To submit a project that requires the licensee or grantee to provide valuable consideration to access, the submitter must have previously posted at least one free self-made project of sound quality. A project is of “sound quality” when, in a light most favorable to the submitter, a reasonable player could not deem the project to be frivolous or a bad faith attempt to circumvent this rule AND the project is not otherwise forbidden. Demos, previous releases, or updates of the submitted project are viable for the purposes of meeting this rule, provided that such demos, releases, or updates are of sound quality and are not otherwise forbidden.
To submit a project that requires the licensee or grantee to provide valuable consideration to access, the project itself must not contain any artificially generated art, code, or writing.
Clarifications:
-When I say that a project must be “self-made,” it just has to belong to the person running the account that posted the project (including “legal” persons, like corporations). So if you work as a team to post your free project, the right to post paid projects would be imparted to the team (but not to the individuals). This could lead to a situation where two guys could individually post free games, form a game dev team, and then find themselves barred from making a paid game right off the bat. I don’t know if that would be a big deal, but if it is, the rule could easily be amended to deal with that.
-I know it’s sometimes not really possible to know if something is AI generated, nor would I expect the admins to sift through every project to look for AI. Instead, I imagine the anti-ai rule working through snitches, where someone who thinks they see AI in a paid game could submit a complaint with self-gathered evidence.
-Yes, I’m aware of the current drama. While I would be lying if I said that this post wasn’t inspired by it, I haven’t actually read too deep into Grim’s post to be 100% in the know. All I know is that there is a concern around shovelware, and addressing that is my purpose in making this post.
-I don’t know how to word a rule to target crowd-funded projects. But I definitely think there should be a rule that disallows crowd-funded projects from users that have contributed nothing in the past.
I apologize for how wordy and confusing the first rule is (I’m not a lawyer). I encourage the community, and especially the admins, to provide feedback. Thank you.
Throwing in my two cents for what rules I’d like to see implemented to help protect users from scams:
-You can only link your itch/patreon/other-website in your post if there’s a free demo. Only exception to the rule is if the game’s fully finished on release.
-If a patreon or other subscription service is linked in your post, you must provide routine updates based on charge time of the subscription service (usually a month for most sites) for your game (ideally on both the forums or external site, at minimum the external site). Failure to update routinely will have the thread be locked until an update is provided.
-If enough users flag/report your post for potential fraudulent/sketchy behavior and it’s substantiated, the post will be removed. Post for affected game will only be allowed once the problems are FULLY addressed (i.e. post removed due to lacking license/consent of images within game, must show proof of license/consent obtained before allowed to post again)
Personally my biggest issue with how things are posted comes down to disclosures and lack of product. Currently we have zero stances on what the seller is supposed to disclose with their game, and zero accountability if they are selling a game that’s not even being made.
With that in mind I have a few rules that I think satisfy at a bare minimum what the site should be vetting for in terms of specifically selling products.
The content of the game should be explained so that it can be reasonably understood and should the product be made with AI that needs to be disclosed.
The current stage of development and it’s planned development must be disclosed.
A playable demo of the game must be provided before game can be sold.
If a case is brought against a user selling content who repeatedly does not deliver on the promised product or has misrepresented their product that user will be evaluated by moderators and decision will be made public on whether or not that user will be banned from future sales on this site.
A Patreon is not required to complete a game (as that is not the purpose of a Patreon) but must disclose the the game is actively in progress and close the Patreon if it is not currently being worked on.
To be clear, I mean this for the sale of games. Free games have no obligation to complete a project.
I think your going to have a hard time with this one, not that there are many(any) commercial(non indie small team) game makers on here regularly but requiring a free game as an entry fee to post a paid game is an extremely heavy price tag for admission. How long it takes to make one good game let alone a second, makes this a non-starter.
The two free to play games i have posted both took over year of part time side work to make. And i would not call either good or of sound quality, or finished.
This is basically demanding charity work for the privilege to post a game.
I don’t believe there are any requirements what so ever for explaining effectively anything about a game. Which in a free game context is fine but now that most games involve money we really should be disclosure forward.
The free game doesn’t have to be good. The bar for a game to be of “sound quality” is very low, it just requires the dev to post something that isn’t obviously haphazardly cobbled to get around the rule. Remember, the standard views all of the evidence in a light most favorable to the submitter, so virtually every good-faith project would suffice (like yours).
Plus, if a developer really doesn’t want to submit a separate free game before submitting a paid game, they could just release a demo for their paid game. That’s allowed under the proposed rule.
How does this not just exacerbate the problem? Putting some arbitrary rule in place like this would absolutely make things worse. The people who want to post here just to make money would do everything they can to fulfill this requirement, and even if they didn’t meet whatever standard that’s set, they would still be incentivized to pump out shovelware to try and meet the requirement.
To be frank, I think the solutions given at the top of the thread are extremely counterproductive and would accelerate the death of the forum. If shovelware and grifting are an issue, the right answer is absolutely NOT to put more roadblocks in front of game development. Making a game is already hard enough, and adding restrictions like you suggested harms all devs because of a few bad actors.
However, I believe that the rules suggested by @moonslashx are sound. They don’t really harm anyone who is approaching game development with good intentions, and they would certainly help to cut down on scams.
I would partially agree if a forum topic was a store page, but it is not. Nor is every game posted here, posted by the original developer, who can answer some of these.
Even with that said free demo’s are not reasonable, try going to every game dev on steam and demanding that. You will get blown off by most indie studio and AAA mega corps alike.
I should have clarified the rules I suggested are towards games for sale like moonslashx specified in their rules, but otherwise, I’m agreeing with their rule suggestions. How well it will get enforced though? We shall see if/when the admin team respond in…a week? Month? Surely within a year, right?
Edit: Assuming if they even implement any rules to begin with
Now the huge difference there is those games all cost money, and are made by dedicated studios. The vast majority of games here don’t, and are made by hobbyist individuals. There are very few games that are entirely paywalled on this site, even the ones that do cost money or are behind Patreon supported development often have free demos.
Requiring a demo for those games would lead to little actual difference to the site but would overall improve user interaction. Is it properly enforceable? That’s for the admins to decide.
I do want to specify the rules I outlined were specifically for paid games, not free ones. I don’t really care how free games advertise themselves since by definition you can’t grift someone if they aren’t giving anything to you.
I do see that perhaps the word “demo” might be too broad of a term since it could be interpreted on the more harsh end of things.
I would specifically refine my meaning to be a playable version of your game that gives players a sense of what they are going to pay for.
Now I do actually recognize that this would be a bigger ask for a specific subset of devs that sells their games already completed (the majority of devs on this site do not do that). That said, I think in general if you want your game to sell, having a playable demo/test version is extremely important.
It should also be noted that effectively every reputable dev on this site selling a product has a demo or free version of their game. That’s been fairly standard for years now.
I think the rest of your argument regarding indie studios and AAA devs isn’t really relevant, but the point is still valid. I don’t actually think that all games should be forced to have demos, though I think a compromise where a game can’t be sold if it’s not playable in any form would be a reasonable rule. If people want to raise money for a project that hasn’t actually been made, I think it’s fair to say that they have to do it elsewhere.