Anyways, I agree with Matt that the name is by no standard flattering, but I don’t think it would turn me off from using the site. As far as the layout goes though, I find it distracting. At first glance I want to be able to see the top voted games (a feature in development), half a dozen randomly selected or new games, and one recommended game. All with descriptions no longer than those currently used under New Games section (less than 100 words). I don’t care about the Soapbox and I don’t understand why it is one of the first things presented to the visitor. Navigation by the top menu seemed fine and intuitive for what I wanted to find.

The only thing I’ve noticed in the 30 minutes of browsing and typing this response that I really disliked was the language: it’s too informal. The “dialogue” between Me and Vicky when describing Aveyond does nothing to help me understand what the game is about. Gibbage’s description was the best among them.

http://www.naver.com - One of the two biggest portal and search engines.
http://www.daum.net - The other major portal/search engine.
http://www.cyworld.com - The largest community site.
http://www.koreatimes.com - One of the major newspapers.

Oh, and as an update, they’ve posted that you no longer have to register to download demos. A necessary correction to a silly mistake in the first place.

I never have considered myself to be any sort of “indie” gamer, let alone indie music/movie fan. I happened upon Achaea something like five years ago at a site that was called, I believe, “gamedex” or something like that. I was bored and in front of a computer that I did not have any permissions on, so I was looking for a game I could play in my browser. Achaea was the third or fourth listed (alphabetically) in the RPG category, so I took a look and immediately was attracted by the website. Unfortunately, port 23 happened to be blocked as well so I had to wait until I was elsewhere to start playing, but play I did.

Until that point, I had never played any game that I didn’t buy at Media Play or Best Buy, etc. Since that time, I have bought only one game (Neverwinter Nights Diamond, since I saw it in the $10 bargain bin).

If you are looking for a way to entice gamers, focusing on those who are already members of the “indie gamer” community isn’t necessarily where new customers are to be found. I think IRE had a wonderful idea with the poster contest a while back. If you make your game available and generate interest in any sort of forum where a casual gamer might see it, it would likely be better than advertising to the indie community, where many of the existing people are already dedicated to the product that lured them into the scene to begin with.

Slightly rambling, but I think my original intent was to give my personal viewpoint, which generally is supporting of what Matt said, but also might give some insight into who might be finding games where, and what factors matter.

If you know something I don’t about using the fact that we were first to promote our games, I’m all ears, believe me.

I’m not going to go on further. But I want to go off on a tangent.

1. Achaea’s business model is based on item purchase rather than subscription.

2. The single most successful MMO on the planet at present is Kart Rider, in Korea, which is based on item promotion, rather than subscription.

3. You were here first.

4. Isn’t there something promotable about this?

–matt

There is value in the freedom to express individual vision that you can rarely obtain in the conventional markets. I agree that there are few gamers who today have the same opinion of “independent games,” but then, there aren’t all that many gamers who have even been exposed to the idea of independent games. If we are to achieve substantial distribution for independently created games, one of the necessary jobs–probably the most difficult one–is to cultivate an audience aesethetic that does indeed think “being indie is an attraction.”

I’m not sure that’s true. I think you’re mushing together and unjustifiably equating ideas like innovation and interesting with a method of production.

You’re right that we are a portal retailing games. I think you are missing the other side of the equation, however; independent music and film fans tend to be fanatical about the products they love, and again, we are attempting to create a parallel phenomenon for independently created games. Consequently, it can’t just be about retail; it also has to be about creating a sense of community and engagement, and providing interesting material, so that people are motivated to return to see what’s new, not just when they hear about a game they would like to purchase. Consequently, we need the review et al. material that’s appearing in The Word, and we need active forums, hence the featured post on the front page, and we need to impart the sense that customers aren’t merely consuming, they are engaged in a conversation with a company that has a mission and a voice. So to say that there is a lack of clarity in terms of pounding home “buybuybuy” is, I think, missing the point.

I’m not arguing that the information you have isn’t important to have or that it’s not important to foster a sense of community (though I’m fairly unsure that it is important to foster a sense of community around a retail games site). I’m arguing that the entire experience as it is put together now is confusing, difficult to use, and makes me unsure if the site is about selling me some games to play or pushing an agenda. Perhaps there is room for both. I doubt it though.

I believe my comment via email addresses your comment here. This is indeed a matter of taste. Here and elsewhere, I have been accused of both choosing an amateurish logo, and having an amateurish design. Our logo was designed by a person who is employed full time as the branding designer for a major New York branding agency; our site design was created by someone who has had work featured at SIGGRAPH, and has worked as creative director for companies including Sesame Workshop and Space.com. You may dislike the aesthetic, but to term them amateurish is factually incorrect.’

I don’t care who created it. It still sucks, sorry. There’s just not a nice way to put it.

I happen to like the aesthetic. I realize that it is not “clean;” that is purposeful. It is intended to impart an vigorous, punk-y, independent feel. That being said, there are a lot of things that need tightening up, and we will be doing so over time.

No, it’s not “clean” but that’s fine. It can have any look you desire as long as it allows for a good user experience that lets someone find what he or she is looking for.

FWIW, I will mention that I find the black-on-brown text on the Ironrealms website rather difficult to read.

Ugh, yeah, thanks for bringing that to my attention. That’s horrid. Someone appears to have broken the homepage, as that is NOT what it looks like/is meant to look like.

–matt

Personally, I find most web sites are way overloaded with junk, especially the various games portasl I’ve visited. Games portals tend to have very gaudy use of color too. Manifesto games isn’t particularly different in clutter/saturation than any other games portals.

Given a choice, I’d choose the art style displayed in Iron Realms web pages (for example), which have less clutter and more subtle coloring, to the manga or carnival-style art that most games portals display. But then again, I’m not a typical customer.

>being indie isn’t an attraction. It’s a non-factor.

I think if you said this to a fan of indie music or film, they would disagree. There is value in the freedom to express individual vision that you can rarely obtain in the conventional markets. I agree that there are few gamers who today have the same opinion of “independent games,” but then, there aren’t all that many gamers who have even been exposed to the idea of independent games. If we are to achieve substantial distribution for independently created games, one of the necessary jobs–probably the most difficult one–is to cultivate an audience aesethetic that does indeed think “being indie is an attraction.” While doing so is non-trivial, I also don’t think its impossible–it has happened for music and film, after all–and indeed, if I thought it were impossible, I wouldn’t be doing this.

>What is Man Fest (erm, Man!festo) trying to accomplish here?

You’re right that we are a portal retailing games. I think you are missing the other side of the equation, however; independent music and film fans tend to be fanatical about the products they love, and again, we are attempting to create a parallel phenomenon for independently created games. Consequently, it can’t just be about retail; it also has to be about creating a sense of community and engagement, and providing interesting material, so that people are motivated to return to see what’s new, not just when they hear about a game they would like to purchase. Consequently, we need the review et al. material that’s appearing in The Word, and we need active forums, hence the featured post on the front page, and we need to impart the sense that customers aren’t merely consuming, they are engaged in a conversation with a company that has a mission and a voice. So to say that there is a lack of clarity in terms of pounding home “buybuybuy” is, I think, missing the point.

>The site does way too much promoting of Greg Costikyan.

Here, you may well have a point; I believe I will ask Johnny to write our next soapbox, and over time, I believe that the personalities of our other staff will come out, as well. I realize that no other retail site of which I am aware does anything to foster the notion of personality or voice–but again, I’m attempting to foster a sense of engagement between our staff and the community, and it is my firm belief that if we succeed in doing so, that will be one of our chief competititive advantages.

As for the Events, as I already said in email, this is not, as you have characterized it, a list of my speaking engagements, although my speaking engagements are listed. It is also a list of other events of interest to our audience, such as the IGF deadline, and in future will contain items of more immediate interest, such as tournaments and developer chats. (Indeed, since we exchanged email, Randy Chase announced some SpiritWars tournaments, and I have added them to the Events list.)

>The visual layout. My god. I feel like I’m being assaulted!
>He replied to me this morning via email and said paraphrased, “I’m sorry the site is not to your taste.”

I believe my comment via email addresses your comment here. This is indeed a matter of taste. Here and elsewhere, I have been accused of both choosing an amateurish logo, and having an amateurish design. Our logo was designed by a person who is employed full time as the branding designer for a major New York branding agency; our site design was created by someone who has had work featured at SIGGRAPH, and has worked as creative director for companies including Sesame Workshop and Space.com. You may dislike the aesthetic, but to term them amateurish is factually incorrect.

I happen to like the aesthetic. I realize that it is not “clean;” that is purposeful. It is intended to impart an vigorous, punk-y, independent feel. That being said, there are a lot of things that need tightening up, and we will be doing so over time.

FWIW, I will mention that I find the black-on-brown text on the Ironrealms website rather difficult to read.