Amiga scene desperately needs two things.

[Tigerskunk]

Some numbers:

When I posted the newest video of Inviyya on the Amiga Facebook group (which has around 18000 members), I got 7 likes.
Any thread about Gotek drives, Recapping, Retrobriting or old 80ies games usually gets a fifty to a hundred likes if not more..

Not that I am a Facebook-likes-whore, but it's usually a good indicator of about what a particular group is interested there.
And Amiga-fans are imo largely not interested in new games for the classic models.
It's super different for me when posting something about my games in the FB Vectrex group, for instance.

I guess it's simply a result of the fractured user base.

(I simply decided I go on coding for the Amiga, since it's most fun for me out of all platforms. But if you are in for some kind of wide user base reaction, you should go somewhere else)

[Amiga1992]

Yes, the platform is very fractured! Huge problem.

But please don't ever, ever, again, measure your "reach" via Facebook (or other social media) metrics, especially if it in any way affects your motivation to make stuff for the Amiga.

There's two facts why it doesn't work:
1) People are really, really fucking lazy, and would have a group like the Amiga one set to post to their News Feed. A lot of those whatever number of people in there will never click on the group and scroll through the group. Also it's really painful to do that because of the order in which things are presented, because:

2) Facebook's News Feed (and any other of timeline in it) is ran by algorithms, and moves engagement as it pleases, based mainly on who paid to promote posts, sale interests, and ultimately the user's datamined activity and whatever "interests profile" the system made for them. This means a lot of posts don't go through to the News Feed of people and nobody sees them.

Yes, since especially that group, is mainly fueled by nostalgia, between people's interest plus the algorithm tampering, those posts will get more rotation probably.
And if you are set to receive posts from the group on your feed, you only get "highlights", which is whatever the system thinks you should see.

So the point is, as I said: Facebook metrics are only a source of demotivation and depression. It's sad that everyone and their mums use Facebook as their main and probably only contact with the Internet.

[nobody]

Facebook is useless crap, the only real reason to use it is to communicate with people that are far from you, then again you can use Skype or something else.

[robinsonb5]

Also bear in mind that the posts Facebook chooses to show to people tend to be ones on which people have commented. That doesn't always mean that the posts are more interesting - they're just more "interactive" when they're about Gotek drives ("Why can't I flash mine?" "You need this kind of Serial adapter." "What about sound mods?") or Retrobriting ("I did it and the machine yellowed again." "I used bblonde." "I left it in the sun too long and the ctrl keys went all milky") than an announcement about a new game.

[Galahad/FLT]

I wouldnt worry about comments on Facebook, Youtube or anywhere else unless they are constructive.

The problem is, none of us are kids, none of us with families have the same free time we had when we were younger.

If Fairlight needed an Amiga cracker today for a whole load of new games, I simply couldnt spare the time, I have family, I have a business to run, even the mundane shit of shopping and taking the dog for a walk take up my time.

So when I get some ignorant arsehole bitching on Youtube about why Starquake is taking so long, I just laugh at them. Im doing it for FREE, im not getting paid a red cent for it, at least with Putty Squad I got something for my efforts.

If someone wants to pay me to take time off work to get Starquake finished, pony up or shut up, but youll need to take my dog for a walk as well :laugh

I do this useless shit with the Amiga because I want to. If I wanted the kudos of my peers, I would have done it when the Amiga was more relevant and more people could potentially enjoy what I do.

If youre doing it for you, for the accomplishment, thats the only barometer that counts. Youre not competing with Scourge of the Underkind, youre competing with yourself to try and do better than your last effort.

And if people happen to like it as well? Well thats just a big fat smile inducing bonus, if they dont, who cares? You did it for you primarily.

I dont care if people dislike my efforts, so long as they are constructive dislikes, might make my next project and bit better, if they are nothing but dismissive.......unless they are holding the pursestrings, fuck em.

Fuck comments on Facebook, fuck comments on Youtube, do,it for yourself, that should be enough.

[Amigajay]

Well said!
I agree, anything i do personally is for myself first and foremost, its great that others like it, sometimes i get 100 likes, othertimes i dont get any, at the end of the day the Amiga scene is not about making money, the userbase is too small to make any real profits, its all about the love of the machine and scene and helping others, if you cant motivate yourself on ‘any’ project then you might as well stop.
Hopefully Steril you have seen there are people that support what you are doing, so carry on doing it for yourself and those who have an interest in it.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Steril707

When I posted the newest video of Inviyya on the Amiga Facebook group (which has around 18000 members), I got 7 likes.
Any thread about Gotek drives, Recapping, Retrobriting or old 80ies games usually gets a fifty to a hundred likes if not more..

Not that I am a Facebook-likes-whore, but it's usually a good indicator of about what a particular group is interested there.
And Amiga-fans are imo largely not interested in new games for the classic models.

I think Amiga-fans often are, but the casuals (for lack of a better word) aren't necessarily. They're in it for the nostalgia, which makes them play (and pay for) sub-par games like Giana Sisters instead of something they haven't any memories of.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

The problem is, none of us are kids, none of us with families have the same free time we had when we were younger.

And this is usually the same sentiment that turns people into just reading whatever the Facebook algorithm throws at them.

They have time for just one website. They can find "everything they want" on Facebook. Look at that, it even throws it at me on my "news" feed without me doing anything, "this is brilliant". No effort.

So yeah, forget about all that man, it's just noisy bullshit, and not real. I can understand that no feedback leads to lack of motivation, I have the same issue most times, but I learned not to judge interest via social media metrics, because they are just FAKE.

[mcgeezer]

Couldnt agree more here.

In all honesty i got back into coding on the Amiga because when i was 16 i was told i wasnt good enough to be a games programmer (for a career) anyway.

Sadly at the time i think they were partly correct.

But now, older, wiser, more resilient i pay fuck all attention to what most people think and do things for the love of it. Its a short time we have on earth so best not waste time on social media worrying about what other people think (most of which have the combined intelligence of a retarded ferret).

Ps sorry if i offended any real ferrets in my post here.

[saimon69]

We can game the FB algorythm a bit, if we that have FB accounts all comment on all posts with new games i guess: that would be funny :P

I started again to do music for Amiga because it's more challenging than do stuff in a modern sequencer; i also thought the old games did not fully exploit the capability of the platform: maybe in the technology side but not on the narrative side: most (not all, mind) soundtracks were just collection of songs with no connection and the styles were usually on the demoscene - ok that also because those were the samples around :P

At least i have couple projects that am doing that way, one is R3D (music finished - almost two hours , now i hope someone will go on to reserve presales so that the game too will be finished) then something that i cannot mention due to voluntary NDA, but is trying to convey consistency.

Here are the songs for R3D soundtrack made public so far:
R3D soundtrack - public songs so far

also, there were some techniques -like two channel music - that were not fully explored: there are honorable mentions like wolfChild or Shadow Fighter but usually is either sound/music choice or is three channels and one for effects.

[Tigerskunk]

So, leaving FB out of the picture, do you guys feel that there is a real demand for new games for the classics in the Amiga scene, like there is a demand in let's say the C64 scene?

[DamienD]

Most definitely, and I for one, will support you guys in any way that I can

[alpine9000]

Originally Posted by Steril707

So, leaving FB out of the picture, do you guys feel that there is a real demand for new games for the classics in the Amiga scene, like there is a demand in let's say the C64 scene?

I think there is a bit of a chicken and egg problem.

I suspect in the short term we might have to create an oversupply on the supply side to entice people back into the scene which in turn will create new demand.

There is a small problem with the splintered nature of how new games are released/sold. If you are new to the scene, it's probably almost impossibe to easily find the new games that have been released in the past 12-14 months.

[malko]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

[...] If someone wants to pay me to take time off work to get Starquake finished, pony up or shut up, but you'll need to take my dog for a walk as well :laugh [...]

!!!

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

I wouldn't worry about comments on Facebook, Youtube or anywhere else unless they are constructive.

The problem is, none of us are kids, none of us with families have the same free time we had when we were younger. [...]

If you're doing it for you, for the accomplishment, that's the only barometer that counts. You're not competing with Scourge of the Underkind, you're competing with yourself to try and do better than your last effort.

And if people happen to like it as well? Well that's just a big fat smile inducing bonus, if they don't, who cares? You did it for you primarily. [...]

Fuck comments on Facebook, fuck comments on Youtube, do,it for yourself, that should be enough.

To say it like my Ausie friends : Man, you are "bloody hell fucking" right !!

Originally Posted by Akira

[...] They have time for just one website. They can find "everything they want" on Facebook. Look at that, it even throws it at me on my "news" feed without me doing anything, "this is brilliant". No effort.[...]

FB is just a tool, problem is that some people don't even have time for just one site, but, without even realising it, they allow one site to devour the time they may have ...
(like EAB do with some of us )

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by Steril707

So, leaving FB out of the picture, do you guys feel that there is a real demand for new games for the classics in the Amiga scene, like there is a demand in let's say the C64 scene?

I think there's always a demand for new games. If they are exclusive Amiga Classic games then even better. I love the thought of people downloading WinUAE, buying an Amiga or pulling their Amiga out the attic to play a game - it builds the scene.

[nobody]

Originally Posted by Steril707

So, leaving FB out of the picture, do you guys feel that there is a real demand for new games for the classics in the Amiga scene, like there is a demand in let's say the C64 scene?

On the C64 there is a culture to create new things, this is missing on the Amiga. Also i believe C64 has much more character and soul. The Amiga is more about stick this card on a tower case, connect to an HDMI monitor, stare at the PCB and take photos, post sysinfo and workbench screenshots.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by alpine9000

I think there is a bit of a chicken and egg problem.

Agreed, and also what nobody says above, I think there are more people veering towards creation on the C64 than on the Amiga, and then we go back to all the issues that make the Amiga less friendly to get into. And he also mentions the fragmentation which I think is probably the main issue with Amiga (lumping it all together when it isn't really the same)

As for the C64, if you go to CSDb, you can notice that new games were rare and far between, kind of like what we have now on the Amiga, between 2000 and 2010, and then there was an explosion. During that decade, what kept the creation and scene flowing, was the very active demoscene plus developments in emulation.

We're kind of fucked demoscene-wise too, so that shows what he just said above, that people interested in creating stuff on Amiga are less than those that just want to consume. Which is very funny, since the Amiga was the computer that basically drove home computer creativity for a long while on its own, and it was created for the creative mind.

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by Akira

We're kind of fucked demoscene-wise too, so that shows what he just said above, that people interested in creating stuff on Amiga are less than those that just want to consume. Which is very funny, since the Amiga was the computer that basically drove home computer creativity for a long while on its own, and it was created for the creative mind.

Well the Artistic Creative mind is different from the Coder Creative mind: Amiga has indeed its share of creative people but did miss - at least at the beginning - a good bridge for those that wanted to do more than paint render and play music but did not wanted to dig deep in Assembly and C: another commodore marketing misstep that had to be fixed from outside with AMOS, Blitz Basic and - in a minor way - with applications like CanDo and Scala; however missing that middle layer of half coders is indeed hurting productivity and we need more base level tutorials like the ones of Earok and Amiten to teach people to do something with code; i would indeed benefit too!

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by nobody

On the C64 there is a culture to create new things, this is missing on the Amiga. Also i believe C64 has much more character and soul. The Amiga is more about stick this card on a tower case, connect to an HDMI monitor, stare at the PCB and take photos, post sysinfo and workbench screenshots.

That's my impression as well.
Although, from my experiences with the german A1k-Forum I'd say there is a lot of creative stuff happening in the scene.

But...

1) a lot of this is happening in hardware design and writing drivers for these new cards and attachments.
2) you have also some application development happening, while the C64 has mostly games and demos.
3) userbase is then also fractured with classic and PPC, OCS, AGA and RTG, etc...

In the end compared to other platforms, there is just not that much left for games and demos on the classic Amiga.

Weird, when seeing what the Amiga once was in that department.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Steril707

That's my impression as well.
Although, from my experiences with the german A1k-Forum I'd say there is a lot of creative stuff happening in the scene.

But...

1) a lot of this is happening in hardware design and writing drivers for these new cards and attachments.
2) you have also some application development happening, while the C64 has mostly games and demos.
3) userbase is then also fractured with classic and PPC, OCS, AGA and RTG, etc...

In the end compared to other platforms, there is just not that much left for games and demos on the classic Amiga.

Weird, when seeing what the Amiga once was in that department.

Quite simple, hardware development is nothing without new software.

You cant compare the c64 and Amiga, the latter gets compared to better machines, the c64 gets compared with the c64.