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Ideas on the separation of Game Development from Videogames CD
Videogames Codidact is taking it's time to form an audience and I'd like to talk about something regarding it.
There has been discussion in chat if Game Development should leave Videogames CD at some point, and there's been also a few circumstances on why it might be the case or not. On one hand, Game Development could simply get enough attention and a sufficient audience who seems keen of the idea to separate it from the rest of the site, while on the other, Game Development remains in Videogames CD and its programming subjects will be set in stone for Software Development CD.
So now that we're getting closer to having the site, let's try and settle this while we have time. If you're keen of having Game Development as a separate Codidact site, why is it so? If not, why?
2 answers
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I'm not a videogamer, so I'll admit up front that I'm generalizing from related areas: as a boardgamer or RPG player, would I want to share space with people creating games, game systems, modules, and player aids?
My personal reaction is: yes, very much so! First off, when creators participate in player "places", it raises the quality -- players can get direct answers, developers can get real user feedback (and maybe find playtesters), and, in short, makers and consumers can have dialogue that benefits both.
Further, some players are also small-scale developers. In the games I play, this is in the space of house rules, player aids, and other customizations. It'd sure be great to have the experience of people who have more than anecdotal input when I'm trying to get the balance on my house rules right -- when I'm doing, at a small scale, what game developers do at a larger scale. I understand that "mods" are core to videogames, or at least are core for many players, and that these mods are essentially game-development overlays. If that's true, then a player working on a mod is kind of like me working on a house rule for Through the Ages or D&D.
Unless players or game developers tell us strongly that "no, we need to be separate", I'd like to see us default to one inclusive community. The whole network is still small; none of our communities is huge and getting so much traffic that people can't find what they're looking for. Let's build on what we have in common, not put up walls prematurely.
This question came up when we were getting ready to launch Software Development, too: should there be one general community, or should we make different communities for different aspects of software development, like one for "just code" questions and one for design and one for QA, or maybe divide it up based on technologies (embedded and cloud were both proposed as specializations). We decided to create one community, planning from the start to be able to support a split later if a sub-community arises that really should be separate. We can take that approach with this, too. Let's build a single place together, and if in time it becomes clear that there are two separate (if overlapping) communities that want to be able to focus more on their separate concerns, we can create a new community then and move posts as necessary.
I think there should a be a split, while they have a common thread tying them together (video games), mixing them up just adds extra "stuff" to filter through for the desired content. Some users might want both content, but separating out the development questions from the player questions with two communities will serve as a first level filter.
The main grey zone I see would be in asking about game systems from a high level. Something like "Do players enjoy Inventory System A better than System B?" It's not about code, it's about player experience, but it is for development. Hrmm
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