to justify me paying $10 to keep the domain name for another year.
Jason
Fri, 08/13/2004 - 04:27
#10
Posting rules online
The fact is that even when you do publish your game, ideas can be taken (or downright ripped off) from your game, and there's not much you can do about it. Your best bet for really protecting your game would be to patent it, but that's like 400 bucks I think, and that's only if your game has some great new idea that no one's ever used before. Copyrighting your game really only gives you protection from someone selling, say, photocopies of your game.
Bottom line is you can't copyright an idea. Anyone can take Monopoly, change all the names of everything, use different artwork and playing pieces, and make money off it. It probably won't sell cause it's the name that sells that game, but buying and selling property on a square board isn't copyrighted. It can't be.
So, if your game has something great to steal from it, it just might be stolen from; before or after you post/publish it.
Your best bet is to post it, as you'll get great feedback from the people here.
Fri, 08/13/2004 - 17:54
#12
Posting rules online
CaptKevMan wrote:
I have a dedicated server, and if someone wants to come up with a site for people to upload and review their game designs, rules, components, whatever, I'll be happy to host it.
Do you mind if I ask what you do with the dedicated server? There's about 13,000 domains on the server gaming-mindset.com is hosted on and I almost never see a server with over 500, so it's peaked my curiosity.
Jason
Wed, 08/18/2004 - 18:26
#14
Posting rules online
CaptKevMan wrote:
heheh. Currently, I have gaming-mindset.com pointing to my 1and1.com account (hence the bazillion domains there), but that's not my dedicated server.
That makes sense, and it seems like a great reason to stay away from 1and1 :)
CaptKevMan wrote:
My dedicated server is used to host several interest-based communities, including [MacJukebox], [MacMovieMaker], and several others in the [Macopolis] network (most are still in development).
I'll have to remember to take a look at those again when they're less in development; I just bought my first Mac a few months ago. I especially like pokemac.com
Jason
Fri, 08/20/2004 - 18:11
#16
Posting rules online
snipy3 wrote:
Not that it's anything innovative, but I recommend geocities.com, it's a company that runs off of Yahoo and you get a certain amount of MB free so you can post pics and stuff of your game. Of course you would need to consider advertising your product somewhere because nobody visits geocities sites via Google or any other search engine (they aren't included in the search engine unless you pay X dollars a month), plus it's not like anybody will randomly go to your site by accident, the site's name is:
www.geocities.com/(Your Yahoo Screen Name)/(Name for you site)
However it is completely free and could generate some $ for you, but don't plan on making the big money.
I think geocities has the exact opposite effect. There is a lot of advertising put on geocities pages. That's very unprofessional. A private site could get away with ads, but then shouldn't the site owner get the revenue instead of Yahoo? For a commerical site, such as to sell your game or even provide information about a game you want to sell, there is absolutely no way you should be running third party advertising. You don't go into McDonalds and see posters for Taco Bell on the walls, do you?
AFAIK, Geocities doesn't allow deep linking of your images. You couldn't host an image on your geocities account for free and then then include it in your post here.
Geocities has a very small quota, and whenever there's a surge of interest in your site over a short period of time, it is locked out for a while even if you're still under your quota. They call it metered hourly. Your 3 gig/month is really 4 meg/hour. That's very easy to go over, a small page with a few images will be around 1/2 meg; so 8 hits in any one hour period and your site is locked out for a few hours. It will not generate a positive feel about your game if people get "this page is locked out, but you can sign up for a free geocities page" errors when they visit your site.
Also, the prices for any so-called premium services are insanely high. $9/month for 25 meg of disk space and 10 gig of transfer? The transfer might be okay, but 25 meg of space is nothing -- they give 100 meg for free on their email. It also doesn't include anything useful like a database or scripting support.
There are a lot of rip-off hosts out there so you have to be careful, but there are also a lot who will give excellent, reliable service in the 200 meg storage/3 gig transfer range for under $3-5/month (myself included). Spend the money; if it keeps you from losing one sale, it will pay for itself for several months.
Why would you recommend skimping on a few dollars here and then spending a lot more advertising your geocities page to compensate for the fact that it's not even listed in search engines?
Jason
Fri, 08/20/2004 - 20:09
#18
Re: Posting rules online
CaptKevMan wrote:
I don't know how I missed reading this before I posted my similar offer. My apologies, Oracle...I didn't mean to step on your toes here. Of course, if you'd like to work something out with your hosting and/or my offer, please feel free to contact me and we can hammer out the details.
That is, if everyone still wants something like that.
I didn't feel like you were stepping on my toes. I thought my offer was what gave you the idea, but I certainly didn't except to have a monopoly in the field :). It seemed to me that snipy was stepping on your toes and mine, and re-reading it now, my post to him does seem a little harsh. It was just that you and I both made offers that are far better than geocities so it seems a bit insulting to us for him to recommend that.
I'd be happy to work something out with you to offer the service together, but so far, I think it's the everyone still wanting the service which is the issue. I've had a few querries and requests for more information, but so far nobody has actually requested the service.
Jason
There are many places on this site where people post their game rules for review (the Game Design Workshop for example) without worrying about anyone stealing ideas. This forum provides a very useful means for getting your ideas reviewed by other game designers.
I couldn't agree more. You will get some very valuable feedback on your game, its mechanics and your presentation of the rules. Very possibly others will come up with ideas that you haven't thought of.
It's like making soup. Your mechanics are the ingredients and your theme is the flavor. It's not terribly likely that you've found some new ingredient that has never been used before. Very often your soup may contain the same ingredients as many others, but your flavor will make it unique.
I wouldn't worry about it. Post freely and know that the benefits will far outweigh any percieved risk.