A new Community, quick shut it down

Julian

So guys when I started ZAGD, I was attacked by many MGSA people and ended up with a very sour name...

However, there is a new Facebook group called SA Game Dev & a new website http://www.gamedev.co.za/ that has come up that has grown extremely quickly...

The ZAGD response... awesome! We spoke to their leaders and guess what, we are promoting this new group...In fact, we helped get it started 2 months ago by pushing it through ZAGD...We gain nothing from this... Fundamentally, that is the way the ZAGD conducts it's business... instead of what MGSA leaders did ... oh let's try shut down ZAGD which now has almost 500 members and a post reach of over 700 ...

Just to show the world that we are not the hypocrites and trying to control the industry is childish and unproductive

Zaphire

What do you even want us to comment on this post. Why didn't you just put up a post informing everyone of a new website that is up and everyone should have a look at it.

Tuism

Dude, MGSA did nothing to that facebook page. Noone organised an attack, noone did anything at it, or to it. Whatever happened there, happened by itself.

Good luck to whoever wants to do something interesting. If it is, people will go. It's a fair and open market for people's attention.

Your antagonistic post here isn't helping your image out in the world either. Best of luck to you.

mikethetike

I've dispatched the Shutdown Task Force.

Chris_Bischoff

*slow blink*

EvanGreenwood

@Tuism Well, to be fair, there was a fair amount of negativity thrown at ZAGD when it started. I recall myself definitely being quite negative about it. There's a few developers from this community that swore at ZAGD members and made some pretty nasty allegations. And there were some who questioned the need for another group and splitting the SA Game Dev community.

I think the concerns that splitting the SA game dev community into multiple groups that don't interact with each other makes everyone making games in SA weaker still hold true. I don't think MakeGamesSA is so big and unwieldy that we need another group, and I think the concerns about hostility that were raised at that time have been pretty thoroughly addressed, but at the same time some people don't use forums and don't want to start (hence something like ZAGD will always exist).

(I'm not saying that @Julian et all weren't antagonistic themselves, I'm just saying that claiming that MGSA did nothing unpleasant would be untrue, even if nearly everyone who is a part of MGSA was pleasant and welcoming. Unfortunately a group is always represented by the behavior of the most extremist members of that group.)

Tuism

@EvanGreenwood actually, I understand what you're saying, but I'll maintain what I said is correct: That facebook page blew up and imploded and whoever was running it left it and etc etc etc with no attack, or input or anything from anyone from MGSA. Any antagonistic behaviour from anyone here resulted as a direct offensive from people such as @Julian in this very forum. Perhaps on that front MGSA members could have handled it better and not feed flames.

So in summary: I was only referring to MGSA members having nothing to do with that facebook group's implosion. The "shut it down" that was referenced in the OP right here, could not be blamed on anyone from MGSA.

edg3

I can say all the reasons people have been fighting badly is it has been how it had to start - and some people fought us making a new site where NAG chose to eventually not keep our forum open. No matter what is chosen or done I have seen each time people find it bad! Well, keep making games, keep having fun!

EvanGreenwood

@Tuism Yeah, I can agree that whatever happened to that Facebook group had nothing to do with MGSA.

Though I assume @Julian to be referring to some of the negative responses in that very first post where he announced ZAGD? (and by contrast he is saying that his group was super welcoming of this other group). If he were referring to the arguments within ZAGD (that caused the implosion as you refer to it) as somehow being the fault of MGSA that would be quite odd.

Interestingly, that other "SA Game Devs" Facebook group seems to be older than ZAGD.

@edg3 Agreed, let's all make rad games!

Pierre

The new group didn't have a warm reception here.
But if somebody doesn't like the idea of new groups then that isn't really a problem. It's just their opinion.
I think that negative reception is something to be expected when creating something new. Was there any positive reception though? I can't recall. It feels like the negative reception was overwhelming.
Still... opinions...
There are people that are not going to like it. In this case, it happened to be one of our main admins that didn't like it. I guess friction then started, and things escalated on both sides.

(I personally prefer the all-embracing, welcome-the-challenge, friendly-competition vibe.)

@EvanGreenwood brought up an old point regarding the benefits or detriments of multiple groups.
I feel like I can offer some insight into why new groups exist, and why it is not necessarily a bad thing.
I was part of an arbitrated discussion between the two groups to assess the differences.
During this conversation, I picked up on three points as to why ZAGD exists.
(Some of these have already been discussed before, so I won't go into detail.)

1. Some people believe that multiple groups co-existing is a form of healthy community . Others see this as fragmentation and believe that a single all-encompassing group is better.

2. A group that is financially motivated, would naturally be required to be a group on its own.

3. Multiple groups are a natural side effect to accommodate the untapped pool of developers that do not politically/ideologically align or feel welcome in the current group.

(BTW : I eventually left ZAGD because there were some policies and practices and behavior I didn't agree with and a lot of people I admire, was starting to question if I endorsed those same policies which I didn't.)

Point 3 is important to me. If a person (for whatever reason) doesn't feel comfortable in a certain group, and there are not other options, they might simply choose to remain obscure and feel isolated and alone. But if there were two groups (or more) that allowed that person to find a place that they can thrive in, then it isn't fragmentation (as they weren't really part of the first group to begin with)... rather it encourages participation in SA gamedev as a whole.
If the First group wishes to gain that particular individual, they would have to investigate the reasons why such a person felt uncomfortable.
This is also a discussion that has been listed before, but I feel like that conversation avoided two particular points that I won't get into right now.

Anyway... Food for thought...

mikethetike

I think the real problem is that there is too much talking and not enough action. Here Julian has kindly asked us to shut down this new community and no one is helping out. Am I the only one prepared to help him out here?