Most People are Assholes

I know. It is hard to accept. But..... true. Sorry, my friend. It is true.

I am not saying this to be a dick. I am really not. If there is anyone who can empathize with screaming into a vacuum and getting nothing but cold turd in return, it is definitely me.

My first game, Synapse, was written in the deepest void. I had virtually zero people who cared about my blog, and even fewer who cared about the actual game. I blogged from like March to August of 2010 without even a game to draw traffic. And on Wordpress too, so I didn't even have "followers" in the Google sense. I really was a screaming dude in a vacuum. And even after my game came out, few people read it, few people commented, few people cared.

The key is not to focus on the assholes. Focus on the good people.

For example, Tenkar was my first real follower. First person to put me in their blog roll. First person to care about what I was doing in this little niche of the universe. As a consequence, I love me some Tenkar. Oh man, I sing the man's praises every chance I get. I comment on his blog as often as I can. I actually talk to him via e-mail quite regularly as well. We are friends. People like Tenkar keep me doing what I am doing. They connect me to the community. They are my anchor in the storm.

And my first non-free item in the RPG universe? Dedicated to Tenkar. My next work will be dedicated to Christian at Destination Unknown. Same reason, he was my next RPG buddy after Tenkar. I would rather have 1 Tenkar or 1 Christian than a 1000 nameless downloads. That connection is warm and human.

Here is a suggestion. This might come as a surprise, given my posts last week about traffic patterns, but I actually don't track downloads on my games. I don't want to know, really. The only thing I want to know is if someone really likes my stuff. If someone is out there saying "hey, I found this really cool game, you should check it out." That is what I like to hear. If 10,000 people download my games and say nothing to me about it, that is meaningless. I want quality human connections.

And the only way to get that is to go out into the blogosphere and shake some trees. Leave comments, post on forums, talk to people, shoot the breeze, and hang out. Find those people who are on your wavelength and form those friendships. And ask those people for their opinions. Tell them about how you think your ideas can solve the problems they are having. That is the only way I know how to get good feedback on creative work.

Putting creative work on the table is hard. Seriously goddamn hard. I know. I feel your pain. It is a long long long road of lonely nights tapping away at those keys. And when it seems like nobody cares, it sucks. But you can choose to focus on the mass of rock, imposing, solid, impenetrable; or you can look for that vein of ore. That weak spot in the otherwise solid surface, that niche into which to bury your pickaxe and strike gold. That is what I look for.

But that's me. You do what you gotta do. I wish you well either way.