M E E T & P L A Y !
:D
We have our monthly meetups and it's a great vehicle for the community. It's a nice session where newcomers can feel welcome without much pressure since they can just hang back and consume. The focussed feedback slots are also nice for getting people's eyeballs.
But I was wondering if anyone has any interest in a more playtest-focussed format of meetup that doesn't replace the current ones, in which the format is - bring your stuff, set it up, play and watch people play? It would allow for longer plays and more observation, rather than the speeding bullet that is the focussed feedback (which is still great, I don't want to end those).
The more people who are interested, the more people there are to play each other's stuff.
Of course, it would be great if people who don't have stuff to playtest want to join and see what everyone is working on, which will definitely give them motivation and inspiration to work on their own stuff too.
I also think that us devs in general should have more opportunities (or excuses, or reasons) to hang out, in general :)
Thoughts?
:D
We have our monthly meetups and it's a great vehicle for the community. It's a nice session where newcomers can feel welcome without much pressure since they can just hang back and consume. The focussed feedback slots are also nice for getting people's eyeballs.
But I was wondering if anyone has any interest in a more playtest-focussed format of meetup that doesn't replace the current ones, in which the format is - bring your stuff, set it up, play and watch people play? It would allow for longer plays and more observation, rather than the speeding bullet that is the focussed feedback (which is still great, I don't want to end those).
The more people who are interested, the more people there are to play each other's stuff.
Of course, it would be great if people who don't have stuff to playtest want to join and see what everyone is working on, which will definitely give them motivation and inspiration to work on their own stuff too.
I also think that us devs in general should have more opportunities (or excuses, or reasons) to hang out, in general :)
Thoughts?
Comments
This is something we've been talking about doing for a while it seems. I think it's super important that it happens soon.
I've kinda been gearing up for using Wits in this kinda way: been hosting a weekly playtest session at Wits for the past few weeks. It's been incredibly useful and has been super important for making the game I was testing, much better. It was often just me with a game and pulling in people to play it, but it was great to start having a regular playtest (it acts as a sort of weekly/biweekly goal for me: to get something playable by then).
So yeah, I'm very keen to get this going a help out. I think Wits is totally a possibility as a venue too - been hinting at Hanli about the weekly playtest growing to include non-Wits people :).
EDIT:
I also think having a separate playtesting meetup might also help focus the Community meetups a bit more? In terms of content and structure, we know we don't necessarily have to provide oodles of time for playtesting afterwards.
There's just not enough time for playtesting, and having an environment where people can round-robin play each other's stuff and/or even have people other than the makers play stuff is simply invaluable.
Plus it also allows us to practice our own game analytic skills on other people's raw creations, making us all better :D
As for focusing the community meetup - yes and no, I don't want to take away the focus sessions, it's a good way to get both a lot of eyeballs on a single project quickly, as well as provides those attending with a really good feeling of "this is happening around us!" for those who aren't dedicating as much time on keeping up either on this forum or by other means, both the newcomers and the mgsa salty sea dogs.
I think biweekly is great. Weekly could be a bit much - sure people can drop in and out, but it could cause burnout in attendance.
I think Wits is a great venue, though I wonder about access to those who don't frequent town, and parking, etc (looking at the existing community crowd). I would love it if the MS office could be booked on a scheduled, regular basis for us, as it's a familiar venue for everyone who already attends the meetups, which, I think, can favour attendance.
I feel exactly the same, once a month meetups arent enough and I'd love to do more hands-on stuff.
Wits is the *perfect* venue for this, it's centrally located and much easier to get to (dont have to pay e-tolls) and it's open 24hrs, plus it's very easy to get in as a visitor, even easier to get in than Microsoft I'd say. Plus after hours there's more than enough parking. If Ben could get us access into the Digital Arts labs (I think that's what your building is called :P) that would be just amazing.
YAY!
Yeah - didn't mean we should remove the focused feedback slots, just maybe we can change the way they work? Like they don't necessarily have to only be given to games looking for feedback, we can kinda do a more show and tell kind of thing? I dunno what I have in mind, but I think these playtesting meets will help change the content at the meetups for the better - not sure how yet :P.
Yeah, every two weeks sounds great :).
I think using Microsoft would be unlikely, we'd need to have a Microsoft employee around to be there on a weekend. We have @Asbestos for a while, but after that we don't have a solution for Microsoft :).
Before I start talking to Wits people, I assume we all want this meet on a weekend day, Saturday preferably? I know this is the only way to get non-full time to attend, but this will mean there will be less students around (which are the perfect testers really).
So Saturdays or week days?
Does everyone in JHB just leave as soon as the formal talks end? Is there no space to showcase stuff? Does the formal part of the meetup carry on too long?
I know that having multiple meetups in a month is a lot harder to pull off long term than just the 1, so I worry that playtesting at the "formal" meetups will die out and the people that have to travel far and can only attend 1 meetup each month will either stop going entirely or miss out on very useful feedback they could be getting.
The formal program normally finishes pretty late (after 21:00, generally), which means that people start slinking out for the long drive home due to family, work the next day, etc. Most restaurants are also closed at that time, limiting socialisation opportunities and resulting in people leaving because they'll eat everyone else if they stay. As a result, those who *have* tried showcasing post-meet have been met with a mostly-empty auditorium and crickets, meaning that fewer people showcase, and so the spiral descends.
I'd argue that having an extended, dedicated meet would encourage people a bit more. For one, time wouldn't be such a factor. You can dedicate a Saturday afternoon once a month to something like this, extending into evening social funtimes if possible/necessary/desired. For two, people can be guaranteed that showcase/feedback is the primary purpose of the meet, rather than hoping that folks will give them attention.
Of course, what @dislekcia is getting at is that it's completely possible to foster that sort of atmosphere at the formal meets too, but that would require a bit of restructuring or tightening up of the formal program. Ditch the breaks? Drop a talk? "Book" games for showcase so we can budget time like we do for FF? Something to look at.
We had a shorter meetup last month, with tables organised at the back, and had quite a good playtest session, which was unusual. :) (It was also because we had a a few non-regulars pop up with games to test)
What usually happens, (what I see, everyone else correct me if I'm wrong) is that after the meets, people will talk for a bit, before some either leave, or go down the road for food/drinks. Sometimes there is playtesting, but it doesn't happen much.
I actually think the problem with the JHB meetups is their framing/intent. They're essentially framed as being about sharing knowledge in the form of talks and then just socialising with everyone. Sure the focused feedback slots are there, but you really need a game that's reached a certain point to benefit from a slot, as well as not waste everyone's time. Frankly, I feel little pressure to (subconsciously or whatever) to get a game ready to show at the meetup, because the meetups aren't framed to operate that way.
In addition, one of the main significant issues I see with the Joburg community at the moment, is that we're just not generating enough games. There's are little new games appearing over the course of each month. I think this is because people just don't have a motivation/reason to make games - and this is partly because of the way meetups are framed/structured (the structure works for specific, important things, but it's not good at getting people to make games).
So, in contrast, having a specific playtesting meetup would have more of a demanding expectation that I *have* to get something playable for them. Even doing the aforementioned weekly playtests at Wits has gotten me operating in that way - which the meetups haven't ever really.
Just like the competitions give people the structure to make something, I think the playtesting meet will give people a reason and structure to make stuff for, and have a deadline to do it too. It's also specifically about testing games, rather than at the meetups where it's only part of why one attends.
On top of that, I hope the playtesting meets will be more welcoming to smaller or incomplete games than the meetups are (in Joburg, I suspect that there are perhaps a lot more games being made than are shown, and this is perhaps because the environment isn't right at the meetups).
But having to worry about running the meetups gives me a different perspective on things, so I might be in the minority here.
Regarding your last paragraph, I agree that's an issue and it's probably why we haven't done more things previously. However, I think Joburg's innate fragmentation (it's a big spread out city) already has a negative impact on the community and how tightly knit it is. It's at the point that having more meets for the people can make it would be more beneficial than just not having meetups in case we further fragment the community.
1. Frame the meetup to be about playtesting stuff: Don't force feedback slot usage, get people to say what they're playtesting with a 1 sentence pitch either during the intros or afterwards before people "leave", be draconian about time constraints like we are in CT, don't have breaks - wait, breaks? What? Why?
2. Make the effort to go playtest other people's games and to bring your own concepts. Try to challenge yourself to bring something to every meetup, at least at first to drive interest and change the culture. If you're not feeling like you should bring playable stuff, why should anyone else feel differently?
I mean, yeah, you can start another meetup if you really need to. But to me that implies that the current meetup format is so broken as to not be salvageable... That's weird because it's working super-great in CT, achieving the exact things you're saying you want out of the meetups in JHB but aren't getting. What you don't want is meetups cannibalising other meetups, how long before people only go to the playtesting one because it feels better and shit starts breaking apart?
1. Shorter talks. Fewer talks. Strict time enforcement.
2. The "going down the road for drinks" is actually where we lose out a lot - time and people. It's time getting there and plenty of people disappear before getting there. I say we ditch that - even if we just sit at the MS lounge and no longer get use of the specific auditorium, I say it's worth it.
3. MAKE people setup games to get people to play each other's stuff, so it's not just one game at a time and everyone consumes.
4. NOTHING WRONG WITH SHOWING THE SAME GAME AGAIN. Why isn't that happening? Are people not improving/iterating on the games, or do they feel like once it's been shown, that's it? That's not right. We need to get people to iterate and get people to play again, and we can only achieve that if we have more time for more games.
@dislekcia - could you tell us what a typical timeline for the CT meetups are? You say you finish by 9 and still had playtest time (do you mean focus feedback where there's one game on show to everyone, or ja bunch of people playtesting a multitude of things? They're very different). That is pure genius to me as we almost always end our focus feedback by 9ish and then by the time we get to the restaurant it's 9:30/late and people would be too lazy/social to be taking out computers/devices for playtesting.
But that said - I do think we could do with meeting up more often. That might be a different goal altogether from getting playtesting out of our existing meetups, though.
If playtesting is the Meet 'n' Play's priority, we can rejigger the main meet agenda instead to suit. If socialisation is the priority, I'd propose organising a monthly or bimonthly Official Makegamessa Super Saturday Social 'Stravaganza at a restaurant or summat, so we can eat, drink, be merry, and cart along laptops/tablets/card/boards if we really want feedback on a thing. Hell, we can rejigger the main meet agenda anyway, since playtesting and showcase be's important for development and inspiring others to create and share their work.
I wonder if they'd be better if they were less formal, where perhaps developers just spend 30 seconds each just introducing (or "pitching") their game so that people know which game is made by which developer, and then they set up around the auditorium. People just go play whatever game has an empty slot, and give feedback to the developer when they're done. I feel as if they'd end up with a whole lot more playtesting than they currently get, and even duplicated/repeated feedback is useful.
The other thing I find is that I process information quite slowly (I stupid), so it takes me a while to watch someone play, and then play myself, and a bunch of thinking, before I feel I have feedback that is valuable to contribute. In the case of the focused feedback slots, I feel as if I don't really get to think properly because of how the game's only up there for 10 minutes, and how my train of thought kind of gets messed up by a bunch of other conversations/points of information/whatever that gets offered up during the formal Q&A-type thing.
This has just been my experience though. I'd be keen to hear if others have had similar experiences.
Who remembers when I asked if we could have the meetup separated into the talk and a play pen where people who were interested in the talk could listen and those not could go and play prototypes? Different execution, same idea. I was hoping that everyone made better use of each other's time and get more playing in :)
The main monthly meetups are for grand sweeping news and announcements, people coming up to talk about game design topics, or how their GDC experience went (hint hint). Basically anything that requires people to sit down and shut up for an hour or two.
The game testing sessions would be much much more informal, come hang out with a bunch of different groups of people playing / testing / talking around in clusters. No agenda, no powerpoint presentations, just games. I agree with @Tuism, this would probably have to be on a saturday / sunday morning so people can get stuck into it for a good couple hours without worklife / traffic / home interfering.
I would voice against rolling the separate game testing sessions into the main meetup - unless you're prepared to move the meetups to a saturday, there's just simply not enough time to get stuck in, you're tired from work, have to get home early, etc.
I dont see anything wrong with having 1 MGSA monthly meetup and even just 1 game testing session per month. We could of course have playtesting after the main meetup PLUS a game testing session on another day as well...
Multi-threading playtesting is needed.
Other people can and do show stuff, but it's usually heavily moderated. The more tightly things are controlled, the less time it takes and the more people get out of a focused feedback session. The idea with them has always been to START conversations and thinking, not to fully explore everything about a concept/game in 10 minutes. If a session turns into a back and forth between the same people, great, have that discussion afterwards and let other people speak.
We're really militant about time. Keeping everything moving fast makes it possible for people to have play sessions outside the main venue before people head off to go get food/drinks. I'm not sure what it'll look like this month, seeing as our venue is going to change, but we'll work to make it flow just as well.
It feels pretty sad to me that the meetups aren't really fostering playtests. I hope you try a bunch of ways to fix that. Let us know what works!
We really want to fix that yeah. With or without another dedicated meetup, which I'm all for (joburg devs need more excuses to meetup, and official is a good way to do it... We seem to be bad at impromptu because of larger areas and lack of readily available mansions)
There isn't always content for a talk anyway, and for when there isn't, having the entire meet be focused feedback+playtesting may not be a bad idea, as opposed to whipping up last minute talks that sometimes feel as if they're done for the sake of having a talk (which I know I've done before).
I think what's been problematic about the focused feedback slots in the past is that people have used this as a playtesting session. It cannot work this way because you cannot have the whole audience playing the game, and thus the feedback you'll get is mostly from a non-interacting audience. A lot of the time spent is also on watching someone play a game and the audience reaction...but this isn't necessarily useful (unless you want to find out if your game will do well on YouTube, which is a different issue entirely).
If you want playtesting feedback, you need to get one on one, in my opinion. But! You can use the focused feedback session to give an intro to your game and encourage people to come play after the session.
Focused feedback can also be used for getting feedback on the parts of the game that don't require playtesting to "test". This includes things like UI, art style, lighting, language use, sounds and the like. You need to come with a question though.
For example, for the Ginjah trailer, I was really concerned that we weren't providing enough information on what the game *actually* was. As it turns out, people got that it was a memory matching game from the trailer (win!) but when they playtested afterwards they all mentioned how a lot of the cool aspects of the game were not made apparent in the trailer (not win, but really helpful feedback!)
Other kinds of things you can ask: Does the UI take up too much of the screen? Does this image make sense for this button's function? Does the art style evoke a particular mood? (Rather than asking "does this make you feel sad" because then you're telling the audience what you want them to tell you). Does the UI match the game theming? Does someone want to do art for this game because mine sucks? Anyone volunteering sound because look how awesome this game could be? What should this sound like? What could the story behind the game be?
And then get one on one feedback after the session. Most people who have something to tell you will make the effort to find you afterwards and give you feedback and also - if your game piques and interest - they'll want to come playtest.
There's a direct correlation to the amount of people that come to the meetups as they are talks. Hence removing the talks or making them less of an integral part will diminish the amount of people coming and play testing.
We need to foster a culture of bringing games to be played. That's it. Bring your game and see if people stay behind and play them. I normally leave once the meting is done to socialize at Cal'caccios because there's nothing left to do at Microsoft and discussions flow better at Cal'caccios. Last meetup, 5 games were set up at the back to be played. I stayed and played the ones I hadn't played before from people who came to the meet up for the FIRST time.
@Tuism When I first started coming to the meet ups I played Rocketto and Bear Chuck because they were set up. What happened? You've got an array of games you're developing. You never set up at the back anymore.
@Gazza_N I keep seeing more improvements from Ultra Arena. It was shown at an FF at the beginning of the project. Never seen it displayed at the back to play.
I'll call myself out here too. I should be bringing my games as sketchy as they are and set them up at the back. I remember one of my earlier meetups @RetroEpic only had a character on screen with a walk and attack animation. I still spent time and played around with it and discussed what he was going to do with that.
So, maybe it's not about creating another meet up or changing our format but about bringing the games!
Yes, we should totally bring the games :) And as I've said above - more games that are seeing improvement over time. We're not seeing enough returning games, that means games are not being improved on. That's wrong. I myself am at fault here, so rest assured - BEAT ATTACK & NO MORE BOXES (crap production name) will make a return to playtesting sessions!!!
On just setting up stuff at the back - I think we're seeing less and less of that because we keep running over time and we're being chased out of MS as soon as we're done because there's no time. For the purposes of playtests I don't like herding people off to Calcaccios afterwards. If we manage to manage time better and get more playtest time, maybe it makes sense, but right now playtest time is being squeezed in between talks that go on too long and food that starts too late.
So - better time management, leaving time to play after the talks, is what we need. Not to get rid of them, but to make them shorter and more to the point.
Also what you described about the FF slots - sounds about right - but it's not as productive as it could be - if more people had 1 - 5 minute slots instead of fewer people with 10 minute slots happened - then everyone could go off to the side and have their individual thoughts and conversations around individual games - each game would actually get more than 10 minutes of attention. That's what I'm trying to get to.
(I would suggest that we look at the content of the talks a bit more - that seems to be a sticking point for some prospective attendees. But that's another story for another time.) You're 100% right, and I'll take that one on the chin. I haven't seen much point though - everyone just ditches after the meet, after all, and I work a day job so I can't hang around until midnight. If we had a dedicated session directly after the talks where I could be sure I and other people could stick around, I'd deffo consider it. :)
1) Get all the talks and demos that are meant to be played and put them onto a single laptop/computer and use that one for the entire evening. This saves you a lot of time as you no longer have to wait for people to setup/break up between talks and playable demos.
2) Monitor time, and give your speakers warning at the 10, 5 and 1 minute mark If they go over, cut them off. Allow a maximum of 5 minutes for questions. Don't be hesitant to cut people off. If they want to ask their question they can go find the person afterwards.
//Rant
Lol - sorry, but I have to say that everyone is massively overstating the lack of time management. It's a perception problem not an actual time problem. We usually end between 8:30 and 9 and usually it's closer to 8:30 because we don't have much content. We sometimes have too much content and go over time, but this is rare.
I time ever talk. We've had like 1 go over 20 minutes in the past 6 months. I always let question go for five minutes, and then give 3 questions, and cut them off. The last half year of meetups I have been very draconian about time, it's just your perception, because clearly what's happening isn't of interest to you :).
However, I'm sure I've let some talks/focused feedback slots go on, because some people are getting benefit/feedback out of it.
As @SUGBOERIE mentioned, I can tell you for a fact that when we have more talks/better quality talks the meetup attendance is significantly higher. The past meetup was an example of where we had little content, low attendance, but much more playtesting than usual.
Framing the meetups to be more playtesting orientated would be focusing on the needs of a core group of 'hardcore' hobbyists and professional game makers. I'm actually fine/and in favour of doing that, because we need to grow the core to grow the community really. However, don't be fooling yourself into thinking that a meetup oriented to that is what the majority of the Joburg community wants :).
I agree that the focused feedback slots don't really work for Joburg. I post what the @TheFuntastic said what the focused feedback should periodically in the meetup threads, but the type of games that are getting shown/made aren't really benefitting from that type of feedback. The focused feedback slots that do work are from people looking for specific feedback, like @SUGBOERIE has done in the past. We don't have enough games that need focused feedback slots, frankly.
Also, I've been to both Cape Town and Joburg meets, and they aren't that different from each other. They are as "draconian" about time as we are. In Cape Town, people also stick around for 15-45 minutes to playtest stuff before heading up the road for food/drinks. I appreciate the advice of the more experienced Cape Town community leaders, however, much of it simply isn't applicable to Joburg. Joburg has a vastly different makeup. Many, many of the games I see playtested at Cape Town meets when I make my pilgrimage down to Cape Town every year are made by professional game developers. They are also generated out of new supporting communities like Super Friendship Arcade. It's not insignificant that QCF Design and RetroEpic are you main examples for who is testing/taking feedback.
The number of full-time game makers in Joburg is probably about 10? Or so? And most don't bother coming to the meets. Because most of the professional developers in Joburg aren't making games that - either through NDA's or development styles- they can show at meetups, and most of the talks we're having aren't really providing any benefit to them, so frankly why should they come?
I haven't seen Travis Bulford, Andre Odendaal, the Bischoffs, or Matt Benic in months - Thank god Luke Lamothe comes whenever he can (as a side note, Luke has already suggested a way to get veterans more involved with asking them to do Q&A sessions at meetups). These people probably have good reasons not to come, I'm sure.
As @SUGBOERIE said, I haven't seen @Tuism, @Gazza_N playtest a game in a while. I haven't seen zX:Hyperblast playtested in like 6 months. I don't think we've had a Stasis demo since before the Kickstarter. Even when our veterans do come, they don't stick around much.
Perhaps our veterans would stick around more if there were more games to look at being played, sure. But really they're not coming because they don't see benefit to them. Which is cool, and makes sense, but kinda the idea of a community is that you help people grow.
I love running the meetups, and helping the community in Joburg - but if we just step back objectively and think, isn't it a bit ridiculous that -out of the wealth of experience we have in Joburg- a 21 year old student with no professional game design experience is running and organising the community in Joburg? Hell. I'm doing it and I think it's a tad silly. It's disheartening that I had to step up to the plate because no one else would - the point is, I'm glad we're finally actually talking about this, but this is a community run organisation, the community has to do as much work as the organisation does. I mean... half the people discussing the Joburg meetups in this thread aren't even based in Joburg...? That's a sign of apathy to me.
For example: we've had very little content for the past few months, and yet I don't think I've seen anyone try show/playtest any of their Global Game Jam games. Like...? The structure of the meets is bad, but if you can't muster the courage to bring your game, set it up and drag someone to play it... then the structure of the meetup can only do so much.
Bottom line: the community in Joburg needs to step up to the plate. Even before we started going for drinks, playtesting was barely happening. They need to bring their games, and we need the veterans to sacrifice their time for the good of the community.
/rant
Now: suggested changes to the meetup:
- 1 talk a meetup
- Focused feedback slots on request (prescreened for assessment of whether it actually is a focused feedback slot)
- 30 seconds game pitching before breaking up for playtesting.
- No drinks/food afterwards
I will see about getting a date from Wits for a playtesting day too.
I wasn't bringing stuff to playtest because there didn't feel like there's ever time for that. Also because I felt that after a spate of little things I'd been showing (I feel like I'd been showing stuff every month for a while) I feel like I'd been hogging the spotlight a bit much, so I cooled off a bit.
But now I can see it's a misconception from me on two ends:
1. I wasn't using the focussed feedback for the now-discussed focus feedback - I was using it to playtest rather amilessly.
2. Because of the focussed feedback being used for that, I felt we didn't have time for playtesting.
And thus the frustration.
Oh and I only ever miss the meets in extraordinary situations. The last month was because I was away in SF still!
Can I suggest one more thing to add to your changes list - putting materials/games on one single machine prior to the start of the meet to minimise breakdown/setup time between FF/game pitch/talks/anything. I know you'll say that your machine is a potato, and that's a fair point... If we can consistently get someone there earlier (I guess I can volunteer my machine, but I'm OSX primary now, if that's ok?), we can make this work?
Whether or not to have drinks/food after is a tough one. I see the opportunity to socialise, but I also see that we lose half the people to chatter and no playtesting, or we just lose them (they go home). I don't know, how do other people feel about that?
-It really helps me to see the general enthusiasm, I'm old and cynical so I need exposure to that :P
-It lets me keep rough tabs on the sort of stuff being developed without actually downloading and playing stuff off the forums-I know that sounds lazy, but see the above point about time flexibility.
-Finally, it lets me keep an eye out for potential hires and to some degree influence the way people think about how they train up.
If other industry seniors don't find those sorts of reasons compelling, I doubt you'll entice them to attend. I think trying to attract them with content targeted at them is going to have limited success unless it's by getting in speakers that have even more experience :)
The last couple of meetings I did come to seemed pretty well time managed. In that regard they're a huge improvement on what we had previously. Ben does good :) The single most important thing about any meetup like this will always be the content, and it'll also always be the hardest. I really don't believe limiting to 1 talk if there are more quality ones available is a good thing, the time constraint per talk should already be enough. Prescreening is an excellent idea. Possibly even requesting the actual build that will be played is sent to you a day in advance (so no more "oops I commented this out and it's broken" stuff) I don't think I've attended any of the after talk meal meetups since they started. I used to just grab a couple of people and we'd head out for something. I think that's a better idea simply because it doesn't pressure those that want to stick around and keep playtesting to stop. For me, this is my one chance a month to catch up with certain people in a relaxed setting, again time constraints :)
[edit]To clarify, I think it's a good idea to ditch the "official" food and drink session afterwards.[/edit]
@Tuism
haha yeah I can get that perspective. I feel that way about talking at the meetups sometimes too - feels sometimes like it's just me talking to the audience for 2 hours. :)
I think with this new structure you definitely should just always bring stuff. Personally, seeing how many games (and of good quality too) your churn out and show, always motivates me to work on stuff - so don't stop showing stuff! :)
RE: misconceptions, I think the focused feedback sessions were never really well explained by me, and not consistently enough. I think we'll still use them when it makes sense to, but more traditional playtesting is what we need I think :).
Oh I know you never miss meets - sorry if I implied that :). Also most of our veterans come as much as they can too - so I'm probably being unfair.
I think the single machine thing is a great idea. I'll definitely do that :).
I think the food and drinks can maybe be a bit more spontaneous? Perhaps lets just focus on making sure we have playtesting time after the meets, and then worry about food/drinks. (It horrifies me that drinks/food was taking away from playtesting time, so I really want to get that right).
Kudos, dude.
That said, on topic, I think the playtest session is a great idea. But I also agree that running 2 differnet meetups a month might be tricky to pull off.
So a suggestion. This is how I'd try to do it, though it might not work in Joburg, given your size.
Option 1 ( Iffy, Harder ) - get everyone who comes to a meetup to donate money for pizza, buy pizzas for a session. Put them, open, at the demo tables. Only open the boxes when the demo machines are ready to play. People will naturally congregate there, chat, and play.
Option 2 ( Simpler ) - Get anyone who wants to receive focused feedback on their game to bring a pizza. If you come play their game and give feedback, you get a slice. That way you're basically paying R50 for a round of helpful feedback from interested testers and (possibly) experienced industry devs. Pretty cheap, for what you get. And R50 a month (if you want more feedback next month) is not exorbitant.
Like I said, might be an idea that doesn't scale well, though.
Perhaps as my student days come to a close, my unbridled enthusiasm is depleting :P.
In that line you quoted, to be clear, I wasn't trying to be facetious :P. I genuinely do understand that people (especially those with family and jobs) have good reasons to not be there - as you said it can be frustrating, though :). But this is something I'm coming to terms with :). (I hope your health is better these days, and I hope your wife is on her way to recovery too.)
Your perspective on the MGSA is really useful - thanks for sharing it! It sounds like structuring the meetups to have more playtesting would also be more beneficial to seniors with a similar perspective, then? Would be easier to talk to people and also to check out their work? :) I'm under no illusion that we're going to be able to consistently provide content that attracts seniors, either - you're all seniors for a reason :).
I agree that we shouldn't artificially have 1 talk if we have good content. I think it might be easier to consistently secure one useful and thoughtful talk each month, though? Might mean I can hunt people down for talks easier, rather than waiting for content to appear :).
Meetups are there to get those problems out of your head. To jostle people against each other and see what falls out and how that grows. To let you know you're not alone. It did not start this way. It's not even this way now! There are loads of games that I've never seen before at each meetup. It's really neat :) I would actually say that attitude is probably why there are so few full-time devs in joburg that are actually making their own things. The casual disregard for playtesting and the idea that good ideas aren't random responses to novel inputs is pretty telling...
Hang on, let me put it another way: The reason there are so many successful studios in Cape Town is because they're that sociable and keen to playtest/meet/talk game design with random strangers. People seem to have a hard time believing that, but that's not really my problem. Stop thinking it's silly. You're doing it because you can, because you believe it's worthwhile. You don't need magical experience beans or permission from some nonexistant authority on game development to do it. Heck, I ran communities in my 20s and I had 0 fucking clue what the hell I was doing, I just wanted things to be better and for people to make more games. Yes, they do. But part of that is realising that you don't need the people who aren't there to give their permission for anything. Veterans they might be, but that doesn't mean they're necessary. You're there, with the other people that turn up, make it awesome for you.
...
So. Prototype the meetup changes already... Oh, and also, has anyone considered that the weekday scheduling might be part of the problem in JHB? Hosting meetups on a weekend might mean everyone is more energetic and in less of a hurry to head home after the "super important talk" part ends.
The weekend/weekday thing is an interesting point. People make weekend plans... Getaways and dinners and family and whatnot and that get in the way of regular things. I'm not entirely sure if weekends would suit most people - My weekends are unpredictable for availability - or, rather, I'd probably have to opt out of more things to make sure I attend the meetups if they happen on weekends. Again, what do other people think?
I think if the schedule had to change the meetups would probably have about the same attendance but it would be a different group of people. Perhaps trialing a schedule that alternates between weekend and weekday month to month would give an idea of the affect on attendance. Weekend sessions would of course need a new venue-maybe in Pretoria so it benefits from geographic change as well as day change?
Reason A: They have personally had a terrible first hand experience here on the MGSA forum, generally resulting from the way that non-design-centric discussions are frowned upon if not made to feel completely irrelevant.
Reason B: They have seen the bickering and fighting that happens in various threads and have come to the opinion that MGSA is populated with and run by and bunch of immature kids who lack the professionalism to run a body such as this.
Essentially, there are many "professional and experienced devs" around and not participating in the community because they feel that it's not worth their time due to the messages that various members of this community continually convey on the forums.
As for those who can't make weekends, they go to the weekday one.
As for those who can straddle both, GREAT SCOTT MORE TIME TO PLAYTEST?! WHY THE HELL NOT!?
I cant think of a single reason why this isn't a good idea???
When was the last time you showed a game at a meetup? Okay.
TBH, I don't see why we should be overly concerned with people that don't see the value of meetups, especially not people who seem to have conflated internet history with different human beings in a physical venue. I care about providing the most value to people that WANT to be at meetups. That's why I was trying to tell @Bensonance that he doesn't need permission from "experienced devs" that aren't interested in being there.
Ben already runs all our social media pages by himself on top of running the meetups and doing a lot for the community. I fully appreciate that people with families and other responsibilities cannot help out, but maybe there are other willing community members? Let's not leave everything on Ben's shoulders.
On the topic of talks vs value of playtesting. I think the talks can sometimes be a good way to spark conversation later with new people. It gives everyone at the event a common thread. Whether the talk is useful to me or not directly, this indirect value of creating a centre piece for conversation as well as structure for the meetups is important. Someone also might get value out of it. Actually, I hope when I give my next talk (marketing 102 - "actually marketing a game") that someone will find it useful :)
The value of playtesting is huge though. But, sadly, I must admit that quite often I disappear to chat to devs that I haven't seen since the previous month whom I want to catch up with, share ideas with, talk about a community issue/future plan, talk about possible work avenues and the like. Funnily enough, the last couple meetups I've had trouble actually trying to hold playtesting sessions when I also have people wanting to chat :P
Okay, summary time: People come to the meetups for different reasons. No reason is better than another and right now theres no consensus to drop any aspect of the meetups for another aspect.
I asked about showing games because that's what this thread is about, so in an attempt to get back to that: If people aren't showing games at the meetups, and that's been identified as a problem, then why should people who AREN'T showing things (for whatever noble and just reason) be correct in saying that showing games isn't important? How do they know?
And yes, these people who are so overly concerned about being cast out from the holy light of design might well have neat things to say or teach or whatever, but what does that have to do with solving the problem of not showing games? Getting people who don't want to come to meetups to actually come to meetups is a different problem (that's equally worth talking about - just without the thinly veiled blame), but it's not THIS problem. And I suspect that having a meetup heaving with local games-in-progress will at least help a little in that regard.
And why is showing games suddenly only about design? Maybe showing games that are doing amazing technical things can inspire more people? Maybe showing wonderfully animated games that sound great will gain interest and grow their teams to the point where they can optimise away an issue, or build more levels? Showing games isn't limited to only one discipline or structure, and acting like it is makes it obvious why it hasn't been a priority.
I don't know why I've felt as if, if it's not design, it's not really worth showing, but that's something I'd be happy to see changed.