A Warning About ZAGD Community

MelonLettuce

So I am gonna be "that guy" and make a thread in reference to another thread
this one

Who am I ?
I am one of the founders of the site mentioned in the OP, probably soon to be shut down

Why am I posting ?
Just to bring to light the hypocritical behavior of @Julian (who I think is the main operator?) and to warn others about ZAGD and my experiences there

So I joined the ZAGD group and after a week or two I decided I would help out the community, I made an offer to do free logos for people in the group, also helped members write bios for their game etc very simple kind of stuff

Eventually I ended up as an admin of ZAGD as I would do alot to help the members, and I decided that there wasn't much content being posted to the group so I thought why not set up some sort of news site that will give members something to read now and then

No harm right seeing as @Julian is very open about his stance on multiple communities, well this is not the case as after a couple weeks of sharing posts to the group (gamedev talks and that sort of thing) I received a message from @Julian, no not a private message as one would think but a message on one of my Facebook pictures ...

The message said that as an admin I was not very committed to ZAGD , other admins had offered equity of their businesses or the likes and that I would be removed as admin immediately

so naturally I was not amused as this had been commented on one of my photos and had not been sent as a private message. I would go on to private message him and be told that as I had started "Competition" and I would no longer be helpful to the community in the admin capacity as I am not doing things under the ZAGD brand, I also got threatened for mentioning how his behavior was unprofessional in the messages that followed and got told that if I wanted professional I should come here to Make Games South Africa

so here I am , I didn't really know much about Make Games South Africa , but decided to join anyway to post this warning and to see what it is like here as well as to ask people if I should shut down the site or keep it running?

Anyway Thanks For reading hoping I can do some good for this community :)

pieter

Hi @OmgMrGrim, welcome to the forums :)

Having links to interesting articles and websites is always a great idea, though in my opinion it's a better idea to focus our efforts in a single location. So creating a thread on MGSA linking to the articles means everyone visiting the site will see it, and it may spark up some conversation in the comments.

There has been some talk earlier this year about revamping the MGSA website to have a landing page (check out the tread here) were you'd have local and international news and articles. Many great suggestions were made, but the development has been slow going since all the work is done by volunteers in their spare time.

I'm not quite sure what the status of this is at the moment, but once the front page (or equivalent) is implemented, this could be a great opportunity for you to volunteer your news hunting skills ;)

MelonLettuce

awesome ! I think I shall shut down the site for now then and just focus my efforts on helping the Make Games South Africa community

will definitely volunteer when the site is made available then , thank you for the warm welcome :D

Mexicanopiumdog

Thank you for sharing your insights @OmgMrGrim

I don't agree with what has happened to you at ZAGD in any way and am sorry that you were treated like that, it is very sad to see when politics start becoming destructive and our community really doesn't need this toxic behaviour.

I feel like we should rather be improving this space, posting more quality content that is actually relevant to Game Creation and stop burning each others bridges... I mean, we are all in the same boat here? Don't we want to get on the map? Don't we want to be recognized and respected as a functioning community that has potential to stand strong aside the other big gamedev communities in the world?

We have talent, we are in the same time zone as Europe, we have diversity and most of all we have PENGUINS?

So let's rather make some cool games and stop this childish nonsense. We are better than this! :)

Elyaradine

Hey, cool, if you're big on making websites and stuff, I think we could really use your help! :P We have a good community and good content, and an established brand if you will, but a forum that's functional if a bit dated. <_< From what I've seen over the years, we also don't give a crap about equity, though collecting-money-wise we do care about collecting donations for helping out struggling game dev students and running/sponsoring events.

Otherwise, welcome, and I look forward to seeing your game projects!

Sorry about your bad experiences. It always sucks to put a lot of work into something and then have the rug pulled out from under you.

EvanGreenwood

I think there can be multiple communities, particularly if they're in multiple formats (for instance, not everyone likes using forums, though I think forums are a particularly useful format for collecting feedback on game design, which is mostly what I personally want a community for). Though at the same time I do think we're generally stronger together, and there just aren't that many people in South Africa making games.

In any case, I'd definitely say your help could be useful here. I hope you find Make Games SA welcoming. Forums by their nature can be a bit more argumentative than Facebook posting, but we've been working at being more friendly (and if you find it's a bit hostile here, we'd like to try do better and would appreciate your feedback).

I hope you meet a lot of like-minded and talented people here! And come to our in-real-life meetups if you live nearby!

Tuism

Hey there, sorry to hear about your experience. We don't really give a crap about politics really, at least not the politics of equity and being named and looking cool. There are other politics here we take to heart, they're just not personal politics.

Like many have already mentioned, we have been meaning to revamp the forward face of MGSA, having unfamiliar users land in the midst of the forum and very little other introduction is really not ideal. But we have limited resources to web dev all the stuff we spoke about. It would be amazing if you could assist on that end? :)

OH with the site, if you have it anyway, why not just redirect it here to makegamessa.com? :) With an image like this:

Pierre

Hi @omgmrgrim .I'm not sure if this was before or after but I share your experience with zagd. I'm definitely more comfortable here at mgsa. There are some do's and don'ts of a social political matter and in that regard I'm always interested in any new groups or forums that would be a better "fit" for me, but overall mgsa has been good to me in terms of constructive feedback and shared enthusiasm.

Zaphire

My personal opinion: ZAGD had a good idea going but @Julian should not have been an admin because he isn't very open to suggestions and constructive criticism. Would have been totally different had he created a community with a different name but choosing ZAGD is very dangerous because it feels like something that should belong to all developers and not just one person running it the way he likes.

Chris_Bischoff

other admins had offered equity of their businesses or the likes and that I would be removed as admin immediately

lol.

bischonator

I'm having flash-backs to the click and play community of the late 90's :) fondly called 'the klick wars'.
http://www.create-games.com/timeline/2000.html

MelonLettuce

I have redirected the site to MGSA I really like it here :)

EvanGreenwood

Rad! I hope we continue to earn your appreciation (like I hope we continue to give value to everyone here).

Tuism

Sigh for politics :/

Chris_Bischoff

Im sure that the 'investors' just love how professional he is.

LexAquillia

Hey everyone. Thanks for your contribution to this discussion, but I think it is time to lock this thread, not out of reasons of censorship, but as the OP's purpose has been served.

People are welcome to DM me to discuss