Post by Ategon in Please stop "Rate for Rate"-posts

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The majority of the people doing the threads have been following it. If there is a couple that aren't they're the exception. Some people take a bit to get around to the other games or dont announce that they have given feedback in the thread and instead just give it on the page

Imo I see the rate for rates and the behavior you want of people possibly rating others who rated them as pretty much the same. Theres just a tradeoff with the extra things that come with it along with that. Rate for rates main downside is that not everyone does them yes but on the other hand with the people rating others that rated them, that also is rare even in jams where rate for rates arent common so the same overall problem arises just in a different form. A lot of people dont sort random and play a random game to then give feedback on because the majority of the time its not given back and then they cant get ranked in the jam as they wasted all their time. The only reliable sort where its the case of being able to get feedback back reliably is sorting by most karma, popular or by the highest rated as those games tend to be active in the community but even then thats still funneling the votes into a small subset of games.

Rate for rates is a way for people who may otherwise not be seen to show their game to some people and collect some feedback while also returning the same thing in kind. Sure if somebody abuses this and rate for rates to get 100 votes that may be an issue but again its a small subset of those are actually doing the rate for rates, its just more noticeable as you see them in top rated and you are seeking them out (confirmation bias).

I agree in an ideal world this should not be the case but its not an ideal world and mechanics exist in itch that people use

JK50001 year ago

The question is why do we want a system where we should beg for ratings. Okay we can say that is the way world works, or we can try to do something about it.

You give a part the answer yourself, because it is been used a lot to gain a lot attention, and you will see games getting more then 80-90 ratings because of this system. And this is a lot in game jam where we this time only is 753 games. The issue here is not only the once making the posts, but also people continually replaying to all of them.

Ategon1 year ago (1 edit) (+1)

Again as I said thats a subset of the people getting rates, and sometimes thats not even how they got most of their rates. The bigger offender is the snowball effect that occurs in the games that reach the top of the top rated sort early on.

Also dont quite get what you mean by the last point as it could be two things. If its that the people replying dont actually play the games then thats why you make it so that they must play the game before you give feedback back with them giving feedback on the game page itself as being confirmation that they actually played it. If its that it buries everything else in the forums due to the constant activity then the solution isnt to stop it but to instead have a separate category. A thing a group does in the GMTK jam is has an organized rate swap where you get given 5 games every day from people who entered to rate and give feedback on. This helps remove that from the forums while still having it as an option for people to get noticed (with the 5 a day preventing abuse)

JK50001 year ago

Okay, what often happens is that people write a 'rate for rate'-posts, do usually play a few the first game on the list. This do some people knows, and they are therefor really fast to come with replies to those posts, and by doing this they at least tries to get a lot people to play their games. And I can see that it seem to be working pretty well. But are you number 7 or 8 to come with a replay to the post, then chance is much smaller that they are playing your games.

But this not my main issue, but I don't want a system where people shall beg for ratings/feedback. You are welcome to think it's the way it just is, but I have been in many game jams where this is not an issue. It all about making a culture where everybody understand what a game jam is about, and it should never be about begging for ratings.

Ategon1 year ago (1 edit) (+1)

I mean I don't believe its begging. Begging would be spamming please play my game in every games comment section. Both parties are giving each other feedback on what to improve. Sure you can make the argument its begging because its forcing them to rate your game but the person who made the post has made the decision that they would be rating games and giving feedback and the person replying has as well. Its the same as if both people had the mind set of I will play all games from people who comment on my game which a lot of people in the rate for rates have as well. Just this is a way to guarantee the 20 rates. As the moment this is basically the only way to guarantee that for those that dont get lucky with ctr, dont have much time to commit to ratings, or dont get lucky from the games they choose to give feedback on.

As the mechanics in itch.io exist currently there will always be those that are screwed over by the current system even if they give feedback on others (and for those who cant give feedback that well and can only rely on people to use the random sort, it never works out unless they have a great thumbnail)

The way to stop it would instead give some other way for people to get a guaranteed number of ratings. The system in Ludum Dare is miles better than what exists here and theres absolutely 0 rate for rates because of it. In ludum dare the more good feedback to others you give, and the more games you rate, the more your games gets recommended to others with the things you do having reduced effects the more you do it (so that people tend to get 20-30 ratings and not much more unless they're extremely dedicated with giving feedback or get snowballed). This means you have the community aspect of going around and rating + giving feedback on random peoples games and a lot more people use the random sort because theres a lot less possible risks to doing so

JK50001 year ago

I still see it as begging, but you are of cause welcome to call it something different. I think the main issue is that we are not very good at telling people what a game jam is, and what we as community aspect from you when you take part of a game jam. Often there is a way to big of an focus on the game development part, but not so much on the community/feedback part. And it's not just an issue here, it's also an issue in LD, and most other game jams. It has become more and more a fight to getting attention. This also happens because more and more people do not seem to be playing and given feedback (or at least not very much), and they still expect that others plays their games.

Ategon1 year ago(+1)

thats heading into a bit of a different problem but yeah I agree with you on that one. The marketing is very development focused and instead it should be clearly communicated that its expected that you also check out other games along with that. Currently its limited to 1 line in the brackeys front page and that doesn't even mention the community part, just some information that won't get their game played at all even though it says it will. > "make sure to play a lot of games, so your own game has a higher chance of being shown to others!". If theyre referring to just playing that does nothing, same with rates unless you spam rates and get to most karma. The marketing should instead mention stuff like if you participate in the jam its expected that you go out and leave some feedback on others and there's a chance they return the favor so people who come in see that and can start doing it so there's less risk in random sorting. Marketing and community is a huge part of game development and it should be treated as such