Interactive Fiction Deserves Better Marketing; Here’s What We’re Missing

[hellanikthi]

@Havenstone

Hosted Games?

In my mind HG counts as striking out on your own, as the label is fairly hands off with its titles. I view it more as a self-publishing+ platform. It can be a great option for sure and was a genius business move for CoG, but comes with many of the same potential pitfalls as self-publishing.

@Havenstone

“For the money” is never going to be reason enough to finish a truly brilliant piece of IF.

While this is 1000% true it’s also true that paying writers tends to increase the quality of writing. CoG explicitly stated this as a reason why they offer larger advances at the expense of larger royalties.

For indies, financial support can also mean things like hiring editors and artists, and having more time to spend on the project, all of which can improve quality, speed, and visibility.

[Carloshmc2812]

Forgive my ignorance, but aren’t COG and HG the same company? People talk about them as if they were different things.

[ChanceOfFire]

@Carloshmc2812

Forgive my ignorance, but aren’t COG and HG the same company?

Yes and no. Legally, both are distinct entities. However, they share this forum as well as their privacy policy. Both companies share information with each other without restriction. Staff of CoG are also considered staff of HG and can do work for both. Both maintain separate bank accounts, but do share costs, by having one company pay for the services of the other company at times.

Source

[Ipholoda]

I feel like a issue with the thesis here is conflating the popularity of VN’s and the popularity of what I’ll call “cinematic story games”, with telltale games and the like falling in there.

As a market VN’s are still pretty niche, a few key company’s are mainstream but the rest of the space is full of small indies at this point, and there’s still a vibe of them being a “silly medium” with how parody ones dominate the more visable western produced market, meanwhile games like the walking dead or dispatch are wildly popular, and I’d say the key is them being cinematic, their more like interactive shows than books.

[Havenstone]

@hellanikthi

In my mind HG counts as striking out on your own, as the label is fairly hands off with its titles.

Fair point, but it’s striking out with a guaranteed publisher (paying the same royalty rates it would to any main-label author) in a niche that has a big built-in audience and active forums (here and the subreddit) where you can stir up buzz. That feels to me like a step ahead of most self-publishing? Especially in the game world, for people without a lot of coding nous. Itch.io and self-publishing on Steam are a lot more daunting than HG when it comes to getting an app up and the word out.

@hellanikthi

it’s also true that paying writers tends to increase the quality of writing.

Paying advances, specifically, attracts professionals, who are more reliable both delivery-wise and quality-wise…and also unlikely to put out one of the uneconomical labors of love that this community adores. The reliability of CoG v the higher highs of HG is a cliche for a reason, and HG has most of the real blockbuster sales.

@hellanikthi

CoG explicitly stated this as a reason why they offer larger advances at the expense of larger royalties.

I first read this as referring to the two-tier CoG advance system ($10k for 25% or $15k for 10%) and was confused–I’d never seen any suggestion that the differentiation was a quality measure.

What I have seen is CoG explain that they offer advances, period, as a way of attracting experienced authors, and that puts a ceiling on their ability to offer higher royalties. I expect that’s what you were referring to?

Everything to do with advances seems to me to boil down to the irrationalities of authors trained in the economics of the dead-tree publishing world, where the logistics of physical objects constrain your sales in a way they don’t here. That ultimately created the system where every agent drills into every writer, “the advance is what matters,” and to suspect any company that offers a high-royalty no-advance deal of being shady.

That’s ultimately been great for CoG as a company, but I still think they ought to start offering the higher-royalty zero-advance option too, now that they’re well-established enough to hopefully dodge accusations of being an exploitative vanity press. There’s more exploitation in the current advance system, frankly.

@Carloshmc2812

aren’t COG and HG the same company? People talk about them as if they were different things.

Besides the difference in legal identity, they have big differences in what they expect from/offer to authors, which is why for purposes of this thread you can discuss them separately.

[Cannongerbil]

@will

I think the main critique of Karl’s thinkpiece is that it obviously comes from an outsider’s perspective.

Well, yeah, this entire thinkpiece is about how to get more people into interactive fiction, and specifically Choice of Games style of interactive fiction, and that naturally is going to take into account the viewpoints of people who aren’t already into this ecosystem.

On a more general note, the specific type of interactive fiction that Choice of games has is stuck in this really awkward spot where they are way too much like novels to appeal to most gamers, even ones in theoretically adjacent spaces like Visual novel fans, but at the same time are too much like games to really make it in novel reading spaces. It’s something that seems obvious but I feel like isn’t really examined enough, especially when it comes to talks about how to expand the reach. For example, one of the things that are heavily emphasized in the marketing for CoG games is the word count, and such a high importance is placed on it that it actively influences the price a given game is sold at, but amongst visual novel fans(and also general gamers), having a high word count is something that actively turns off potential consumers, of the “why would I want to sit down and read 50 thousand words in my spare time when I can barely put up with reading a 500 word summary at my job” variety. I ran dab smack into this issue when I tried to shill a few CoG games in visual novel spaces a few years back, where the feeling I got is that even for Visual novel fans, the reading they have to do is seen as a “price of admission” tax they have to pay in order to experience the characters and story that they are actually there for.

[hellanikthi]

@Havenstone

That feels to me like a step ahead of most self-publishing?

Oh I totally agree, hence calling it self-publishing plus I do think it’s a brilliant system, but I still wish there were more options out there.

@Havenstone

The reliability of CoG v the higher highs of HG is a cliche for a reason, and HG has most of the real blockbuster sales.

That’s a pretty interesting point that I never thought of. I always thought the massive HG success stories had more to do with the creative freedom the platform offers, but you’re probably right that there’s probably something about the kind of people it attracts too and the level of passion they put in.

@Havenstone

What I have seen is CoG explain that they offer advances, period, as a way of attracting experienced authors, and that puts a ceiling on their ability to offer higher royalties. I expect that’s what you were referring to?

Sure is. I get why they do it the way they do but I imagine it would be nice to have options.

[Kato_spy]

From my perspective, marketing definitely needs more support—especially regarding how titles are managed once they hit the shelves, often remaining niche after publication. There’s a bit of an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ attitude: once a game is released, the focus immediately shifts to the ‘next big thing.’ But players and writers don’t all arrive at the same time; they discover these games at their own pace.

If we are talking specifically about this platform, it’s one thing, but looking at the industry in general opens up a sea of ‘ifs.’ For example, many ChoiceScript games never get officially published but thrive on itch.io. The genre is alive, but it will never truly overshadow more ‘visual’ storytelling. Asking the general public to play these is like asking movie fans to read the book first—we all know how well that advice is usually taken.

You can’t really force these games onto a different audience. The people drawn to this genre are either veterans from the Infocom days—back when ‘feelies’ and physical extras helped drive sales, which isn’t possible here—or people who simply love to read. Selling an Interactive Fiction (IF) game is, essentially, no different than selling a book.

After 16 years, this place has become somewhere you ‘stumble into’ if you like the genre, only to get lost in a massive pile of content. From what I can tell, we can break this ecosystem down into four categories:

4. The Gathering Place (WIPs): This is where stories aren’t ‘published’ yet, but Work-In-Progress threads are vital. They show where the audience’s interests lie and which titles have publishing potential. Often, the creators are also the consumers. Even if a story is never finished or published, having a space to experiment and share ideas is the backbone of the community.

3. Hosted Games: With 251 titles (in reality a bit less as some ain’t even choicescript games anymore but still around half of five hundred games), the sheer volume is overwhelming. It’s easy to walk in, look at the massive list, and get lost. You might buy one or two games, but by the time you finish them, ten more have been released. I’ve noticed that good titles often get overlooked because the promo art doesn’t say enough—proof that book covers can still lie. Furthermore, the idea that ‘Choice of Games’ (CoG) “always” has better writing than ‘Hosted Games’ is a myth; in my experience, it’s a 50/50 split. Some ‘pro’ writers on CoG have produced weaker stories than amateurs on Hosted Games who aren’t afraid to push the ChoiceScript engine to its limits. Because they are playing with their own story.

2. Heart’s Choice: With about 26 releases, focusing on gender-locked or specific orientation-driven stories (with a higher PG rating) is a solid strategy, especially when tied to events like Pride Month. I’d categorize these as the ‘romance novels’ of the catalog. So for the female audience (or non) who are already into Romance books this is a great list. The only “problem” feel like the concept that may seems good on paper is still toned down a bit to be able put some sells in (you get more games with gender vary protagonists and more open selection of romances and the low level of “pepper” is more the norm, to avoid end up sell the book to a younger audience). For that It is difficult see much difference (aside the fact the story is centered mostly on relationships) with other titles that are in the other catalogs. so it isn’t too difference YET, that’s my impression.

1. Choice of Games: Standing at roughly 180 titles, without count the next titles to be released, I feel the use of the engine’s potential has actually declined over the years. The writers are professionals, but they often approach the project like a traditional book rather than an interactive experience. In the past, there seemed to be more experimentation with save mechanics or unique systems. Now, we often get GREAT stories, but with fewer branching paths that make a replay feel truly worthwhile. So the title that get more promotion end up here but it isn’t sure it leave a good after-taste. This still for how I see it without take the merits of who made the stories.

[malinryden]

@CJW

I imagine we don’t do enough with achievements in this space. There’s room here to show real statistics outside of the game stores on who picked what dramatic options and how many people have found hidden Easter eggs. What about spotify-esque “wrapped” summaries you can share on social media when you complete a game? Turn a single person’s reading experience into a social one.

That is brilliant. I NEED to do something with this.

[GreekWinter]

I’ve been wondering about this for a while now. I agree with the folks above who’ve been saying that there’s a very particular bunch of gamers/readers who this kind of thing will appeal to, and it’s unlikely to appeal to many people outside that group. That said, there’s always that margin of readers who just don’t know it exists. I’ve met a few of them in the wild, and they’re avid CoG readers now.

So yeah, it’s important to reach out, but the question is, of course, how.

The market in general has become so utterly filled with slop. Who remembers when the Google Play store actually used to show you things based on your interests or related to things you’ve searched for? In 2017, the Play store showed me interactive fiction right on the homepage because it knew I liked it. Now it’s all slop. It makes no sense to me. Wouldn’t you think they’d want to show people games in the style they like? I’m never going to install Candy Crush or TikTok no matter how many times they ask me to. It’s weird. Almost self-defeating, like if Amazon didn’t show you books based on your past purchases. Why, Google?

Social media? Slop. Game stores? Slop. Amazon? Slightly better but not great. Steam? The only actual helpful one of the bunch.

The emails are okay for informing an audience you already have of new products, but even that’s probably seeing diminishing returns due to the boiler plate nature of the emails and the fact that most people don’t even read marketing emails anymore.

So that leaves us without many options. Individual authors can use things like Patreon which can help. My Patreon doesn’t make all that much money, but at least it keeps my readers somewhat engaged and in the know.

I’ve found Reddit to be somewhat helpful. My AMA for the release of Werewolves 3 was a lot of work, but it also drummed up a decent amount of awareness right before launch. I have no idea how much of that translated into sales, though.

One thing that seems to work is expanding into known IPs. The World of Darkness games (Vampire: the Masquerade, Hunter, etc…) sell pretty well and attract a new audience. The problem with those are the licensing fees and additional oversight by brand managers which can become difficult to deal with. Worth it? From my perspective, yes, but I don’t know how much of a pain in the ass it is on the business side.

@Kato_spy

The writers are professionals, but they often approach the project like a traditional book rather than an interactive experience. In the past, there seemed to be more experimentation with save mechanics or unique systems. Now, we often get GREAT stories, but with fewer branching paths that make a replay feel truly worthwhile.

Maybe I’m out of touch with the last year or so of new releases, but I’ve never found CoG to have fewer branches in general. I mean, I may be biased (I am) but my CoGs have ridiculous amounts of branching, and the one I’m working on right now is so fucking branchy it’s making me go prematurely bald with the stress. (Only sorta kidding…) As for save mechanics, I hand-coded one for Parliament of Knives that took me forever. Since then, the company has updated the code base to take what I had to use hundreds of lines of code for and condensed it into 4 lines. So that’s nice. I wish more authors used it, though.

@CJW

I imagine we don’t do enough with achievements in this space. There’s room here to show real statistics outside of the game stores on who picked what dramatic options and how many people have found hidden Easter eggs. What about spotify-esque “wrapped” summaries you can share on social media when you complete a game? Turn a single person’s reading experience into a social one.

I really like the sound of this. It would require major additions to the engine, though, and given how reluctant CoG have been to do things like that, I’m not sure if it’s realistic.

Best I can figure is an end of game achievement page featuring graphics that a player can screenshot and post, including a link to a public trophy page or something. There’s no code in the system at the moment to do something like export achievements or post them. That would have to be added to the engine.

It’s a really smart idea, though. I love the hell out of Spotify Wrapped, and I post if to my socials every year.

[malinryden]

One thing that I think we need to remember when we complain about people not reading, is AO3. There is actually a massive subset of people out there who love reading, writing, and interacting with text through fanfiction, the question is just how to connect to them.

Another thing I have seen is that the more popular/viral games are the ones that are the most likely entry point for new players. People talk about them. They recommend them. They make fanart and fanfiction. Wayhaven was the first game for a lot of people, for example. Back in the days Choice of Robots was that for me. But once the player have finished that first game, and maybe found the genre, they are left a little bit in the wild. You know the site and the company, you might have the omnibus, or steam lists, but… there’s a lot, and the genres and styles are wildly different. There is a risk that the next game they try will be a dud for them, and they might drop out.

When I buy a book online, I often get a “customers also bought” thingy to tip me in directions I might have missed.

When I listen to a song, tidal/spotify show other sings that their algorithm has deemed similar.

Some publishers have imprints that collects similar books under the same banner (heart’s choice is a good move there!).

While a lot of these attempts to put people in contact with more things that they like is dependent on the platform and out of our (and CoG’s) hands, there is actually something we can do as authors.

Imagine, if you will, that once you have reached the end of the game, you have one final page added with recommendations what to play next.

For example, at the end of Fallen Hero: Rebirth there might be something like this (but with cooler descriptions and text of course, just pulling a few games out of my ass for context)

The story will continue in: Fallen Hero: Retribution.

If you like superhero stories, why not check out: Community College Hero?
If you like traumatized protagonists, why not check out: I, the forgotten one?
If you like morally compromised weirdos, why not check out: The Passenger?
If you like defined main characters, why not check out: A study in Steampunk?

If you want to find the community and explore works in progress stories that you can play for free, consider joining the CoG forums (link).

And so on… maybe with a short sentence to describe the games and a link to the game entry on the CoG site since that links to the other places to buy things.

Of course such a thing would mean that it would be up to us authors to do this, agree to a format, pick the games we feel might appeal to players of our game, and so on. Heavy lifting. It’s just that… I remember the world before the algorithmic internet so fondly. Webrings. Livejournal communities. Geocities. Where people curated their own things and helped others find stuff. Before the discord silos that locked everything in their own separate crab bucket.

The only thing we can be CERTAIN that a fan interacts with is the ending of a game! They finished it! They played it to the end! So we already know they liked reading, and most likely liked the game they read enough to finish it.

It could even be possible for CoG to provice a template, just like they do for what goes at the start of a game (author and the like). Maybe with the option to either let CoG set the recommendations (not all authors plays a lot), make them yourself, or maybe a combinations.

I don’t know. But what I DO know is that the best marketing is helping people find what they might like. And that is what the internet giants are currently actively sabotaging.

We have control over our games. And a thing like this costs nothing but a bit of time, thought, and an update. And, more importantly, a rising tide lifts all boats! This is a thing where I feel we who sell more would have a greater responsibility. But, keeping the people involved in the hobby is so important. If they have stumbled their way here despite the odds, I feel we should make it as seamless as possible to find more things they might like.

As a final thing: Just look at the number of threads on reddit that are like “Okay, I played X and loved it, what should I play now?”

Any thoughts?

[Havenstone]

@Cannongerbil

too much like games to really make it in novel reading spaces.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think this is true. I’d happily recommend Choice of Robots to anyone I know who likes robot sci fi novels; Night Road to anyone who likes vampire fiction; Tally Ho and Jolly Good to Wodehouse fans. The interactive element doesn’t diminish the quality of the prose…unlike, say, the Dragonlance novels I grew up on that had literal “take a break here to play the RPG” moments, which didn’t stop them from being megabestsellers.

Even as someone who wrote a CoG with some pretty game-y aspects, I reckon “novel-reading spaces” are our main market and always will be. CoG first took off when it started acting like a novel publisher, paying advances to authors of novels to write novelistic IF. The best IF we’ve got here can go toe to toe with novels for satisfaction.

No amount of marketing will help us to make inroads with anyone who thinks reading is a chore. Not the subset of VN fans who are only there for the V part. Certainly not

@Kato_spy

movie fans [who don’t want] to read the book first

Our natural market is the people who loved the book and think the movie version was lame and unfaithful. And there are lots of them! As Malin noted, AO3 is evidence enough of that. We haven’t come close to tapping into the full market of people who love reading.

@GreekWinter

Who remembers when the Google Play store actually used to show you things based on your interests or related to things you’ve searched for?

Me! And I share your total bafflement at the shift they intentionally made to being useless. They’re obviously catching someone with all the generic app recommendations, but it sure hasn’t been me.

I also love the idea of the games spitting out something you can easily post to your socials showing achievements and high points. And Malin’s idea of the “if you liked this aspect, try this other game” becoming part of the endgame text. We’re past the point where the catalog is small enough that an implicit “if you liked our games, play all the rest of them!” can work.

[hellanikthi]

@GreekWinter

As for save mechanics, I hand-coded one for Parliament of Knives that took me forever. Since then, the company has updated the code base to take what I had to use hundreds of lines of code for and condensed it into 4 lines. So that’s nice. I wish more authors used it, though.

A little off topic but I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge that Parliament of Knives was my entry point to CS. Must’ve played it at least five times and was surprised at the new content I found every single time. It’s a huge inspiration for my current WIP.

Anyway, on to the topic at hand.

@CJW

There’s room here to show real statistics outside of the game stores on who picked what dramatic options and how many people have found hidden Easter eggs.

I’ve been wondering how to do this for a while. I like including polls on my WIP thread here once in a while, which is not only fun but helpful for me as the author to see what people are choosing, but I’d love a built in mechanism for that too. I love it when other games do a choices summary at the end of the chapter and compare it to other players, it’s like a little buzz when you realise “oh wow, only 12% of players chose this, look how special I am.”

There’s probably a rudimentary way of doing this but it wouldn’t quite be the same. Like if we have stats from previous polls, we could write them into the code at the end of a chapter (“You chose to blow up the moon, only 12% of players do that, also here’s a neat little graphic to prove you did it, tag us when you share it with all your friends”)

@malinryden

Imagine, if you will, that once you have reached the end of the game, you have one final page added with recommendations what to play next.

This is a great idea, I think I might just implement this myself soon. No need for a set template even, we just gotta start doing it, and perhaps over time a standard format will emerge.

@malinryden

I don’t know. But what I DO know is that the best marketing is helping people find what they might like.

For sure! We could probably use more reviewers in this space too.

@Havenstone

I reckon “novel-reading spaces” are our main market and always will be.

Hard agree.

I’m not convinced our potential audience is as niche as others have suggested. From my own (admittedly minimal) experience, I’ve been getting all sorts of personal connections to play my WIP, people who almost invariably never knew the format existed, who often aren’t gamers at all, and they’ve pretty much all come back to me saying something like, “Wow, that’s such a cool format, I am so hooked.” (even people who normally are pretty open when they hate a story of mine lol, so it’s not just that I have nice friends).

I genuinely think that most novel-readers, if given the right IF, would fall in love instantly.

For my own WIP, I’ve been working loosely with an indie short story publication that shares a storytelling philosophy with me and I’ve gotten some like-minded readers and really positive feedback from that. I wonder if tactics like that are something more of us could consider?

There’s some stuff on the writing end too that we can do to make these stories more appealing to the novel-reading crowd specifically (without sacrificing gameplay) but I suppose that’s a bit of a different topic.

@malinryden

Wayhaven was the first game for a lot of people

Apparently Wayhaven has a GoodReads page, which kind of underscores my above point.

[Arella]

Another possibility, albeit one that would require a lot of work, might be identifying target audiences, and then identifying which creators those target audiences primarily listen to, and asking them to do reviews for various publications! That is to say, sponsoring influencers, especially within literary, creative, or DND-focused communities who might be more inclined to engage with interactive fiction games as a medium?

[GreekWinter]

@hellanikthi

@CJW

There’s room here to show real statistics outside of the game stores on who picked what dramatic options and how many people have found hidden Easter eggs.

I’ve been wondering how to do this for a while. I like including polls on my WIP thread here once in a while, which is not only fun but helpful for me as the author to see what people are choosing, but I’d love a built in mechanism for that too. I love it when other games do a choices summary at the end of the chapter and compare it to other players, it’s like a little buzz when you realise “oh wow, only 12% of players chose this, look how special I am.”

Only way possible right now that I know of (automated, using the current code base, that is) is with achievements on Steam, and it only works for people playing on Steam. I will often put achievements in certain branches and on endings so I can see what percentage of players get which endings and do such and such an obscure thing.

Achievements on Steam are public, and every achievement coded into a CoG shows up there. I’ve learned a lot of interesting things about what players choose by strategically placing my achievements.

[Kato_spy]

I feel the best Idea is indeed this one at the moment, To make players once they finished the game to be offered/prompted some suggestions based on what actually are their interests and so what we could assume is their first pick from the shelf. But it raise then the problem then on how we handle game recommendations once a player finishes a story?

The core of the problem is the sheer volume of titles. With 457 games spread across three labels (and still going), Newcomers could end up see the latest releases or the all-time classics at the start, but everything in the catalog that’s 'in between’ end up gets buried, not because of low quality, but because time is our relentless enemy. Your past efforts as an Author may be wasted for how the marketing concentrate on the new titles but don’t re-package the old ones.

But If we leave it to just personal recommendations This creates a biased recommendation loop:

• Self-Promotion: Prolific authors naturally will dominate the user’s view, overshadowing excellent one-off works. Is always been like that. More work you put in, more easily if an author that i like the style, made more titles, I would after experience their work intentionally pick that titles from the shelf. And a trilogy or an extended universe is more appealing for a consumer. I like the idea of play games that give cameos to others or if I know my choices in one may effect what come out in another title. So they will always say “win” the popular choice.

• Insular Circles: If left only to the Authors the decision on what propose they will indeed back each other’s projects, but directing fans toward the same established names they think are the best in the same category they are.

If the system only pushes what is already trending, we end up favoring popularity over quality. Without a structure that actively says ‘Hey give this one a try’ for the lesser-known titles, we lose the chance to experience stories that might be perfect for us, simply because they don’t have a loud enough ‘voice’ to promote themself.

And I firmly believe in the idea that every book has its audience. Even a story that might not appeal to me, or that someone else considers ‘bad,’ could be exactly what another reader is looking for. But if the system only promotes the big hits, that specific audience will never find that specific title as is “not trending”. and the “hidden gems” just become the more popular choice from what’s in the bin (they will always be the same names)

SO I think even if we add the suggestions at the end of a story we would still need for Better Categorization method for what’s already present on the Site something that may be more fair and don’t just stop to a single method in what to propose. there is many titles you could promote by

• Narrative mechanics. Let’s pick as example Choice of Robots that’s been mentioned as there is many other titles who follow the same mechanic: the player get a life journey experience. I may be interested in games that follow that same way of tell the story rather than pick a different way
• Thematic. Let’s say after trying your Title I enjoyed it and want to experience the same type of role. I want to play a Thief my options should be directed to Titles that give me that chance
• Genre: the more broad option but if here too you don’t give it a method I may end up play 2 games that could be considered of the same genre but have different feelings to it. Neighbourhood Necromancer and Choice of a Vampire just to say two titles that come in mind could both be considered Horror genre but one offer me a dark humor comedy and the other a historical fiction with horror elements. the vibes are different

If let’s say I should be asked to promote Gothic horror with romance choices I personally would always put this together as other options

   - Donor   
   - Blood for Poppies 
   - Kiss from Death   
   - The Mysteries of Baroque  

Problem is 3 out of 4 are of the “lower” brand. If Hosted Game are treated more like a self-publishing space where authors are left to find their own clients. And the main brand (CoG) only promotes itself heavily, I feel this unintentionally become a waste of the “meat” of the catalog you could offer. And great reads like The Fernweh Saga or So, You’re Possessed! are often stuck waiting years for sequels (or may never get one). These titles could easily be overlooked unless they are bundled into specific thematic packages that give them a second life.

I would think you could easily sell So, You’re Possessed! if you put it alongside Neighbourhood Necromancer when pushing for promotion (even if one become a free option) and more peoples would try it. What I feel is lacking is the promotion of what we already got. At least this is my take on it. At least the need of a division for what’s aviable to make the search more easy rather than “here ‘s the column with everything we got, there is the forum with the suggestions” good luck

[gfgd]

Even if it cannot be helped, the fact that it only supports English makes it difficult for it to gain the same level of popularity as other hit games mentioned in this thread.

I have been wondering for a while, but why is there no link to Hearts Choice on the Choice of Games homepage? They should just create a section for it next to Hosted Games or something. It seems like it is hidden away right now.

Also, for games that focus on romance, could you write more detailed descriptions of the ROs, or at least specify their gender in advance? I feel the same way about COG; if the availability of ROs is unequal, I think it should be disclosed beforehand.

[LightningGarfunkel]

@Kato_spy [ABRIDGED]

… But it raise then the problem on game recommendations… The Authors back each other’s projects, but directing fans toward the same established names… Hosted game authors are left to find their own clients… Titles easily overlooked unless bundled into thematic packages…

pretty sure Webrings solved all this in the 90s simpler times

[Kato_spy]

Shame they aren’t as trending anymore, I feel we should get back something like that linked to the game pages at least so readers could get a chance to know what’s aviable (the problem as I sayed Time is our worst enemy we may end up lose things as we go if it isn’t done regularly).

Even if maybe now the more likely substitute should be the use of Discord …

[GreekWinter]

@LightningGarfunkel

pretty sure Webrings solved all this in the 90s simpler times

I tried explaining Webrings to a younger family member a bit ago and she just didn’t get it. Looked at me like I was crazy and asked why they didn’t just google or join the right Discord. A part of me died inside.

A lot of kids today barely even understand the existence of personal websites because they just don’t make them anymore. In the 90s and early 2000s, if you liked Choice of Games, you’d make a personal fan site and share your favorites. Now you join the Reddit or maybe blog about it on Tumblr. Hell, we’re lucky to have this forum, it’s already a bit anachronistic by modern web standards. God, I miss forums.