Show HN: Game development collaboration platform. Make games together | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Game development collaboration platform. Make games together

gamestarter.io

19 pointsplummet15 comments

I really have no idea what your platform does. Can you explain at all what you actually do for people?

Why is your product better than GitHub? Are your tools something that engineers can use from the command line while my artist friends can use the web?

> I really have no idea what your platform does.

I'd like to just re-state that again, as I also can't find out. Maybe a kickstarter for game development?

The signup area wants you to partition yourself into one of two categories: Game Player or Creator, and their video says that they let the player community decide upon the gameplay mechanics used in their game, so perhaps it offers a voting system for selecting the game mechanics for a new game?

I don't understand how these websites with mystery products make it to the front page? Who is upvoting them? Why?

I bet something along the lines of "Like ..., but for game developers!"

1) Name sounds too close to Kickstarter, choose a better name to help it stand out.

2) Your landing page while nice doesn't say anything about what the platform does. I'm not going to sign up if I don't understand what is the deal about and why would I want to sign up.

In the end game, Gamestarter will be an online platform, optimized to assist game creators around the world to collaborate on game projects. While there is focus on tools to directly work together, our main goal is to unite creators with others who share their unique, game vision.

So firstly, creators, find your dream game-making team through our platform, and get to work conceptualizing games.

While creators are hard at work, game players will comment, critique and rate these games.

This process allows the community to choose their favorite games from the pool, at which point GameStarter will work with the favourited games creators to develop said game.

That sounds nice, but you need to make a stronger case about it in the site if you want to get people interested. Think of what features would make people excited about your platform and talk about those, don't just say "My platform is about this" but "My platform is about this and you will like it because this this and that." and go into great length on the second part of that sentence.

I can't comment on the usefulness of this as I don't make any games, but the site looks nice!

However, I'll have to say that personally I really dislike the name. I get that it's somewhat related Kickstarter, but when I see names which are copies of other company names, it leaves a very poor impression.

Of course this is just my opinion and maybe others will disagree with me.

I have no idea what this site does, but it sounds like it lets game players pitch ideas to game developers. Look at the ideas section of Steam Greenlight and you'll understand immediately why this is a bad idea.

For those asking more about GameStarter's process. In the end game, Gamestarter will be an online platform, optimized to assist game creators around the world to collaborate on game projects. While there is focus on tools to directly work together, our main goal is to unite creators with others who share their unique, game vision.

So firstly, creators, find your dream game-making team through our platform, and get to work conceptualizing games.

While creators are hard at work, game players will comment, critique and rate these games.

This process allows the community to choose their favorite games from the pool, at which point GameStarter will work with the favourited games creators to develop said game.

That doesn't sound like crowd-sourcing at all, that sounds like an endless hackathon combined with funnel to an incubator for game projects. Plus, the whole "give no information whatsoever, but make sure to ask for their email address, along with an appeal based on emotion and no quality" thing you got going on your website is skeevy as hell.

Understand that our platform is not yet ready. You're signing up through our splash page to be a part of GameStarter when we go live. You are not looking at a ready platform. I can assure, once it's ready, GameStarter will have everything you need to efficiently collaborate, not a 'hackathon' as you said.

I fail to see how gathering creators and players from the crowd, to collaborate together to validate and create games, is not crowdsourcing. Check crowdsourcing on Google.

At the point where you "will work with the favourited games", presumably for some take.

Further, regardless of how much you assure anyone, you've not even shown so much as a hint of an ui design. I have no idea what "everything i need to efficiently collaborate" is, and you are not doing a great job convincing me you know.

Lastly, your vocabulary, your writing style, and your phrasing all sound like a buzzword-worshipping middle manager trying hard to make a sale. It is hard for me to overstate just how untrustworthy that makes you sound.

Just to not leave you confused, here are the parts that make you sound as if you're trying very hard to pretend that you know what you're doing in order to pull a sale:

    "our platform"
    "a part of"
    "I can assure"
    "once it's ready"
    "everything you need to efficiently collaborate"
    "the crowd"

If you wish to be trusted, speak in simple and humble terms.

Hey, love the feedback. Any chance you could flick me your email to mark@gamestarter.io

I want to get future phasing right, dodge buzzwords and drive simplified messages.

Would love if I could run future messaging past you.

Feedback like this is why I posted on HackerNews

Why not, mail sent.

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