I have worked on free games (distributed over the internet) myself and this is a very, very familiar kind of post to me. Every once in a while, a visitor drops by, realizes his favorite game is STILL not finished and decides it's time to do what needs to be done.
What's interesting is that nag posts like these ALWAYS follow a familiar structure as if they were written by a single person. Here's a couple of them, just because I'm in an analyzing mood:
- The "You are responsible for the timespan required to complete the game yourself and you're drawing things out on purpose"-element.
Example:
[/quote]how long do you plan to spend on the game, really?[/quote]
The big brother of this one is the "I bet you already have the finished game ready and you're withholding it from us"-argument. The purpose of this element is to convince the developers that they could finish up the job quickly, if only they'd want it as badly as the post writer wants it.
- The reverse psychology.
Example:
it seems like the devs aren't going to finish this game anyway.
This one ALWAYS comes up. "The game's not gonna be finished. Admit it. Just frikking admit it!!!!" The purpose of this element is to "motivate" the development team by applying reverse psychology. The poster has just stated, in front of the entire world, that the game is not going to be finished and now the only way the developers can debunk this horrible lie is by proving him wrong by releasing the game...this minute if you please. For maximum effect, repeat the same thing several times in a row, only slightly reworded each time.
- "We, the people".
Example:
why don't you let the community know
I love this one. The poster subconciously knows that he's merely a single person, so in order to add weight to his argument, he throws up the "I'm just saying what everyone's thinking"-ball. By pretending to speak for the entire community, he tries to increase the impact of his post and circumvent thread locking by suggesting that if they'll silence him, they'll silence the entire fanbase. And you don't want to do that, do ya?
- The invisible stockholder.
Example:
this game really lives by the fanbase
Another favorite of mine. Since the team is working on a non-profit basis and the team is not an officially registered business entity, there are no official stock holders, that's why that role is taken over by whoever comes by and pays attention to your project. This argument exists to remind and convince the development team that: "Even though we don't pay you money, we are in fact paying you through our praise, which definitely DOES make us entitled to complain if things aren't moving as fast as we'd like them to, since we all know the difference between cash and praise isn't all that significant". Oh, and nagging fans NEVER accept refunds on praise. They paid and now it's up to you to deliver what you owe them.
- The unfair comparison.
Semi-Example:
you are not developing a bestseller like HL2:EP3
Whiners often complain that commercial companies do have transparent timeframes and can chuck out top-of-the-bill technological wonders at a relatively fast pace. After all, if it didn't take Valve years to release HL2:EP3, it shouldn't take you guys years to finish something much more technologically low-key. They conveniently forget that timeframes are easier to make if people consistently work on something because it's their paid job and that commercial games these days often have a big budget and over 100 people working on them.
- The percentage fetish
Example:
can't you just say something like; we have done like 60%
This one always comes up too. The complainer believes himself to be clever and thinks that if he can just get a percentage, he can precisely calculcate the month, day and hour the game will be finished and the torture the devs are pulling on him will end. The poster spends much of his day looking at percentages as he downloads his cracked games and leaked movies off the intarweb and bittorrent and has come to associate waiting with looking at percentages increasing like his browser and bittorrent conveniently give him. And make no mistake, when someone asks for a percentage of the game being completed, he's REALLY asking for a percentage of the time he has to wait. Of course, game development in one's spare time is never consistent enough for percentages but meh...
- More progress updates!
Example:
why don't you share the progress you made?
And we're not talking about monthly or even weekly progress. We're talking about having something new to share every time the visitor hits his F5 key. Some of the true gems I've seen in my time were statements like: "I've spent months checking your site TWICE A DAY and there's still no progress update!!!" Yeah, people can get laughably desperate over the smallest things. It remains to be seen whether having to spend 50% of the time you spend on developing a game writing to the fans about what you've done today is gonna get the game out sooner, but everybody knows that it's better to wait 15 minutes in line with something to keep you occupied than 8 minutes waiting in line staring at the ceiling. The whiner's ideal development team is a team that spends 99% of the time making site updates and 1% working on the actual game, since his ADD-ridden ass at least has something to do that doesn't involve waiting. It basically says the complainer has too much free time and nothing productive to do with it.
- The ticking time bomb
Example:
because if you do, and the game is actually gonna be finished someday, no one will remember this game. because no one did hear any news of the progress for like a year.
Also known as: "If you don't give me the game now, I'm gonna leave and never come back. You're losing fans, man!!!" Again, this argument exists to put pressure on the team. They're in a race against time. If they don't finish the game quickly, there'll be nobody left to play it. (this goes back to the "praise is as good as money"-element) This is of course a fallacy, since the majority of people who downloaded the demo will play it, semi-forget about the game while they go on with life and regain interest when the full game is out. Of course, even the people who MAKE this argument and then leave when their demands aren't satisfied STILL come back and play the game when it's out. Don't worry, they will.
- The release date trap
Example:
RELEASE DATU FICKING WHERE
In a complainer's mind, there is no difference between "We will absolutely, positively release the game on december the 3rd." and "If everything goes well, there's a chance the game might be suitable for alpha testing around december or so, give or take a few months." The two are absolute identical twins. What he's really asking you is a date to pin you on, so he can come back that day and call you a liar because the inevitable unexpected delays snuck into your planning. And make no mistake, he WILL take that date seriously, even if he practically waterboarded it out of you. Again, he's not asking at what day the game will be finished, he's asking what day he can stop waiting and anticipating.
- The victim reversal
Example:
(read between the lines)
Boy, those developers sure are to be envied. All they have to do is write the paths, draw the graphics, compose the music, script the stuff together and direct what could be a 1000+ page mess into an organised whole, while we, the fans, have to wait. Oh, the unfairness. Yeah, waiting is hard. Harder than developing a game. You're having fun all the time. We're not. Because we're waiting. So we're the victims. That invalidates every counterargument you could make, so don't bother. We're entitled to complain because we're victims. You're making us wait. Bad you.
- The tester trap
Example:
"If you need any testers to speed things up, I could help."
Not stated in the original post, but for the sake of completeness. Don't ever take testers who have complained about the game taking too long in the past. Posts like these show a lack of attention span and the rest of the fans will have to wait because you let an impatient nag on your team who'll play through once and then moves on while that slot could have been filled by a dedicated tester. He's not offering to speed up development. He's offering to shorten his own waiting period.
As development goes on, you'll probably get an increasing amount of certified nags whose posts contain at least 2 to 3 elements described here in one way or another. You're doing a pretty good job with the updates as is. The blog is updated a whole lot more than the site of the game I used to work on, since we preferred only to share true landmark developments. So good job. If people have so much free time on their hands to require progress updates more than once or twice a month, they usually have bigger problems that aren't your responsibility to solve.
Good luck on the rest of the game.
P.s: I could probably look up some study that indicates the internet has negatively affected people's attention spans, but I don't have the patience for that.
