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  • Started 2 years ago by fabianruiz
  • Latest reply from francis1

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PurposeGames.com » General

Suggestion: Quantity vs. Quality (9 posts)

  1. fabianruiz

    fabianruiz
    Member
    Posted: 2 years ago #

    Hi...

    500 games is a great milestone... But I'm not sure how many of them are worth playing... and please don't misunderstand me.
    I know it's a free world and it's great to be able to create a game about whatever comes to our mind... but i feel we are already missing the point of this great site.

    It's called Purpose Games and you're supposed to play to learn, but we are starting to look more like the whole internet in which there's so much useless information that sometimes it's difficult to find what you really need or want.

    I put into your consideration what i think that could be done in order to keep the greatness of this site:

    1. Delete repeated games. (We could report any repeated game we find and then David or whoever would delete it)

    2. Change the category of misplaced games. (We could report them as well). There are, for instance, some Entertainment games that should be in People.

    3. Create more categories for the games (Easy Games or Kid's Games is really really needed, Baseball Games are asking for a category but i'd rather ask to stop creating so many).

    4. Delete those games who haven't been played for a long time AND that have been played less than 30 times by less than 5 members. (or something like that...)

    5. Delete games who receive, let's say, more than 20 bad votes... or something like that.

    6. Set 10 as the minimum number of dots for a game. (Those who have 3 or 4 are the ones that have more hits, but it is because of their simplicity, not because how good they really are)

    I repeat, it's only a suggestion to stop the sensation of being lost that i am starting to feel.

    But maybe it's just me.

        
  2. famisamis

    famisamis
    Member
    Posted: 2 years ago #

    I think you make some really good points. It's a delicate balance between making sure everyone has the chance to be creative and make games but also maintaining the quality of the site.

    It has been suggested before that something be put in place to prevent duplicate games.

    I don't agree with deleting games that haven't been played in a long time and less then 30 times. Sometimes a game doesn't get a lot of attention if it isn't on the front page for very long. Some days only one or two new games will show up and they'll get a lot of plays. Other days you'll see 10-20 new games which lessens the time a new game is featured.

    There are a lot of baseball games showing up. It's an interesting idea but I'm getting bored seeing the same background show up over and over again. I suggested to jgeo that he/she use more unique backgrounds for each game.

    I agree that a kids category is a good idea. That will eliminate some of the criticism of games that seem overly simplistic.

    Good comments.

    Amy

        
  3. Doffa

    Doffa
    Member
    Posted: 2 years ago #

    Subcategories would be good, then baseball would be an undercategory to sports. For geography there could be categories based on continent or country or based on cities/physical geography etc.
    As for deleting duplicate games - sometimes the duplicate has a nicer background or better placed dots or other additionals which actually make them better games. Its hard to say how these should be handled - David could use his supreme power and infinite wisdom (and our suggestions) to which game should be removed. Because I agree that there should be only 1 game of each topic. I also agree that some of the worse games should be removed - they do not contribute to the site but drags it down.

        
  4. David

    David
    Key Master
    Posted: 2 years ago #

    First of all, great feedback. I agree, the navigation and categorization could be better. The question is how. Subcategories? Really? "Tags" are supposed to fix that i.e. labeling a game as "kids game" or whatever subcategory is needed. Only tags are not used much at all in navigation. I also agree on the multiple game problems, and on the too few/too many dots problem. How to solve it?

    As I see it, the core problem is really how to please the different crowds that make up the audience of this site.

    There are the competitive ones that really come here for the competition. The site is currently not doing enough for them. There are the ones here for the learning alone and don’t really care that there’s a timer running on the game or that the game has been done before. There are also the ones that are looking to create a cool, sometimes highly internal, game to present to their friends (something like putting up a school photo, a "find-five-errors/what’s missing" game) etc. The site is not so good for that purpose right now.

    Perhaps there are more than these three crowds. People – including myself – really don’t want to be boxed into belonging to a crowd. However, I find myself belonging to all three of these on different occasions, and for the sake of argument, let’s assume that these are at least not completely wrong.

    I’d like to float an idea here that could be key to at least a few of the problems mentioned, and some that have been mentioned in other threads. Feel free to comment, anyone/everyone.

    On publishing games: I’ve been entertaining the idea of having two modes for games. A game creator shall be able to choose whether the game created shall be treated as public or private.

    All new public games need to be qualified. The "Latest Games"-list would then only show the latest games that have been qualified to become public. Also, only such games that make it through qualification will act as base for player rating. Public games that don’t make the cut will still be available on the site. It will be much easier to distinguish between the qualified and unqualified public games and build better navigation from doing so. A published game that has yet to become qualified, would still be visible and playable from the first second as it would just remain in the "unqualified" (need better word) section.

    What about a private game then? Well, a private game stays private. That game never reaches the public audience via search or navigation/browsing. You only reach it via the correct URL. What’s the purpose of such game then? If you want to make a game of a picture of your school class, or a list of favorite meals that your brother likes to eat or whatever, a private game is what is needed.

    With this in place, there would be a more solid base on which to base member rating i.e. only on public qualified games. It would then be easier to launch another idea I’m having of a Hall of Fame with monthly "winning member", "winning game", "winning game creator". I think this site is missing such Hall of Fame today, but with the current base of rating it falls a bit short.

    This could even solve some of the navigation problems, replacing "standard games" vs member games really, and help with the "overcrowding it with one type of game", "duplicate games"-problems, while better serving those who want to make more private games or "games only for my school class" or whatever the case may be.

    Granted, some type of subcategory system would probably still be needed. That problem would persist. Here I thought I’d found a silver bullet. :)

    To those of you still reading, feel free to jump in with feedback.

        
  5. Vlad

    Vlad
    Member
    Posted: 2 years ago #

    I think the idea of qualifying games could solve this issue very effectively. This way instead of a game being removed it simply goes into the "Aspiring" category. This in combination with filtering options (i.e. show only games not played) gets my vote. Thank you, David.

        
  6. fabianruiz

    fabianruiz
    Member
    Posted: 2 years ago #

    I think it's a great idea to make a distinction between private and public games. That would solve most of the issues and there would be no need to delete games as Amy points out.

    The Hall of Fame, or whatever you will call it, is also something that would be very rewarding for some of the guys creating games that are doing a helluva job out there.

        
  7. Doffa

    Doffa
    Member
    Posted: 2 years ago #

    I like the idea about qualified/endorsed games v.s aspiring/non-qualified games. A problem would be how to decide which games should be endorsed/qualified - using neither raings or times played would serve as a good indicator. I think that games that qualify need to fullfill a few criteria that e.g. ratings do not alsways take into account: estethichally, accuracy, difficulty. Perhaps most importantly the endorsed games need to be of general interest, i.e. excluding games that are of too special interest (e.g. cities of a very small region). I dont have a good answer on how to choose these games in an orderly fashion.
    Otherwise I like both the idea of halls of fame and latest record broken and private games.

        
  8. RonaldDerGrosse

    RonaldDerGrosse
    Member
    Posted: 2 years ago #

    This site is very international. What is easy for one nationality is disaster for another, and vice versa. People of all ages play these games. I have learned one thing by playing these games - the world is a fantastic melting pot of ideas and the center of everything is not "Hometown USA". To base deletion on the number of times played would seriously destroy games that have a challenge to them (linguistics). Naturally they would be played less times because they can't be completed lickety-split. Maybe the author of the game could label his or her entries with Difficulty level - easy, medium, hard, adult, child, private, public.

        
  9. francis1

    francis1
    Member
    Posted: 2 years ago #

    There are games that learners are interested in, like the regions of vietnam, but those people are very view. So the game probably will be played just 10 times a month and that from the one and same person because he's the only one who wants to learn those regions at the moment and he needs ten tries to get the right. So people who think it is not interesting for them may give the game a bad rating plus it is not played very often - but still it's a good game which should not be private just the search and categories and all should be better so anyone can find exactly what he wants. Generally speaking, I think the more games the better especially for things that are not of public interest as well. Another example is a game of the rhine valley I found and liked a lot. Since I'm from germany I found that very interesting and educating for me, but maybe for Americans this is just about a very small part of Germany and it's not really interesting for them where which castles are. I for myself looked up every one of them in (german) wikipedia. There are lots of other examples. I think the rating shouldn't be based on users opions only but the comment-system should be used much more for each game. If you notice that a dot is not exactly placed write that in the comment and don't be afraid the game creator will not like you anymore. If there are such comments and a game creator doesn't change his game or answers why he doesn't, the game shoud be marked with a red flag or something to be not that acccurate, not good or whatever and it should be allowed for another user to delete it when he creates a better one on the same topic for instance. To sum that up. first I'm a great opposer of the idea to delete games that are not of great public interest, second the rating-system says not so much about the real quality of a game. (For that another example is David's Europe game wich has been changed a lot over the time but still isn't so very good. But it keeps improving - that's what is important. Inactive users who serve us a dish and then say goodbye even if there are lots of suppositions to do it better I don't like, as well as those for-fun-creators who do a sonya's world or what was it. This last in mind maybe it's not so bad an idea to automatically delete a game which is rated worst possible for 5 times in a very short amount of time.

    I too noticed that it get's more and more difficult to find the games you're really interested in and that are good. That may be because there are many, but I want many. Every man and woman should be able to finde what he or she is interested in - so don't delete games (only foolish ones) but do a better categorizing. Maybe voluntary editorial staff could be employed from david there could be a list for candidates and david looks at the games the candidates created so far and what they have written in comments and forums and picks 2 or 3 to give them powers to edit game tags or even games (change misspellings or dot texts and so on)

    Ah, that's it for the moment, I suppose...

        

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