Hello guys. Something bad happened to Antumbra... Sorry, it won't be a short text. But bear with me please...
As some of you might know - on Kongregate games are being awarded monthly. 10 games can get in. Antumbra was nominated 8th. For which I am very grateful. But I've also learned about a very... Dirty tactics that are going on Kongregate every month.
Basically, each month when the Top10 awards are closing in - all developers downvote each other. To increase their chances by decreasing the chances of their competitors. And this also happened to Antumbra. Suddenly, the day before the awards, a huge mob of my "fellow" game developers, rushed in and attacked Antumbra.
All positive comments - DOWNvoted
All negative comments - UPvoted
All game Tags - DOWNvoted
Game - DOWNvoted.
Which made Antumbra fall from 3.9 rating down to 3.0 in matter of minutes. I have asked some of my GameDev friends and it appears this happening is quite normal on Kongeregate. Its usual. Like everybody does that. I was not aware of such thing to exist. At least - not in this spectrum. I find it disgusting.
And I am pretty sure that my friends are right. Because there is a pattern.
Every positive comment had -20 votes. Every negative comment +20 votes, every game tag -20votes. The number 20 was everywhere. EXACTLY number 20. And "surprisingly" it all stopped, right after the winners had be announced.
I couldn't stop it. I could just sit and watch the destruction. But now I am trying to clean up this mess. So I am coming to you. Please, if you are a fan of my, or you just enjoyed playing Antumbra - please follow this link and UpVote each and every game tag. Of course as long as you are okey with it. I am not asking you to do something against your will. Just the tags. Broken TAGs kills the game visibility. I don't consider this cheating. More like "cleaning up after a hurricane". :(
Here's the link:
Kongregate.com
I would be most grateful.
And sorry for taking your time :(
Hope you don't mind.
Hey, you shouldn't worry that much about that. Everytime you create content for the internet, even if it's half-decent, it'll probably get attacked. It's like petting a snake, but with a 0,01% chance of getting just pineapples instead. If you keep on creating good content, it makes it harder for people to actually "bury" your stuff. So don't get discouraged.
Specially in a situation like where (which i believe it is) people get money off ot it if they win a Top10 or something. And the attack sounds like a bot programmed to just do it automatically. Always 20? Spot on? That's kind of a giveaway. It MIGHT mean that it's not a personal attack against antumbra itself, just something they do to every new developer. Even if it isn't, hey! Just the fact that a game released so recently got considered as a "threat" by those people should make you feel honored.
And my suggestion is: Instead of getting all worried up about situations like this, do like you did to get inspired for Antumbra 1: Create a new character on Antumbra 2 (or maybe 3 if you already closed up the game definitions) where it works just like the "pride" thing near the toothfairy cabin, but instead, it stalks you through the entire game and creates random events that might hinder (or even accidentally help!) your progress. And you can even call him "Envy" or something like that. =)
Also it might give the players a different experience each playthrough, increasing the replay value.
Yeah it's true, especially when these guys consider you as a threat you did a really good job!
You could try contacting Kongregate and propose a change in the rating system. Now a days a lot of websites are getting rid of "downvote" options for this exact reason.