News - IndieDB

22 comments by INtense! on May 10th, 2012

We've talked about implementing HD quality videos for a long time and finally they have arrived. It will take a while for our system to render all 30,000 videos in HD, but you will notice more and more making the quality jump.

Another very cool change, is how we handle "related" content on game, development groups and engine profiles. At the moment news and downloads only show up in these profiles if the content is directly associated with it. From now on however, if you post news about your mod for Half-Life, that news will show up in the Half-Life profile as it is in-directly related. The same applies for your development group, news you post to your game profile will show up there. This change should help interlink content across the sites a lot better, and make game, engine and group profiles feel a lot less empty.

5 comments by INtense! on Apr 26th, 2012

As the supply of IPv4 addresses has basically come to an end, we have just completed our support of IPv6. It wasn't an easy transition, but for users on IPv6 the site should now be fully responsive. Now for an image of me puzzling over some of the webservers powering the site you are on now.

More news on the homepage

In less technical news, the homepage on ModDB and IndieDB now shows more news so that way you don't get your new article pushed off the front page as soon as it is posted.

Direct Downloads + Mac on Desura

Desura now supports direct downloads (for example) of games, so when you buy content you have the option to download it via the application or download (mostly DRM free) copies directly from the website. So you get the best of both worlds, plus this means while the app doesn't work on Mac, you can still buy and download Mac games directly from Desura.

More genres

Finally, some new genres have been added for games and mods to pick:

Action
- Stealth

RPG
- Roguelike

Strategy
- Tower Defense
- Grand Strategy
- 4X
- Real Time Tactics
- Turn Based Tactics

Game on!

17 comments by Henley on Feb 20th, 2012

Ladies and Gents, today marks the finalisation of the move from version 3 of ModDB to the version 4 we all know and love with the return of Topsites. Our excuse for taking so long? Time + effort required and other site expansions taking up all of our time.

Wait topsites?

Yes topsites! If you signed up to ModDB any time after 2007 you would have never seen it in action. Simply put topsites is our external or 3rd party ranking site. It ranks sites in their overall popularity based on how many clicks our embedded button does from any website already nominated. Purely for stats, bragging rights but if used correctly can also drive a considerable amount of new visitors to your mods/games website.

How can I use it?

Easily! Just like any other portion of the site you simply need to visit the topsites page, click the plus symbol that will take you to this URL (IndieDB uses go here), select the category your website fits into and embed the button on your site. Easypeasy.

As it stands right now the content is a little old. We are hoping that you guys will fill it full of awesome websites and spread the love of modding and indie gaming!

44 comments by INtense! on Feb 13th, 2012

For a long time the comment system here has been lacking, and while the following changes by no means make it perfect, I believe they will help those actively posting and replying to comments. The first change you will notice is inline replies. Now when you click the "reply" button the reply box opens directly below - this should make it much easier to know what you are replying to.

The second change is opt-in, which basically emails you whenever someone replies to a comment you have posted. To turn this on, edit your userprofile and check the following box:

Other changes I am considering include notification when people post a comment in a profile you control (i.e. if you run a mod and someone comments in there, you will be emailed, same for news posts and media). However I am concerned that would result in too many emails and so have not done it at this point. Also considering adding the ability for Facebook / Twitter users to post comments easily and a way to view your comment history in your user profile.

59 comments by INtense! on Feb 6th, 2012

2011 was a great year for us, during which our friends at Desura finished their closed beta, became the first Linux friendly client and launched IndieRoyale. And we continued to grow ModDB and IndieDB. ModDB had it's biggest day ever reaching 220,000 visitors (thanks to the release of The Stanley Parable which got amazing coverage on Reddit and everywhere else). IndieDB also had its biggest day ever of 70,000 last week (thanks to the release of Noxious). Desura is consistently hitting 6,000+ users online simultaneously and slowly helping sell indie games (especially via alphafunding) and IndieRoyale despite only been 4 months old has already sold 172,000 bundles of games.

Don't lose downloads ala MegaUpload

So what now in 2012? Well first and foremost we are working on beefing up our download system, because the closure of MegaUpload and many other download sites has been disastrous for mods. With many old (and new titles) which were only hosted there being lost - possibly forever. So mod and game developers... please upload your releases to your profiles here or on GameFront and other dependable sites!! To encourage the spread of files, we have even made an all new dynamic download button (seen below), which can be found on all download pages so you can share your files with the world.

Direct Desura Downloads

At the moment we are also working on rolling out direct downloads via Desura, so when you purchase a game you have the option to download it via the app (like Steam), or download and install it directly without the need to run the Desura client. It is still only 50% complete - with some games having direct downloads while others don't.

Social stuff

Social integration is also going to occur a lot more, as we plan on allowing Twitter / Facebook users to post comments and register here with as little friction as possible. Also planned is the ability to add twitter feeds to your profile. We recently completed a bit of work to the image gallery system, whereby when you hover your mouse over an image you are given options to share / embed etc, as seen below.

HD videos

HD videos also remains a priority, and we will soon start encoding them while we attempt to figure out the bandwidth dilemma!

Mobile games

Do you want to browse in-development mobile games online? Would you browse a ModDB / IndieDB like site only dedicated to mobile phone and tablet games? Are you developing a mobile game and want a place to showcase it? We are considering spinning off a site focusing on mobile content - if the interest is there of course, as most people tend to find mobile content through the app stores.

More payment options

At the moment Desura and IndieRoyale only support Visa, Mastercard and Paypal. For many this means they cannot buy from us, and while it is incredibly difficult to setup new payment gateways - it is a problem we are currently working on.

Your suggestions

Finally... and most importantly of all, what would you like to see us do in 2012? Our goal is to make it easy to discover and promote games and mods you've made to as many people as possible. So anything which helps us help you - we are interested in doing.