The Ravenous Marketplace Reviewers Jam #1 Discussion Thread

A

Aura

Guest
With the permission of @Nocturne, I bring to you the long-awaited...


What, When, Were?

The Marketplace Reviewers Jam is a community event held on the GMC, this one being the first iteration. The main purpose of this Jam is to create some traffic in the Marketplace forum; and to help Marketplace publishers get some feedback and suggestions. The Jam is to be held by me; and YoYo Games and Playtech have nothing to do with the event. The Jam would have three phases:

  • Discussion: Since the idea of such an event is quite fresh and we need to build some hype, a discussion would be held in this topic. Feel free to suggest away changes, support us or ask questions regarding the Jam and how it works.
  • Reviewing: When the Jam begins, a topic would be created (and pinned) in the Marketplace forum where you have to link to your reviews; this is mandatory for participating in the Jam. This is a week long phase.
  • Voting: In the same topic, voting would be conducted after the reviewing phase ends. You can vote for people (in a particular order) who wrote the most helpful and honest reviews, plus review their reviews during this period. This is two weeks long phase.

The Reviewing phase would run from 19th September (12:00 GMT) to 25th September (12:00 GMT)

...and the voting phase would run for the next two weeks from 25th September (12:00 GMT) to 8th October (12:00 GMT)...

Participation

  • To participate, you must have at least 10 posts, that is, you must be an (somewhat) active GMC member. Join us in the discussion topic and introduce yourself here.
  • You can review assets of your choice. You are not forced to review assets that others are reviewing.
  • All reviews must be written during the timeframe of the Reviewing phase; violation would result in the review(s) being disqualified.
  • Note that the Jam would be held on the GMC; not on the Marketplace, so you have to post your review in the GMC topic dedicated to that asset then post in the voting topic links to the topics that you have posted your reviews in.
  • If such a topic doesn't exist, consider asking the publisher of the asset to create one.
  • You must review at least three assets for your review(s) to count; makes it easy for people to judge your reviewing ability.

Voting

  • To vote for the participants, you must have at least 10 posts, that is, you must be an (somewhat) active GMC member. Join us in the discussion topic and introduce yourself here.
  • You must vote for at least three reviewers for your votes to be counted.
  • Consider writing something about why you think that the people you voted for are good reviewers; that is, review their reviewers.
  • Please test/view the assets that the participants have reviewed before voting for them, particularly if they are free assets; not mandatory.
  • You must not vote for participants just because they reviewed your asset; there must be a valid reason.

Further information would be provided in the Reviews topic, posted (and pinned) in the Marketplace forum once the Jam begins.

Prizes

The community is allowed to offer prizes. Please PM me to offer a prize.

Support​

Please spread the word by putting this support banner in your Signature:


...or simply copy paste this:

Code:
[center][url="https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/the-ravenous-marketplace-reviewers-jam-1-discussion-thread.3734"][img]http://s32.postimg.org/3wyduqjs5/Sig1_01.png[/img][/url][/center]
(Kudos to @DesixStudios for doing me so good logo and support banner!)

Let the hype begin!
 
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N

NPT

Guest
Most people on the forums use nicknames.
The Marketplace uses actual names.
anonymity is important to many and once can't link to a review without revealing their actual names.
 
A

Aura

Guest
@NPT: The reviews are to be written in the GMC topics dedicated to certain assets. The main (but not the only) purpose of the Jam is to create traffic in the Marketplace forum. We originally wanted to keep reviews to the Marketplace, but then we were approached by Nocturne and he suggested that we should do it the other way. On the GMC, that is. ^^

  • Note that the Jam would be held on the GMC; not on the Marketplace, so you have to post your review in the GMC topic dedicated to that asset then post in the voting topic links to the topics that you have posted your reviews in.
Since the reviews are to be written in the GMC topics and you have to link to those, I don't see how anonymity is not maintained... ^^''
 
A

Aura

Guest
@Lonewolff: Perhaps explain what you don't understand, so that I can spend my time doing something better than trying to get the Marketplace publishers some feedback? >.<

I don't want to flood-fill the Marketplace with reviews. Given the quality of reviews that the Marketplace publishers are getting, I (and @csanyk) am trying to get the publishers some *quality* and *actual* feedback. If I were to do this as a let's-do-it event rather than a Jam, I'm sure most of the people won't even care.

(And I have done this after a discussion with Nocturne. I don't like wasting my time for others! I wanted this to happen on the Marketplace originally; but he has already changed my point of view in that regard.)

Either way, I'd love to hear suggestions more than plain opposition.
 
A

Aura

Guest
@Lonewolff: Like I stated in the OP:

The main purpose of this Jam is to create some traffic in the Marketplace forum; and to help Marketplace publishers get some feedback and suggestions.
...and that's what we have got the Marketplace forum for. I'm pretty sure that the publishers would want to hear things other than single line great-asset or not-working statements.

TLDR: I'm doing this mainly for the publishers; not for the people who buy an asset depending on what others have to say about it. Plus I (Nocturne) want the Marketplace forum to get some traffic, so that it isn't "hidden in the depths" anymore. ^^'

Edit: Yes. @csanyk wanted the reviews to be on the Marketplace. So did I.

Also, as stated in the OP, I'm not forcing anybody to buy anything at all. You can review assets of your choice.
 
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chance

predictably random
Forum Staff
Moderator
Yes. @csanyk wanted the reviews to be on the Marketplace. So did I.
We'd all like more reviews on the Marketplace. But incentivizing them with contests (or any incentive) is dangerous. As we've discussed before, that could damage the integrity of Marketplace comments that buyers rely on. I'm sure that's why Nocturne nixed the idea.

As for this Jam idea, I suppose it might help. Although as others said, it's not particularly exciting. So participation may be limited -- especially coming on the heels of the GMC Jam.

Another problem are that Marketplace assets vary dramatically -- from $50 Bluetooth extensions for Android, to free plant sprites. Reviewers can only review items they own, so this will produce more reviews about free items. And how exciting can such reviews be? Normally, a few sentences is sufficient. Not much for voters to judge.

Lastly, your voting guidelines suggests voters should judge the "honesty" of the review. Is this a realistic approach? We all have different tastes. So if a reviewer praises an asset that I don't happen to like, it's not because they're "dishonest".

EDIT:
I see you changed the wording to just "helpful and honest". That's fine.
 
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A

Aura

Guest
@chance: I agree that paid assets are likely to get less reviews. We suggested contacting publishers to put their games on sale during the duration of the Jam, if they really want to get some feedback. But that's unlikely to go very well. Also, I'll quote Nocturne on what he told me about the low paid-free review ratio:

Nocturne said:
Oh, and one thing you'll need to think about is that due to the paid/free nature of some assets, those assets that are paid will naturally get less reviews... but I'm not sure how that could be addressed without requesting free copies from the people that make the paid assets, something that I am 100% against...
...so that really *is* an issue. If I get positive response from a number of Markeplace publishers in that regard, I might think about it. Otherwise feel free to suggest ways to handle the issue. We'll come up with something, eventually.

As for this being not very interesting, I agree. But there's not much that I can do about it. Also, I decided upon that particular week because I felt that most of the people are likely to recover by then. But feel free to suggest away dates and stuff. Not very strict about that. ^^'

Also, judging reviews on the basis of honesty is not mandatory. You can do it. But you're not forced to do so. I added "test before voting" statement to make sure that people know what they're voting for.

Edit: I didn't change anything. It was the same in the first place. ^^"
 

csanyk

Member
Most people on the forums use nicknames.
The Marketplace uses actual names.
anonymity is important to many and once can't link to a review without revealing their actual names.
You could maybe create a separate forum account for your MP username, and use it for the review jam. This is probably technically against YYG forum rules to have multiple forum accounts, but I think it should be legitimate to have a forum account for a Publisher's "corporate voice" (the royal We), and another for an individual developer's voice.

At any rate, it's entirely possible to kill anyone's new idea by imagining all kinds of problems for why it won't work and ways it could go wrong. But rather than do that, why not get out of the way and let the people who want to accomplish the thing have a go at it, and see how it works out?

Let's keep focus on having the review jam happen, because IT IS HAPPENING. Let's keep the focus on making the review jam the best it can be.

If you see an actual problem (not just an imagined what-if scenario, but something actually happening), point it out, but try to have a solution as well. Otherwise, you're just naysaying.
 
A

Aura

Guest
You could maybe create a separate forum account for your MP username, and use it for the review jam.
Yes. Creating multiple forum accounts is against the forum rules. But that is not what @NPT is concerned about. It's actually the opposite.

He perhaps misunderstood that the reviews were to be written directly on the Marketplace and you had to link to those; in that case people who wish to maintain anonymity would not be able to participate since they would technically reveal themselves. But since that is not the case and you have post reviews on the GMC, there's no issue at all. And no need to create multiple forum accounts. ^^'
 
N

NPT

Guest
Yes. Creating multiple forum accounts is against the forum rules. But that is not what @NPT is concerned about. It's actually the opposite.

He perhaps misunderstood that the reviews were to be written directly on the Marketplace and you had to link to those; in that case people who wish to maintain anonymity would not be able to participate since they would technically reveal themselves. But since that is not the case and you have post reviews on the GMC, there's no issue at all. And no need to create multiple forum accounts. ^^'
Yes, that's what I was concerned about. I thought reviews were meant to be postd in the feedback area of the product itself. Like lonewolff, I'm having a hardtime understanding the value of a review somewhere other than wher the product is available.

It's just not intuitive for the bulk of Marketplace users to find an item on the Marketplace, read the review there, then come to the forums searching for more reviews that may or may not be here.

I also have trouble with the concept of reviews for free products. For me reviews are important for products that cost money. Simply put, I don't want to waste my money, and I want the best value for my money. For free products, I have nothng to lose monitarily and somebodies else experiences is of little value compared to me evaluating it personally.
 

csanyk

Member
We'd all like more reviews on the Marketplace. But incentivizing them with contests (or any incentive) is dangerous. As we've discussed before, that could damage the integrity of Marketplace comments that buyers rely on. I'm sure that's why Nocturne nixed the idea.

As for this Jam idea, I suppose it might help. Although as others said, it's not particularly exciting. So participation may be limited -- especially coming on the heels of the GMC Jam.
Lol, "integrity of Marketplace reviews."

What integrity? How can we talk about something that we cannot measure? And if there's some way to measure the integrity of a review, then simply apply a filter and only read ones above a certain quality level.

Also: What reviews? There's billions and billions of unreviewed Marketplace assets.

The goal of the Jam is to increase the number of quality reviews. Period. End of story.

Does anyone actually think that there's going to be a prize for "winning" the Jam that will be sooooo good that it will incentivize legions of scammers to come and flood the Marketplace with a bunch of garbage reviews, thereby ruining the Marketplace? Give me a break!

And how does one win a Jam by posting bunch of garbage reviews, anyway?

This is just yet another imaginary problem dreamed up by naysayers who want to put down something positive that a few people are trying to organize for the betterment of the GM:S community. It's as though the only reason some people have to exist is to wait for people to post things on the Forums so they can tell them why their ideas will never work.

Here's an idea:

If you think a review Jam isn't interesting, there's no need for you to participate in it. Participation will certainly be limited. But we're going to try, and we're going to create at least a few more reviews than would have existed otherwise. And then we're going to do it again. And again. And we will build and grow. That will be our success.

If you're anti-reviews, don't write them, and feel free to ignore the Reviews tab when you're shopping in the Marketplace.

And if you're so paranoid that you need to separate your identity between the Forums and the Marketplace, keep your anonymity and don't participate in the Jam. Review Marketplace assets for whatever reasons you want to, or don't; just don't enter your reviews into the Jam. Imaginary problem solved.
 

csanyk

Member
Review Jam FAQ

Q: What is Review Jam?

You know the Marketplace? There's assets for sale there, and many of them don't have reviews. Review Jam aims to change this by giving people encouragement to write quality reviews.

Q: Is this really a problem?

Compared to what? Global warming? The threat of nuclear war? Mass famine?

If you're not worried about it, feel free to focus on other things that are more important. We are here to talk about writing quality reviews for the GameMaker Marketplace. If you want to talk about anything else, please go elsewhere and do that. We promise not to get in your way.

Q: I am a genius and have thought of some deep and fundamental problems that you probably haven't considered before embarking on this dangerous and foolhardy venture.

Do go on... also, this isn't a question.

Q: I don't want to write any reviews.

This isn't a question. Also, go away.

Q: No one will write reviews for paid assets, because they cost money and no one will ever spend money on anything, ever.

You never know. Maybe people who already bought them will decide to write a review.

Or maybe someone will decide to buy an asset for the sake of reviewing it. Some of us can afford a buck or two or twenty to do something we enjoy.

Or maybe the folks who charge money for assests will put on a sale for a day or an hour just to allow reviewers to take a look at their stuff.

Q: No. No one will ever review something that they have to spend money on. They will only review free assets. But there's no point in reviewing free asses, because they are free. So you can just look at it yourself.

Yeah, and that takes time. So, maybe a review is beneficial after all. If you don't think so, you don't need to read them. But the idea for the Review Jam is to write reviews that are useful and informative.

Q: OK I'm in; so how do I do this?

1. Find an asset that you wish to review. You can go looking on the Marketplace for one to purchase/download, or you can go to your My Library and review one of the ones you already own.

2. Write a review for the asset, and post it to the Marketplace's asset page. Then go to the Marketplace forum, and post a link to your review in the pinned thread there.

3. After the review-writing phase is over, read people's reviews and vote on them.

Q: I don't like these rules.

Well OK then! Don't participate. Or write your own reviews your own way. Or don't write any reviews at all. Or organize your own event. Or suggest a way we can improve the Jam. But don't just complain about a perceived problem. We like constructive criticism.

Q: I'm not doing this, and I don't think you or anyone else should be doing this. Having a contest will distort the reviews, degrading their integrity. Let nature decide what reviews get written, and how well they are written. If people want to review a marketplace asset, they will. You cannot interfere by trying to suggest to the community that they participate in some well-intended, but fundamentally flawed effort to generate reviews.

This isn't a question! Also, I thought I told you to go away!

Q: May I ask for what constitutes a good review?

YES! A good review is a review that is detailed and honest. It tells the reader of the review enough information for them to decide whether the asset is likely to be useful for their needs, and of good quality. Really, the asset's description should tell the prospective buyer that, but a good review will affirm whether the asset description is useful.

Beyond that, write in complete, grammatically correct sentences with proper spelling, and keep it succinct while providing all the relevant detail.

Q: If we're reviewing each others assets, and someone writes a negative review, the publisher will retaliate by writing an (unfair) negative review of one of the reviewer's assets, causing sales to plummet and businesses to be ruined. Ruined, I say! Egos will be destroyed, and civilization will crumble!

If two warring publishers were to become involved in such a spat, it would be quickly revealed, and likely to their mutual detriment. So, we hope this will not be a problem.

Publishers have the opportunity to post a response to any review they receive, and can say whatever they want in their own defense, and the viewing public can decide for itself who's in the right, if anyone.

Of course, humans are idiots, so at some point probably this will happen. However, we are not worried. Civilization has withstood a great many threats over the millennia, and it will surely survive a couple of short sighted publishers bent on each other's destruction. It would be far worse if no one wrote any reviews, than for two participants in the review jam to become enemies.

Q: But surely some nefarious ne'er-do-wells are going to game this Jam and exploit it to pump up their own assets to generate $ale$! We can't let that happen!


Oh, right, these review gaming charlatans have been prevented from carrying out their evil plan because until now there was no way for them to game the review system. They had to wait for us to create an event designed to encourage people to write reviews before they could do this.

Q: But surely someone who has a grudge against a publisher will slam them with an unfair review!

Oh, right, no one could do such a thing until this Jam was proposed. We better stop. OK, Jam's canceled, and we're sorry we even suggested this idea.

...

...

OK... is he gone, finally?

Right, now then: consider your audience, a prospective buyer thinking about buying the asset. Does the asset do what it says it does? Is there a better way to do it? Is it easy to use? Is it easy to integrate into your project? Is it easy to modify? Are there any problems with it? Is it well documented? Does it have a demo implementation showing how to use it? Is it worth the money?

Q: But assets vary widely, in cost, in quality. How can we have a jam that reviews these things, when they are so different from each other?

Sigh. The point of a review is to help the reader to differentiate between the best and most worthwhile assets, and everything else. Just because the quality of the asset may vary, doesn't mean that we can't write a quality review for each and every asset. We don't expect that the Jam will result in at least one quality review for every asset in the Marketplace, but it's good to have lofty goals to shoot for, and the more quality reviews we produce, the better the Marketplace will be. No, it's not the only thing the Marketplace needs, of course, but it is something that the Marketplace does need.
 

chance

predictably random
Forum Staff
Moderator
Lol, "integrity of Marketplace reviews."

What integrity? How can we talk about something that we cannot measure? (snip)
True, that's somewhat intangible. Guess I'm more concerned about the perception of integrity. When I use Amazon, for example, I like to think customers post comments because they feel strongly about the product (either way), and want to help other customers.

I'm not against a review jam for the Marketplace forum on the GMC. It could provide useful feedblack for sellers. So I'll participate.
 

csanyk

Member
True, that's somewhat intangible. Guess I'm more concerned about the perception of integrity. When I use Amazon, for example, I like to think customers post comments because they feel strongly about the product (either way), and want to help other customers.

I'm not against a review jam for the Marketplace forum on the GMC. It could provide useful feedblack for sellers. So I'll participate.
Glad you're on board! :) ...

Since you mentioned it, Amazon's review system is very vulnerable to being gamed, although their system is a bit more sophisticated. They've implemented a system by which you can provide feedback on reviews (was this review helpful?) but still people abuse the system a lot more, sometimes to hilarious outcomes. Amazon has a much larger business than the YYG Marketplace, and is wide-open to literally anyone, while the GM:MP is specialized and only of interest to GM:S users.

I think the main thing to realize here is that the review system isn't perfect, and it's not fair to criticize an effort aimed at getting more people to contribute reviews that are of good quality by pointing out the imperfections of the review system. The Jam can't do anything to change the review system itself; we have to use it as is, as best we can. The best way to get good reviews out of the Jam is for conscientious, interested users to participate. I can only shrug about the possibility that unscrupulous types might want to manipulate the review system; that could happen, sure, but it's not like anyone who wants to do this needs to wait for the Jam to do such a thing.
 
N

NPT

Guest
The Jam would have three phases:

  • Discussion: Since the idea of such an event is quite fresh and we need to build some hype, a discussion would be held in this topic. Feel free to suggest away changes, support us or ask questions regarding the Jam and how it works.
Within the opening topic Aura, the topic creator suggested discussion.

Somewhere along the way csanyk took over and decided to respond to discussion, questions and comments this way:

Q: Is this really a problem?

Compared to what? Global warming? The threat of nuclear war? Mass famine?

If you're not worried about it, feel free to focus on other things that are more important. We are here to talk about writing quality reviews for the GameMaker Marketplace. If you want to talk about anything else, please go elsewhere and do that. We promise not to get in your way.
Q: I don't like these rules.

Well OK then! Don't participate. Or write your own reviews your own way. Or don't write any reviews at all. Or organize your own event. Or suggest a way we can improve the Jam. But don't just complain about a perceived problem. We like constructive criticism.
Q: If we're reviewing each others assets, and someone writes a negative review, the publisher will retaliate by writing an (unfair) negative review of one of the reviewer's assets, causing sales to plummet and businesses to be ruined. Ruined, I say! Egos will be destroyed, and civilization will crumble!

If two warring publishers were to become involved in such a spat, it would be quickly revealed, and likely to their mutual detriment. So, we hope this will not be a problem.

Publishers have the opportunity to post a response to any review they receive, and can say whatever they want in their own defense, and the viewing public can decide for itself who's in the right, if anyone.

Of course, humans are idiots, so at some point probably this will happen. However, we are not worried. Civilization has withstood a great many threats over the millennia, and it will surely survive a couple of short sighted publishers bent on each other's destruction. It would be far worse if no one wrote any reviews, than for two participants in the review jam to become enemies.
Q: I am a genius and have thought of some deep and fundamental problems that you probably haven't considered before embarking on this dangerous and foolhardy venture.

Do go on... also, this isn't a question.

And if you're so paranoid that you need to separate your identity between the Forums and the Marketplace, keep your anonymity and don't participate in the Jam.

I'm sorry, but where does he come of with such disparaging remarks regarding the discussion of how this Jam is supposed to function.

I can't help but think, if this is how he is responding to initial discussion, how is he going to respond to comments and critism of his products. I truly question this Jam if he is to be one of the leaders of it.

So long as he has any input I would suggest people stay well away.
 

csanyk

Member
Within the opening topic Aura, the topic creator suggested discussion.

I'm sorry, but where does he come of with such disparaging remarks regarding the discussion of how this Jam is supposed to function.

I can't help but think, if this is how he is responding to initial discussion, how is he going to respond to comments and critism of his products. I truly question this Jam if he is to be one of the leaders of it.

So long as he has any input I would suggest people stay well away.
Aura and I are co-organizers of the event.

I originally started some conversations asking the Forum community about ideas for getting people to be more involved in writing reviews for Marketplace assets, and have gotten a lot of comments about why it won't work, or shouldn't be attempted, from people who aren't trying to suggest any better way of doing it, just trying to shut down the idea.

https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/marketplace-reviews-exchange.1651/
https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?members/csanyk.139/#profile-post-1574

It's common to the GMC culture here that anytime someone suggests an idea, a few people will point out potential problems and then declare the whole thing unworkable, which is rubbish.

So, I'm a bit thin skinned about it at this point. I guess maybe I should apologize for that, but when you hear the same objections repeated time and again after patiently explaining why they're not really problems, or how we can avoid them being show-stoppers, it does get old.

Really, for those who don't feel like this is a good idea, I encourage you to stay out of our way, and let those who are interested in participating do so. We don't need the negativity.

I'm fine with people discussing how we'll conduct the jam,and contributing suggestions for ways to do it better. That's very different from the sort of "I see a problem" and "this is a bad idea" responses with no suggestions on how to encourage people to write quality reviews for Marketplace assets.
 

chance

predictably random
Forum Staff
Moderator
Glad you're on board! :) ....
Now all I need is a Marketplace account.

It's common to the GMC culture here that anytime someone suggests an idea, a few people will point out potential problems and then declare the whole thing unworkable, which is rubbish.

So, I'm a bit thin skinned about it at this point.
Understandable. We can be somewhat negative at times. (OK... most of the time. LOL)

Here's a thought: what about voting based on the combination of all three reviews -- instead of the single best review? I raise this question because many reviews are likely to be about free assets. So they may be rather short.

Just tossing out some ideas for discussion.
 
A

Aura

Guest
@chance: That's already a part of the rules. ^^'

  • You must vote for at least three reviewers for your votes to be counted.
You can vote for as many reviewers as you want in a particular order (with no ties) -- Much like the way GMC Jams do it.
 

chance

predictably random
Forum Staff
Moderator
Sorry, I didn't make my suggestion clear. I'm suggesting that each reviewers must post at least three reviews. That way, each reviewer is judged based on his body of work -- not just a single review.

Currently, my understanding is that reviewers may post only one review if they choose. It's recommended they post more, but not required. So I'm suggesting that posting three reviews is the requirement.

The reason for my suggestion is that I expect reviews will be rather short. So by requiring reviewers to post three, voters will be better able to judge a reviewer's skill.
 
A

Aura

Guest
@chance: Ah, I see. Valid point, btw. I've updated the rules. ^^

Also, should I try contacting a few Marketplace publishers to ask if they are ready to put their assets on sale during the duration of the Jam? Because I can't think of any better solution to handle the low paid-free review ratio issue. If there's one, let me know about it...

(I have got to force them to offer prizes, too! *whistling*)
 
I personnaly cannot buy assetts on the MP just to review at the end even though it's just 1$ to get the asset. I can see the reason to put my TBPE asset on sale again just for reviews but out of the 43 people that baught it (as of today) I got only 2 reviews and they were just ideas. Of course reviews are great and help us upgrade our assets more and better but after the jam, I feel that this will just get back down. A suggestion could be to encourage reviews and maybe facebook shares and of course sales from us, giving up maybe 5 or 10 GMS extensions (HTML5 for example as we are speaking of web here) to the top best and clearest reviews would encourge us to spend a bit of money to review other assets. For example:

I can spend 50$ on assets to review them and at the end I finish with an HTML5 GMS extension for free because of my well written and on subject reviews, I personally believe this is worth it. I will have gained a GMS extension plus many assets for 50$ only, that's a nice deal for the time I spend reviewing. I'd enter it right now! Also, the possibility of putting thoses assets entering the jam on the GMS top page for a day, that would also be encouraging.
 

csanyk

Member
I personnaly cannot buy assetts on the MP just to review at the end even though it's just 1$ to get the asset. I can see the reason to put my TBPE asset on sale again just for reviews but out of the 43 people that baught it (as of today) I got only 2 reviews and they were just ideas. Of course reviews are great and help us upgrade our assets more and better but after the jam, I feel that this will just get back down. A suggestion could be to encourage reviews and maybe facebook shares and of course sales from us, giving up maybe 5 or 10 GMS extensions (HTML5 for example as we are speaking of web here) to the top best and clearest reviews would encourge us to spend a bit of money to review other assets. For example:

I can spend 50$ on assets to review them and at the end I finish with an HTML5 GMS extension for free because of my well written and on subject reviews, I personally believe this is worth it. I will have gained a GMS extension plus many assets for 50$ only, that's a nice deal for the time I spend reviewing. I'd enter it right now! Also, the possibility of putting thoses assets entering the jam on the GMS top page for a day, that would also be encouraging.
No one is suggesting or or advocating that you spend money to get assets just so you can review them for the jam.

Review stuff you already have. Or look for assets that are free to download and try.

We're just trying to encourage people to use the review system, to write more and better reviews, and to build up the community.

This isn't about trying to boost sales, or make more money, at least not directly.

For people who don't mind, or want to spend money to get paid assets that they can review, that's great, we're happy you're willing to do that, and more power to you.

It'd be great if the MP allowed publishers to generate coupon codes or something so that they could give away limited numbers of their assets, but they don't. Until then, publishers who want to encourage reviewership during the jam may at their option put their paid assets on sale, but are under no obligation to do so.
 
I'm just saying that doing a JAM just to promote reviews without any prize or candy at the end to me is not worth it. I'm not saying that it is mandatory to pay for assets. I'm just saying that candy is fun to run after and that sort of jam just is not appealing to me unless it permits me to put my stuff more visible to the world. But again, people will want their projects to be put in the front page and with thousands of people out there doing assets, I can't figure out how mine would be visible throughout these numourous others.

Candy, something worth entering is missing for this jam, that's all I'm saying.
 
A

Aura

Guest
@David Richard: A number of Marketplace publishers have agreed upon putting *some* of their paid assets on sale and give away some other paid assets as prizes for the winner. But I'm yet to receive a response from many other MP publishers, so I've not included those prizes in the OP. But I'll do that later today. ^^
 

Surgeon_

Symbian Curator
It'd be great if the MP allowed publishers to generate coupon codes or something so that they could give away limited numbers of their assets
Very true...

Also, I'm in for the jam. I'll be offering all (two) of my paid assets for free to the people who want to review them.

Suggestion: Make a list of people who confirmed they will participate in the opening post.
 

csanyk

Member
Most of my assets are already free; I am not charging very much for any of them.

I don't want to put the paid ones on sale for the jam, because in the past when I've made them free, I get a ton of downloads and no reviews for my generosity. BUT I will say that anyone who buys mine and writes a review, I will happily paypal the money back to them, and since YYG keep a 30% cut of my MP sales, that's actually more expensive for me. The Marketplace also has a returns system, if you find that a purchase ended up being a mistake for you.
 

Surgeon_

Symbian Curator
Most of my assets are already free; I am not charging very much for any of them.

I don't want to put the paid ones on sale for the jam, because in the past when I've made them free, I get a ton of downloads and no reviews for my generosity. BUT I will say that anyone who buys mine and writes a review, I will happily paypal the money back to them, and since YYG keep a 30% cut of my MP sales, that's actually more expensive for me. The Marketplace also has a returns system, if you find that a purchase ended up being a mistake for you.
That's what I feared, so what I planned to do is this: If somebody wants to review any of my paid assets, they'll PM me and I'll send them a free copy in a .gmez or whatever. Then I'll know if somebody took it but didn't leave a review. Also, nobody loses money this way.
 

csanyk

Member
That's what I feared, so what I planned to do is this: If somebody wants to review any of my paid assets, they'll PM me and I'll send them a free copy in a .gmez or whatever. Then I'll know if somebody took it but didn't leave a review. Also, nobody loses money this way.
That would not work, unfortunately; the marketplace will only let people post reviews on assets that they have purchased through the marketplace.
 
N

NPT

Guest
The Marketplace also has a returns system, if you find that a purchase ended up being a mistake for you.
This isn't true for everybody.

The return system is only available to EU residents (for 14 days) because it is required by law. For everyone else all sales are final.
 
C

ConsolCWBY

Guest
If people want feedback to their Marketplace assets, wouldn't a pre-emptive strike work best? I mean a jam is fine, but what about 6 months down the road? Couldn't there be a new place on the forums for people to test "limited" assets before they go live on marketplace to get a kind of quality review?
(I'm not against the idea of a jam, mind you, I'm just thinking about the future!) :)

As it is, I think the jam is a good idea. I believe most people would think that - but are concerned with the implementation.

(Edited for clarity - it's what I get for doing 3 things at one time! lol!)
 
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csanyk

Member
If people want feedback to their Marketplace assets, wouldn't a pre-emptive strike work best? I mean a jam is fine, but what about 6 months down the road? Couldn't there be a new place on the forums for people to test "limited" assets before they go live on marketplace to get a kind of quality review?
(I'm not against the idea of a jam, mind you, I'm just thinking about the future!) :)
There's no reason why several different initiatives can't all be going on at the same time.

The idea behind doing a review jam was that @Aura and I felt that it would be good for the community if more Marketplace assets had more reviews, and better quality reviews, written for them. I expect that this will not be a one-off, and there will be more review jams, so six months down the road we may well be having our second, third, or sixth jam. That said, don't feel as though you have to wait for a jam to write a review for an asset that you've tried out! Just because we're scheduling a the week of 8/22-29 for writing reviews doesn't mean you can't get a head start and do them right now. In fact, please do. Write as many (good quality) reviews as you can, all the time!

The Marketplace forum here is really the right place for discussing pre-publication or ongoing development of marketplace assets, in my opinion, so we don't need a "new" place for that. Reviews are really to give the prospective buyer an idea of whether or not the asset is well crafted, whether the asset works as advertised, how it compares to other similar assets available in the marketplace, and whether it was worth the purchase price.

Feedback to the developer (whether a bug report, or a feature request) would be better handled through directly contacting the developer, or by participating in a forum thread in the Marketplace forum that is dedicated to that asset, or if the publisher has some other way to report bugs, use that. Most publishers have an official forum topic that they watch for the assets they've published. That's really a better place to have a more involved back-and-forth discussion between publisher and customer, in my opinion.
 

ZeDuval

Member
I stumbled upon so many great assets and downloaded half of the marketplace since I started using GM:S, I will participate and review some gems!
 
A

Aura

Guest
Dead already, huh? ^^'

Given the lack of hype at the moment, the Jam would now be held between 19th September and 25th September. I hope everybody is fine with that?

(And please put the suppport logo into your signatures... that way more people would be able to know about the Jam, I don't want it to die again)
 

csanyk

Member
Dead already, huh? ^^'

Given the lack of hype at the moment, the Jam would now be held between 19th September and 25th September. I hope everybody is fine with that?

(And please put the suppport logo into your signatures... that way more people would be able to know about the Jam, I don't want it to die again)
I would recommend sticking to the original announced dates. If participation is low, so be it -- it's the first one, things tend to start small. You have to start somewhere, and hopefully build.
 

Surgeon_

Symbian Curator
Dead already, huh? ^^'

Given the lack of hype at the moment, the Jam would now be held between 19th September and 25th September. I hope everybody is fine with that?

(And please put the suppport logo into your signatures... that way more people would be able to know about the Jam, I don't want it to die again)
Honestly that would be great for me. Currently I'm pressured by two very important exams and I don't think I'd have the will to review anything with that hanging over my head...
 

csanyk

Member
Honestly that would be great for me. Currently I'm pressured by two very important exams and I don't think I'd have the will to review anything with that hanging over my head...
There's always going to be someone who has a conflict with some other event. Things like this work because people prioritize doing them, and because they happen on a regular schedule.

Think about it like a city bus. The bus comes on a regular schedule, and people count on the bus to run on time. If they can't make a particular bus, they know they can wait for the next one. If the bus was always delayed until everyone was ready to board it, it would never leave the station.
 

Tthecreator

Your Creator!
XD, now I'm really thinking that I should finish up my assets I'm working on.
BTW the idea is cool, might allow some people to check out some assets they downloaded, just because they were free.(I'm guilty of that too)
For example: I uploaded some random sorting algorithm debugging scripts and that got like 50+ downloads. Another font asset, that was just arial that had a fix that made Asian characters rotated the right way. That one got 100+ downloads. I wonder how many people actually use these free assets.
 

Surgeon_

Symbian Curator
There's always going to be someone who has a conflict with some other event. Things like this work because people prioritize doing them, and because they happen on a regular schedule.

Think about it like a city bus. The bus comes on a regular schedule, and people count on the bus to run on time. If they can't make a particular bus, they know they can wait for the next one. If the bus was always delayed until everyone was ready to board it, it would never leave the station.
I know what you're thinking and that it sounds selfish, but I did not ask for the Jam to be postponed. I was just saying that I'm okay with it after it had already been announced. And if it was on the original date, then maybe I would have had to drop out, but I wouldn't insist on postponing the event on the account of my schedule.
 
I think this sounds like a good idea. It might need a few rounds around the block to become polished, but we need to start somewhere, don't we? :)
 
G

Galladhan

Guest
I really like the idea behind this jam, cause i think there are many assets on the MP which would deserve more attention. I haven't posted in this thread before only cause i knew that i would have been busy during the jam timeframe, but now i should have some free time for a while, and i have a ton of MP assets, so i would be happy to take part in it, if it starts soon.

I was thinking, though: writing a (good) review is not a very easy task, and some people might feel a bit intimidated, especially if english is not their first language (i kinda put myself into the mix, here).
And it takes time, too, so it's difficult to find enough reviewers, i guess. Plus, some people might appreciate an asset cause they recognize it's very well done, and maybe they're learning things from it (i do that almost daily), but they don't have the proper GML knowledge to write a "technical review".

So i was wondering: what if, instead of writing reviews, we made "ranks"? Everybody could make a rank of their favorite 10 (or 5) MP assets (maybe with a short comment to explain why), and the winner would be the publisher who got more votes.

Don't know if it could work, just an idea.
 
H

Homunculus

Guest
@Galladhan looks like this jam is dead, which is a shame because the marketplace is, in my opinion, in a serious need for a revamp. I'm not entirely sure this event could work as expected, but at least it was a step in the right direction (at least for what we, as users, can do to improve it).

The marketplace is a great asset to both developers and yoyogames, it's difficult for me to understand why it's being neglected so much
 
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