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  #1  
Old Jan 21, 2010, 09:58 AM
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quintin3265 quintin3265 is offline
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Default It's time to get real here

Hi,

Recently, there was some controversy at the Shizz about the site. What I took out of it is that there are quite a few people who are vehemently opposed to what this site is trying to do and what it stands for. No matter what is posted on many game music forums, people are often very rude in their replies.

Meanwhile, the number of people posting songs and visiting the site is minuscule at best. While some will say that the site is not "old enough," nine months is more than enough time to determine if greater than 20 people per day are going to stop by, especially since there are tens of thousands of remixes out there.

Perhaps video game remixes are simply on the decline, and people simply aren't interested in making them anymore. If that's the case, then it's understandable, and I don't want to continue spending hundreds of hours and entire weekends working on and promoting something that people aren't interested in. What's clear, though, is that I can't afford to keep bleeding hundreds of dollars if there's no interest.

I hope that some people will respond to this thread. At this point, some action needs to be taken in order to save the site. People need to report bugs, volunteer to organize compos, upload songs, and get the word out. If you don't support what remixSite offers, then perhaps you might be willing to spend a minute and offer a comment as to why you don't think the site is worth saving. Even if your comment is simply that video game remixes aren't what they used to be, it would be very worthwhile.

Remember, no money is being made here. Other sites sell things and post ads, which we do not do. We don't prejudge songs and anyone is able to take advantage of free bandwidth, publicity, and disk space.

I hope that some community members will be moved to take action, but if not, then this was still an effort worth trying and I will be thankful to those who have contributed to this point.

-quintin
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  #2  
Old Jan 21, 2010, 01:48 PM
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im not sure if vg remixing is necessarily on the decline, or if we've gotten to a point where newer artists have seem to be weeded out for the most part. i do think that is a big problem in a lot of ways, no new talent doesnt lend itself well to sustainable growth. we cant necessarily expect growth, but at the same time something needs to be done to take the site to the next level so that the site can be self sustainable. in my eyes, i believe that needs to be the first order of business, making the site able to stand on its own so it isnt a strain, so that any type of 'downtime' can be justified.

it makes me very aggravated to see the site neglected by the community, and i feel i have to pick and choose my words a bit. it just seems completely unwarranted, its as if most people dont really understand what it takes simply in terms of money and time to get any website off the ground, much less a database type site like this. on top of it, it feels like people dont even want to offer a little of their own time to make suggestions. i hope this isnt the case.
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Old Jan 21, 2010, 02:28 PM
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I don't frequent other remixing sites, so I don't know exactly how many people are paying attention, but I would think that the best thing to do would be to organize another competition, even if it doesn't have any sort of prize. DoD gets tons of hits and they don't offer incentive aside from bragging rights, correct?

Compos are a great idea (I haven't expressed it to you, but I was really excited to see that update despite not having created one myself); however, that as a feature is new, and at a time when people aren't coming to the site, no one's going to know about the great opportunity it provides unless they stumble upon it in other forums. And even then, you make it sound like others aren't taking well to the site, so who's going to even bother looking?

Anyway, I suggest you organize an official compo, for getting both activity and to show people the system. Maybe you could even make the first place prize the ability to choose the theme of the next official compo (that may sound useless since people can create their own, but depending whether or not you get a spike in hits from an event such as this, it could be useful). I'm not sure about everyone else, but it would mean more to me if I won an official one, too...
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Old Jan 21, 2010, 02:48 PM
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What annoys me the most is that, for some reason, it's permissible for celebrities to auction their underwear (http://cgi3.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...avela-lingerie) to raise money for charity; yet, when a call goes out to post remixes for charity, people start getting up in arms as if someone is making a "profit" off this endeavor.

I disagree with your statement that video game music isn't declining. I think that part of the problem is that it's more difficult to remix songs from modern games because they are already orchestral masterpieces. That doesn't mean it's impossible, just that anything added to a NES-era song is going to sound incredible by comparison. I remember how, in 1997, it was amazing to even hear MIDI arrangements of these songs. These sort of songs are available at http://www.vgmusic.com/ even now, and even though that site has not innovated substantially in years, it receives thousands of times more visitors than this one does.

I am still not convinced that there are not enough remixes out there to support a very vibrant community. When I first conceived of this site in 2009, I estimated that there were 100,000 remixes, transcriptions, covers, and verbatim MIDI files across the various sites. That doesn't include originals. VGMusic alone has 40,000, and when one counts the rejected submissions to Overclocked, there are easily 10,000 there. The VGMix archive had thousands that were lost; I have 4,999 on my hard drive alone.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the past year of development is the arrogance displayed by many "leaders" of the community. Many site coordinators, such as Chris from Square Enix Music or Tim at Squaresound, are very cordial and should be complimented for their respect. On the other hand, I will publicly state here that I have little respect for Liontamer, virt, and djpretzel. I have contacted these people multiple times in an attempt to offer something to the game music community and my messages have been ignored. Liontamer did apologize for closing a thread at Overclocked ReMix, but still did not reply to anything I said to him after that point. If any of these people is reading this message, then please prove me wrong. Even if the answer to whatever was asked was "no," whatever happened to treating others with respect and spending 30 seconds to write a reply to say so? I can see why these people were always involved in one feud or another between VGMix, Overclocked, and other sites, and they should be called out as such.
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Old Jan 22, 2010, 02:17 AM
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Man, I've been reading all these threads you have been making all over the internets, and you are trying way way too hard. And you also had pretty unrealistic expectations regarding the site and the first compo.

And those are my observations. I have no idea how you could make it better or busier.
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Old Jan 22, 2010, 04:05 AM
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The site has functionality, but no identity.

There are no real problems with the site itself, although I do have some peeves about the layout/UI, the real issue is that you have no real community. The users that do upload to your site do not generally talk here so what your left with is more of a random loosely-affiliated group of artists.

Also, most remixers have already 'cliqued up'. You showed up late to the party.
But I can't blame you for being frustrated, I've been having a tough time trying to find a VGM niche myself.
  #7  
Old Jan 22, 2010, 06:37 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mika View Post
Man, I've been reading all these threads you have been making all over the internets, and you are trying way way too hard. And you also had pretty unrealistic expectations regarding the site and the first compo.

And those are my observations. I have no idea how you could make it better or busier.
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Originally Posted by Zorbfish View Post
The site has functionality, but no identity.

There are no real problems with the site itself, although I do have some peeves about the layout/UI, the real issue is that you have no real community. The users that do upload to your site do not generally talk here so what your left with is more of a random loosely-affiliated group of artists.

Also, most remixers have already 'cliqued up'. You showed up late to the party.
But I can't blame you for being frustrated, I've been having a tough time trying to find a VGM niche myself.
I'm not qualified to state whether I've tried hard or not - that's for other people to decide. What I do know is that one should either give it one's all or not show up to the game. Stopping halfway provides neither the benefits of saving the money nor succeeding as much as one could.

Most importantly, though, I don't believe that there were any unrealistic expectations here. Nobody disputes how many remixes there are, and if you look at how many people are posting at other sites' forums every day, getting 10 or 100 times more visitors here is not unrealistic even if the community didn't expand by a single person. The other sites have proven that such success is realistic.
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  #8  
Old Jan 22, 2010, 07:39 AM
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Starting a site and building a community from scratch is always a challenging task. It is even more difficult when there are other similar more established sites to which you are compared.

I do have a couple of specific pieces of advice, which technically I should give in private, but they've already been mentioned in the thread.

You really have to be careful about how you handle the charity stuff. While it's admirable that you are willing to donate this money to charity, and while you weren't going to profit monetarily from the campaign, remixSite stood to gain by the increase in traffic and the number of submissions, and any ensuing publicity. (This outcome was also the same goal of the remix competition.) Most of us here are pretty cynical, and will see this as an attempt to gain something from the recent tragedy. I know that big companies do this all the time, and yes they are gaining something of value in the process, and yes that is the primary reason they do it. If it weren't the case, they would just take the proper action and donate in private.

I don't really know that it's fair to publicly call out OCR staff as being unprofessional. They've been fairly busy working on their site, and issues that are peripheral to the main goal often slip. I know that I'm guilty of just that, and I'm quite behind on responding to inquires from a number of people including the OCR folks. Moreover, doesn't remixSite essentially compete with OCR for a portion of the same community? I think it's important to keep your expectations realistic concerning just how much you'd be able to work together.

Anyway, I think there's a lot of good advice in this thread. It would be a shame to see remixSite shut down, and there is probably a niche that you can fill successfully, or something that you can do to differentiate from other similar efforts.
  #9  
Old Jan 22, 2010, 08:40 AM
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Moreover, doesn't remixSite essentially compete with OCR for a portion of the same community?
I think this is the core issue here. I believe the answer is no, but others must believe the answer is yes. I don't see why a site that judges entries can't exist in tandem with a site that does not judge entries. Remember, Overclocked rejects 95% of its submissions the last time I calculated that.

At VGMusic, for example, I even offered to write code for them or pay them hundreds of dollars, and they didn't reply. So I agree with you that a large part of the problem is that there is a lot of arrogance and mistrust on the part of a small portion of the community that others then follow through peer pressure. It's exactly the same thing that happened to Wikipedia - because of a few vandals, they now "assume bad faith" and reject almost every edit, which is why I no longer edit there.

Perhaps the main reason people are mistrustful is because of Overclocked's history of opposing removal of songs. I'm not sure exactly who's responsible for that (nor does it really matter), but I strongly disapprove of their attitude towards song ownership. They have caused significant damage to the community by restricting artists' freedoms. Now, people assume that everyone is out to "steal" their music as a result.
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Old Jan 22, 2010, 09:20 PM
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I guess I can only speak for myself, but a lot of the other sites (formentioned) can be quite elitist at times. They get into cliques and that's that. As is, I've seen a few familiar faces from The Shizz, who seemed to be apparent around comp time, (although most of them are actually pretty cool, at least on the IRC client) and they acted just as I figured they would. Drop onto this site for a bit, then disappear. That's cool for them, but kind've dull for this site, and I dislike those other sites because of the elitism that's inherently with them. I left, but I came here, thinking it would be something different. If this site closed, I don't really think there's anywhere to go if you're really serious about vg music and really want to evolve as an artist. I admit, I don't spend much time on the rest of the site, but it's all about small steps, both for you and us as visitors. I like where this site is headed, and I think you've done more than most, so keep it up. It's worth it - who cares what they said on other sites - it just means you're getting attention!

Aside from that... No, 9 months isn't long. 1 comp isn't enough. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS YET!! I understand you want to make a true haven here, but it's not going to happen overnight. Sites like these become respected and loved over time, but it's a long road. You're clearly passionate about this, and I love that. I know myself and a few others want good things for this site because of that. If you need attention that badly, make it a torrent site. Otherwise, stick to what your vision is, DON'T SPEND SO MUCH MONEY, and see how it goes. This doesn't have to end because of a struggle. I've already offered my hand with stuff if there was a place for it, so some of us ARE interested in the survival of this site.

*sidenote* I disagree. VGMUSIC isn't dying. Remixing, maybe I dunno, but as original artists, there's way more interest in games as a forefront of music. It'll be a huge boom over the next few years, I'm sure. The interest has increased steadily over the past few years, and due to they way the industry should progress, people will be limited to the same quality tools as eachother (or near enough) and thus we'll see a larger amount of originality in music in order to make their tracks stand out. I think the next decade or so will prove interesting. This site could be one of the first to house those artists.
  #11  
Old Jan 23, 2010, 09:54 AM
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Seriously, though, someone else needs to run the compo. I can't do everything. I already said that I'll fully support anyone who wants to host the first compo. That means the compo coordinator can make the rules (even enter the compo if (s)he wants), determine the guidelines, and so on. I'll fix whatever bugs come up in the compo interface and even offer a prize, as stated before. But someone else needs to take the initiative. If you'd like to volunteer, contact me and I'll help with whatever you need.
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Old Jan 24, 2010, 11:09 AM
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Most importantly, though, I don't believe that there were any unrealistic expectations here. Nobody disputes how many remixes there are, and if you look at how many people are posting at other sites' forums every day, getting 10 or 100 times more visitors here is not unrealistic even if the community didn't expand by a single person. The other sites have proven that such success is realistic.
And this is just it. There is only so much time a person can use for browsing sites of this nature, and if someone has picked OCR or whatever, they are likely to stick to that choice. Being active on a yet another site is something people just don't have the time for.

You can't just expect people to make time to be active on your site, that's unrealistic.

Also, about the money you have been funneling to the site, that's nothing new really. One of the leaders you called out, virt, ran VGMix out of his own pockets for ages.

Speaking of VGMix, I believe there are still quite a few people who are just waiting for it to come back in full gear, and don't want to get too involved in a site very similar to it.
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Old Jan 24, 2010, 04:52 PM
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You can't just expect people to make time to be active on your site, that's unrealistic.
I disagree with this quote. If you agree with my assertion that this site is in better condition than VGMix is, then I don't think it's unreasonable to expect people to spend time using a better site. (If you disagree, then my argument is void). In most areas of life, for better or worse, people tend to use whatever is the best product.

I don't think there's some magical force here that makes people prefer Overclocked Remix over this site. Overclocked Remix is not a competitor to this site anyway, because its judging of remixes is very different than what happens here.

The bottom line is that if this site was useful to people, then they would use it. They would use it regardless of whether they visit any other sites, perhaps in addition to the other sites. It wouldn't be necessary to hold promotions, because people would be be downloading lots of songs and wanting to host their compos. It doesn't take more than 30 seconds to download songs.

If there were bugs, people would care enough about the site to work around them and report them, or if the color scheme were poor, they would suggest a new scheme or ignore it. It's wrong to say that some external factor is responsible for the low viewership. To prove this, in May, when the site was announced, 1200 people visited on the first day. Rather, I suggest that I or those who have helped me designed the site wrong in some way so that it's not useful enough for people to visit it, even if it's free to use.

The responsibility lies here, which is why I disagree with the quote above.
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Last edited by quintin3265; Jan 25, 2010 at 06:49 AM. Reason: corrected typos.
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Old Jan 24, 2010, 06:56 PM
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Anyway, I suggest you organize an official compo, for getting both activity and to show people the system. Maybe you could even make the first place prize the ability to choose the theme of the next official compo (that may sound useless since people can create their own, but depending whether or not you get a spike in hits from an event such as this, it could be useful). I'm not sure about everyone else, but it would mean more to me if I won an official one, too...
I had this idea too, so I totally agree with Muurgh. It makes sense and adds some structure to the chaos. If you win a comp, you host the next (if you can't, it goes to runner up, etc) I don't think the person who hosts the comp should be able to participate either, for two reasons that I can think of off the top of my head.
1: They can be fairly biased about what the competition focuses on. If there are prizes to be won, I can't wager my trust on anyone not to do that.
2: You can end up with 1 person hosting and winning too often, so nobody learns from the comp or thinks they have a chance at winning, etc. There are other reasons, but I think those are the most important.

If no one else stands up, I'll host it myself, but I won't compete, I don't think it would work out well and it's against my.... ethics I guess? (I have ethics??? XD) Muurgh, any reason you can't/won't? I'm in the process of finding someone impartial who might. He might do it and I might help him with it (in which case neither of us would be competing). If you wanted to do it though, definitely say so.

The important part of all this is that we can help make the site what we want it to be. That will give us a reason to be here and Quintin the traffic he needs. I'm sure we all have issues with other sites for one reason or another, might be an idea for us to try shape this one into something worthwhile long-term, and not just for the comps.
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Old Jan 25, 2010, 09:00 AM
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I should also point out to whoever wants to organize competitions that, to my knowledge, there has never been a video-based competition in the history of the community.

A challenge to record bands or to create visuals for a particular song is already possible with the current code.
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Old Jan 25, 2010, 07:33 PM
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I didn't think I'd have enough time, but... alright, I guess I wouldn't mind doing one.

A video compo would be awesome, by the way. If someone sets that up I'll have to purchase and relearn Jitter
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Old Jan 26, 2010, 02:32 AM
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some good points made here. i wish i had more to add other than this but its 5:30 and im exhausted. i just wanted to add that im following the discussion here and trying to give some thought towards what can be done on the end of a little less forceful promotion but still getting more users on the site. i really think perserverence with the site is important. i dont think the site has had enough time overall to develop enough of a catalog to kind of fill out a fully distinctive subniche within the community, though it shouldnt be necessary, its proving that it is and that people simply arent giving the site the benefit of the doubt in terms of the function and the form. i'll get into this a little more later.
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Old Jan 26, 2010, 02:40 PM
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I disagree with this quote. If you agree with my assertion that this site is in better condition than VGMix is, then I don't think it's unreasonable to expect people to spend time using a better site. (If you disagree, then my argument is void). In most areas of life, for better or worse, people tend to use whatever is the best product.
You completely missed the point of what I said. It's not about which site is in better condition, or which kind of goals site has, or how the actual music gets out there, or whether sites "compete" in some way. My point was very simple, limited time.

So again, I think it was unrealistic of you to expect to pull a major userbase from the existing communities in less than a year. And even without the time factor, people are rooted in their ways, something you can't just expect to change in less than a year.

And it probably doesn't help that at least in the shizz your response to early criticism wasn't exactly golden. First impressions count a lot, and I get the feeling that a lot of people just wrote you and the site off in the beginning due to whatever problems they had and never gave it a second chance.

And while I'm still here, I might as well mention that the competition with money prizes reeked of desperate attempt to "buy" more users. And as I recall, the management of the competition was a bit shoddy as well. I won't go into details, because I don't remember them exactly.

Obviously I'm only speaking from my own experience, my view of the situation, but that's all any of us have in the end. My only real suggestion is to give it time, look back at all the negative comments you got and see if you can learn from them. Less than a year is not a long enough time to truly grow.
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Old Jan 26, 2010, 08:50 PM
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So again, I think it was unrealistic of you to expect to pull a major userbase from the existing communities in less than a year. And even without the time factor, people are rooted in their ways, something you can't just expect to change in less than a year.
Whatever about shoddy management and such (mentioned later), Mika has an important word to say. Take any of these sites, OCR, The Shizz, etc, etc. I'm sure they put a lot of effort into making their pages. They may have felt like Quintin at some point. I for one, if I had done the same, would be pretty angry if everyone suddenly migrated to another site, be it better or worse. I'm sure many like to think that if it happened to them and their people left, they'd accept it for what it is and move on, but it's just not the case. If you put your heart and soul into a site, you'd feel wrong done by if another site came along and stole everything away from you.

Quintin, people are very loyal, even if it doesn't seem so. Some of the people's time you want a cut of, have helped build those sites to be what they are. It'll take much longer than the time you've given for a change to properly occur. People change slowly if it's natural and after a while they may naturally fall to this site as well as OCR, VGmix, etc. The remix industry isn't TOO huge, so I think most people feel at home on their preferred sites at the moment. You should allow for more time before thinking that all is lost. You've gained interest and people genuinely want this site to continue, so you're on the right path.

Mika, good points, but I don't think Quintin really wants to "buy" people so much as give them an incentive to check something out that isn't in their norm. May have just been the easiest way to achieve that. Remixers/composers are some of the most opinionated people around on the net and they will find a place they like and stick with it (as you were implying). Most people spend more time on one site over the others. Quintin wants this site to be the same homebase for people, but how do you get their attention? There's comps everywhere. There's remixing sites everywhere. I think what Quintin did worked to gain interest. He also caught the ears of the more serious people wanting to make a living of their music through the medium of video-games, for me, this is especially interesting. He's not exactly bribing people. Otherwise, there'd be no problem, we'd be here every day. :P

But I agree with you, the money would look bad from a perspective of other sites who couldn't or, more importantly "wouldn't" do the same. But then.... those sites are already in existence. The money, if anything, showed Quintin's honesty in wanting to make this site work, since he's not earning anything back. Why would he do it otherwise?

Sorry for the long post. ^_^'
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Old Jan 26, 2010, 09:26 PM
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There are two points I think are worth saying in reply to Om's post.

First, Mika, I still disagree with this idea of there being some sort of competition between this site and the other sites. It is a competition now, because of the way the other sites treated us, but I never stated anything about a competition months ago until site administrators made it so. If you'd like, I can post the E-Mails that I sent to virt BEFORE the first line of code was even written suggesting that we collaborate. While it is possible that people might spend less time at other sites because this site exists, isn't it also possible that the combination of all the vibrant subcommunities will cause more people to join in than any single site alone would have? I disagree that this is what would be called a "zero-sum game," where one site has to win at the expense of all the others. virt, Liontamer, djpretzel, and the VGMusic staff are closed-minded and not willing to even acknowledge that there is room for synergy.

Second, and more importantly, though, the attitude of a zero-sum game is something that seems to be represented particularly strongly in the remix community. I offer that, in many other communities, the offer of a prize, or contributions to Haiti, or some other promotion would be seen as a gesture of goodwill. Here, for whatever reason, people look highly negatively upon these and many other things. We will probably have to agree to disagree, but I assert that the reason for this negativity is because of sites attempting to usurp rights from song creators, feuds, hacking incidents by Ptrocity and others, and the Overclocked Remix administrators' promotion of an exclusive clique. I'm not convinced that the same actions, done in another genre, would have yielded the exact same response. In part, we're battling against the poor precedent set by the current big sites.

As to the issue of working hard, I see the development of the site so far as a sunk cost. If it becomes popular, then that's the best outcome. But if not, then I have a lot of other great ideas, and the opportunity cost of sitting on them is high. How about a 3-dimensional Wikipedia? It's done, the 12,000 lines of Visual Basic code is on my drives; I just have to test it more thoroughly, but I haven't been finishing the idea for a year because I've put so much time into this site. Without active effort, the site isn't going to magically take on a life of its own, and will instead become obsolete as what we now call the "competitors" continue to improve their sites. That's why I've asked people here if they'd be willing to create compos themselves.
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  #21  
Old Jan 27, 2010, 04:35 AM
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Mika Mika is offline
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Originally Posted by Omnomnomnom View Post
Mika, good points, but I don't think Quintin really wants to "buy" people so much as give them an incentive to check something out that isn't in their norm.
I also don't think he wanted to, but this was the impression I got. Granted, it was of course coloured by whatever impression I had of quintin and the site at the time, but that's the way it went.

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Originally Posted by quintin3265 View Post
First, Mika, I still disagree with this idea of there being some sort of competition between this site and the other sites. It is a competition now, because of the way the other sites treated us, but I never stated anything about a competition months ago until site administrators made it so. If you'd like, I can post the E-Mails that I sent to virt BEFORE the first line of code was even written suggesting that we collaborate. While it is possible that people might spend less time at other sites because this site exists, isn't it also possible that the combination of all the vibrant subcommunities will cause more people to join in than any single site alone would have? I disagree that this is what would be called a "zero-sum game," where one site has to win at the expense of all the others. virt, Liontamer, djpretzel, and the VGMusic staff are closed-minded and not willing to even acknowledge that there is room for synergy.
[snip]
As to the issue of working hard, I see the development of the site so far as a sunk cost. If it becomes popular, then that's the best outcome. But if not, then I have a lot of other great ideas, and the opportunity cost of sitting on them is high. How about a 3-dimensional Wikipedia? It's done, the 12,000 lines of Visual Basic code is on my drives; I just have to test it more thoroughly, but I haven't been finishing the idea for a year because I've put so much time into this site. Without active effort, the site isn't going to magically take on a life of its own, and will instead become obsolete as what we now call the "competitors" continue to improve their sites. That's why I've asked people here if they'd be willing to create compos themselves.
Only competition between the sites is the time users spent in them, and it's pointless to drag the leaders in this because in the end it's the users who decide where they spent their time in.

Also, working hard, and trying too hard. Two completely different things.
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  #22  
Old Jan 27, 2010, 05:42 AM
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Blitz Lunar Blitz Lunar is offline
 
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Also, most remixers have already 'cliqued up'. You showed up late to the party.
this is basically the problem as i see it. my impression of the site has been that it's "another game music and remix site." not necessarily bad at all, but nonetheless superfluous, as the vgm arranging community is already satiated by other sites... vgmix, R:TS, ocremix and olremix are all hosting game remixes. that's four entire sites dedicated to the same thing, which to my way of thinking is already excessive. sites work better when they focus on something specific that no other site offers -- then do it well.

Quote:
and the VGMusic staff are closed-minded and not willing to even acknowledge that there is room for synergy.
i don't remember seeing an e-mail, but generally speaking we appear disconnected from the rest of the community because Mike has long work hours and doesn't have a lot of time for the site, and doesn't really engage in the wider vgm community. in fact, most of the staff don't; i think i'm the exception? we'd love to see synergy between vgmusic and other sites in future but right now it is old and broken and in serious need of redesigning, we've been making steps in that area for a long time now, but it's moving at snails pace. so about all we can do for the time-being is put a link on the front page, which i could look into for you if you like.

Quote:
At VGMusic, for example, I even offered to write code for them or pay them hundreds of dollars, and they didn't reply.
yeah that's kinda annoying. again i don't remember seeing that e-mail (i guess it was sent directly to Mike?), but you should have at least got a reply. sometimes i get frustrated with how jaded and indifferent the folks there are. we turned away JDHarding when he offered to help as well, then he even set up a rival site for a couple of weeks.
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Last edited by Blitz Lunar; Jan 27, 2010 at 05:48 AM.
  #23  
Old Jan 27, 2010, 07:45 AM
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quintin3265 quintin3265 is offline
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Hey Blitz,

It's great to hear from someone at VGMusic, and you don't have to apologize for what others have done

A quick comment about the first paragraph: I'm not sure that VGMix is an alternative to this site in the state that it's in; in fact, that was one of the main motivations for creating this site.

On to the more important part, though: putting a link to the site would be great, and any help you could provide would be appreciated. Yesterday, this site was able to move up to #12 in Google's rankings for "video game music remix," above ThaSauce, and another link will help tremendously, especially from a PageRank 5 site.

But I was also wondering why there's an effort to rewrite the site if you acknowledge that it needs to be rewritten. To me, it seems like that would be a duplication of effort. The same is true with VGMix, a site that people acknowledge needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. A crazy idea would be to take remixSite's code and remixes, add VGMusic's songs, and relaunch the combined site with a shared-ownership, dual administrators model or revenue-sharing agreement. The new site could be rebranded VGMusic, remixSite, or gameremixes.com (which may be preferable because of the keywords in the domain). Then, there would be an all-inclusive community where anyone can upload MIDIs, MP3s, uncompressed music, videos, and whatever else in one place. There would be enough traffic to implement the paid promotion of remixes idea on the front page, which would cover server costs, pay for prizes for compos, and even earn the parties some money while still providing a free service to composers without Google ads. Everyone wins big, and you make money while not having to manually update the site anymore. Heck, Chris from the VGMdb might even see his traffic double.

Something big is needed to revive the video game music community, and I do believe it needs reviving. While this proposal is probably unlikely to be considered, a coming together would be of great benefit to the community, I think. The way things are now, everyone is splintered across many sites and that contributes to the "cliques" feel.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Blitz Lunar View Post
this is basically the problem as i see it. my impression of the site has been that it's "another game music and remix site." not necessarily bad at all, but nonetheless superfluous, as the vgm arranging community is already satiated by other sites... vgmix, R:TS, ocremix and olremix are all hosting game remixes. that's four entire sites dedicated to the same thing, which to my way of thinking is already excessive. sites work better when they focus on something specific that no other site offers -- then do it well.



i don't remember seeing an e-mail, but generally speaking we appear disconnected from the rest of the community because Mike has long work hours and doesn't have a lot of time for the site, and doesn't really engage in the wider vgm community. in fact, most of the staff don't; i think i'm the exception? we'd love to see synergy between vgmusic and other sites in future but right now it is old and broken and in serious need of redesigning, we've been making steps in that area for a long time now, but it's moving at snails pace. so about all we can do for the time-being is put a link on the front page, which i could look into for you if you like.



yeah that's kinda annoying. again i don't remember seeing that e-mail (i guess it was sent directly to Mike?), but you should have at least got a reply. sometimes i get frustrated with how jaded and indifferent the folks there are. we turned away JDHarding when he offered to help as well, then he even set up a rival site for a couple of weeks.
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Last edited by quintin3265; Jan 27, 2010 at 09:09 AM.
  #24  
Old Jan 27, 2010, 02:17 PM
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Quote:
A crazy idea would be to take remixSite's code and remixes, add VGMusic's songs, and relaunch the combined site with a shared-ownership, dual administrators model or revenue-sharing agreement.
djpretzel made a similar offer, except he wanted to buy out vgmusic entirely and merge it into ocremix. Mike wasn't at all interested in a merger of any kind though, I doubt that has changed. Gotta admit I tend to agree with him, it's better having smaller specialised sites rather than big catch-all style sites IMO, which I guess is what ocremix is aiming for these days. I believe a similar effect can be achieved with enough site cross-talk... maybe a video game music portal site to connect them all... dunno. there needs to be a roundtable of video game music site admins or something. I'm really the wrong person to speak to anyway

anyway, i'll ask about putting a link on the front page.
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  #25  
Old Jan 28, 2010, 01:42 AM
Zorbfish Zorbfish is offline
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Only competition between the sites is the time users spent in them, and it's pointless to drag the leaders in this because in the end it's the users who decide where they spent their time in.
Exactly. To me there are two types of sites you can build: for yourself or for others.

What you do to a site doesn't matter when building for yourself, but when you're building for others you really have to take a good hard look at the human element. As Blitz said the remix community is already oversaturated. Yes, this site does offer functionality differences but these are trumped by the culture/community aspect of the other sites' users. People will always choose an imperfect experience* if they feel they recieve something of more value in return. In the case of the remix community that could be the already established bonds that each user share on their respective "home turf" site.

Lastly you've already doomed yourself. Like it or not parts of the VGM community are very close and by naming names you've already closed off many doors; even if reconciled later. I know from experience.

*Please note I do not mean to say that any existing site is by some means inferior.
  #26  
Old Jan 28, 2010, 06:35 AM
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With regards to the VGMusic link, thanks. In return, I'll add a link to VGMusic in the next release.
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  #27  
Old Jan 31, 2010, 06:39 AM
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So let's get real and honest as you say. You say in your email that the majority of the referrals to your site quickly leave the site. The problem is therefore sadly not lack of unique visitors, but the ability to transform them into regular visitors due to deficiencies in remixSite itself. At the moment, remixSite clearly does not satisfy the masses or make a unique mark on the arrangement community. While potentially a good concept, a lot of work is needed to ensure the site is attractive enough to visitors. That requires a revamped main page, more and better content, more regular updates, constructive feedback, and the establishment of a community foundation. All of this requires much more work that may or may not pay off. Just because you've clearly worked hard on something does not automatically entitle success, unfortunately. I personally feel it is an oversaturated market and remixSite could only become successful among a niche. Furthermore, I think antagonising webmasters of other more successful communities is detrimental and will polarise fan opinion against you. Plenty of people are happy to help and advise you, but do not anticipate success if you continue the same direction. Good luck either way.

Last edited by Chris; Jan 31, 2010 at 06:42 AM.
  #28  
Old Jan 31, 2010, 11:23 AM
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quintin3265 quintin3265 is offline
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Hey Chris,

I actually took a look at the statistics again, and found that I was perhaps wrong in the issue of people not sticking around the site. Many people do not stick around; however, people who search for "video game music remix" or some similar term stay around for an average of 6 minutes. That's an eternity on the Internet. I'm not sure what that indicates, but it seems to show that people who do discover the site are impressed with it.

The problem with content of this site is that the content is provided by the users. In 2005, I wrote a blog (http://www.gamesareforchildren.com) and it was very successful within one month of starting out. I think that's because I was able to write a long, detailed article every day. With this site, though, it's obviously impossible to write one song per day and have it be of any quality.

But even if I did write one song per day, I wouldn't be able to concentrate on the programming. For a year, I worked as hard as I possibly could, spending one or two hours every weekday and up to twelve hours a day on many Saturdays and Sundays to improve the site. There just isn't any harder I could work without missing work or skipping meals or avoiding the gym. While it is true that people volunteered to help out, and some have been very helpful, many people who volunteered have not devoted enough time to make a difference. If the site does fail, I can't say that I didn't work hard enough.

What was a major mistake was not seeing this "market" (if that's what it is) as "competitive." Many of the sites devoted to video game remixes are very hypocritical: they state that music should be free, but they don't allow people to remove songs; and they state their communities are open, as long as people follow complex rules and avoid being banned. After looking around at things, I suspect that some sites are making a profit and don't want to draw attention to their finances because of the public uproar that would ensue. I may have been stupidly lured by an assumption that those at the top levels of the community are interested foremost in sharing music, when in reality some (but not all) communities are actually for-profit.

-quintin
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Old Feb 9, 2010, 08:06 AM
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Originally Posted by quintin3265 View Post
What was a major mistake was not seeing this "market" (if that's what it is) as "competitive." Many of the sites devoted to video game remixes are very hypocritical: they state that music should be free, but they don't allow people to remove songs; and they state their communities are open, as long as people follow complex rules and avoid being banned. After looking around at things, I suspect that some sites are making a profit and don't want to draw attention to their finances because of the public uproar that would ensue. I may have been stupidly lured by an assumption that those at the top levels of the community are interested foremost in sharing music, when in reality some (but not all) communities are actually for-profit.
What sites do you think are for-profit?
  #30  
Old Feb 9, 2010, 08:11 AM
djpretzel djpretzel is offline
 
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I've worked on OC ReMix for over ten years of my life. You - and anyone else - on this thread wanna call me out for anything, do try to keep that in mind. The overall attitude in this thread is NOT one of bridge-building, but the exact opposite. If you've "lost all respect" for myself and others and we're all "hypocritical" then brother, you're gonna have a real uphill battle ever getting anyone to play nice with you, because them's fighting words.

But I didn't come here to fight. I came here to provide one sole nugget of advice, take it or leave it:

At no point during that ten year period did I throw a temper tantrum, publicly or privately, over essentially not getting enough pageviews. You really seem far more concerned with stats, numbers, pagerank, etc. than on MUSIC and COMMUNITY. Those two things should be at the forefront of your goals, not how many hits you get, or what myself, virt, or anyone else thinks. If you genuinely think you're doing something new, original, and worthwhile, and that your skills are better represented by a standalone site rather than contributing to an existing site, then continue to plow away. Get back to work, seriously. You're wasting time here, stirring up dirt, when you've got a LOT of work to do. If you truly believe in your own dogma about the existing vgm remix sites being inadequate, prove it. Don't whine about failing to prove it.

It seems to me, really, that you're far more concerned about attention, pageviews, and instantly manifesting credibility and community out of thin air by the cunning use of 1.) money and 2.) complaining. With the first strategy, you ARE gonna get some results, because guess what, a lot of mixers are college kids and/or just plain old need da money. That's not community, though, that's human nature, and it's fickle and not particularly authentic.

The second strategy, though, with the whining and the finger-pointing and the "getting real"... I'd drop it. Like it's hot.
 

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