How to "advertise" Minetest better ?

[Festus1965]

as a logical next Thread to Should we "advertise" Minetest better ?

How to "advertise" Minetest better ?


add/edit since 13.08.
* How:
is not answered yet,
and maybe then
* where ... ?
more too
* what:
as mention the machine, games, mods
and for
* whom:
developer, modder, gamer ???

(result: until now a typical mt discussion without stick on the topic)

[Red_King_Cyclops]

• Advertise Minetest for its mods, which is its main advantage over Minecraft
• Advertise Minetest to developers
• Make a new, quality, team-developed game that comes packaged with Minetest

One of the reasons I became interested in Minetest was for its ability to be modded. In Minecraft, modding the game could potentially corrupt it. In Minetest, installing a mod can take under 10 seconds.

[Wuzzy]

IMO the main selling point of Minetest is not actually mods, but games. Games can be used instantly, but mods can only be used when you already understand a little bit of Minetest, about dependencies, etc.
Games are more important because first and foremost, that's what people want to play. All players want to play, but only some players want to play and throw mods at the game. Therefore, games are more important to promote.
Also, mods are not that useful if you have a rotten core game.
I'd still say mods might be the second-most important selling point.

Also, we need to get our shit together and actually start promoting our high-quality games. Presentation of Minetest is WAY too biased towards Minetest Game. IMO Minetest Game should be completely denied ANY special promotion, it just does not deserve it. The homepage is heavily slanted towards Minetest Game atm.

There's just a problem: We don't have any really good games atm. There are just too many crappy, incomplete, unbalanced, experimental, non-serious or boring games. There's always something wrong. None of the games is seriously polished. Some games are already quite good in theory, but I always find something that ruins the entire gaming experience and thus not promotion-worthy.
Frankly, I think there are still too many things wrong with Minetest and its games that need to be addressed. It is our moral duty to not promote crappy games, as we just waste the player's time.

But once we DO have some quality games to offer, there needs to be AT LEAST a real games showcase on the homepage. Something like this: https://www.solarus-games.org/en/games

So I don't think we should go into heavy promotion phase now, because it could backfire. We will forever have the reputation of being a crap project with crap developers who are not competent enough to actually create at least one non-broken game. And this reputation will haunt us forever. I fear it already does, to some extent. We should wait a bit with promotion, once we actually got our shit together.

As for promotion towards developers, all of this doesn't matter. This one is already good to go, and I have no problems with it.

[LC Creations]

There is a problem though. In this generation people are trying to find a "risk free" way to get places. A long time ago there was no such thing and that's when the most creative things existed. I say, let's go for it. What do we have to lose? We already have bad programmers as you say. Also, think about the creativity that has come from Minecraft... there's simply too many programmers out there that are really good but they don't know about Minetest becuase wer'e too afraid to tell them! But what if they did know about it?

[Red_King_Cyclops]

IMO the main selling point of Minetest is not actually mods, but games. Games can be used instantly, but mods can only be used when you already understand a little bit of Minetest, about dependencies, etc.
Games are more important because first and foremost, that's what people want to play. All players want to play, but only some players want to play and throw mods at the game. Therefore, games are more important to promote.
Also, mods are not that useful if you have a rotten core game.
I'd still say mods might be the second-most important selling point.

Also, we need to get our shit together and actually start promoting our high-quality games. Presentation of Minetest is WAY too biased towards Minetest Game. IMO Minetest Game should be completely denied ANY special promotion, it just does not deserve it. The homepage is heavily slanted towards Minetest Game atm.

There's just a problem: We don't have any really good games atm. There are just too many crappy, incomplete, unbalanced, experimental, non-serious or boring games. There's always something wrong. None of the games is seriously polished. Some games are already quite good in theory, but I always find something that ruins the entire gaming experience and thus not promotion-worthy.
Frankly, I think there are still too many things wrong with Minetest and its games that need to be addressed. It is our moral duty to not promote crappy games, as we just waste the player's time.

But once we DO have some quality games to offer, there needs to be AT LEAST a real games showcase on the homepage. Something like this: https://www.solarus-games.org/en/games

So I don't think we should go into heavy promotion phase now, because it could backfire. We will forever have the reputation of being a crap project with crap developers who are not competent enough to actually create at least one non-broken game. And this reputation will haunt us forever. I fear it already does, to some extent. We should wait a bit with promotion, once we actually got our shit together.

As for promotion towards developers, all of this doesn't matter. This one is already good to go, and I have no problems with it.

An idea for a new game is being discussed here. I'm starting to realize that the game is very possible to make if it is simple enough.

[Festus1965]

An idea for a new game is being discussed here.

I guess after near 1 month no new post or a real idea about even how to promote, advertise minetest is this. Most of us are involved too much in details of games, mods and graphs.

And as I see often also mineTEST, the name itself is I guess the biggest problem off all.

Also as long there is no difference in talking about the machine itself and game run on that ... there will be no bigger community.

So keep have fun making new mod for a game most people dont know.

[Hugues Ross]

I think you're missing the problem there. Minetest is in a bit of a 'catch-22' state, it needs high-quality content if it wants to attract and retain users because the competition is entrenched and staying put is pretty much always easier than jumping to a new platform. On the other hand, high-quality content is generally hard to come by, and having a numbers advantage is really helpful in that regard.

Forget what's on the forums for a sec and look at what ContentDB makes available to players (because, of course, new players don't typically run straight to the forums when starting a new game). I haven't played all of them, but I have played most, and they pretty much all fall into at least one of the following categories:

• Promising but clearly incomplete
• High (knowledge) barrier to entry
• Not actually fun
• Dead project

And the graphical side feels pretty weak to me as well. I had a quick look at my launcher's content tab, and I can only count 10 tps that are:

• For general use (ie. not one non-default game)
• Not just the default textures run through a filter
• Not just older textures

I happen to know from testing that most of those 10 don't even cover all of Minetest Game, and none to my knowledge cover a significant number of mods (my textures are no different in this regard).

You can advertise as much as you want, but as long as Minetest lacks a 'killer feature' in its content it's unlikely to be more than a very niche product. I believe this is why people are so worried about games and mods, would you recommend vanilla MTG to someone? If not, what easily-available content would you recommend to a non-hobbyist? If you can't answer that question, I don't see the point in advertising.

[ShadMOrdre]

Killer features are the thing.

Not on contentdb, cause it has rules about licensing, and i've been too busy to track them all down, but my projects are lgpl 2.1, and media is cc by 3 or 4, no ND, and I'll drone on about how my projects are providing the depth of content that we all complain are sorely lacking, but we continue making texture packs instead of making graphics for the modders and gamedevs, and modders and devs don't always get along, and my project is better than yours and........ THIS IS THE CRAP THAT KILLS US, THE COMMUNITY, AND ANY HOPE OF BETTER ADVERTISING!

Yeah, MT could use more press. Better press. Any press. All we need to do is get the open source rags that write about this stuff to do us a write up or 500.

But it's not gonna get any. It's open source, so ignored by mainstream media. It's open source, so dismissed by most as unsuitable. It's open source, so not allowed on crapple, spamdroid, or m$ store. it's open source, so no one even knows of it's existence. It's open source, so only the truly insane attempt to run it, play it, use linux, or ........

You want better advertisement. Pay for it. That is how advertising works. No one will advertise for free. EXCEPT.....

Those of us in the community, who want to see this project grow.

Again, Festus, simply tell EVERYONE you can about MT. And then accept that you've done what you can.

Unless we, as a community, join together, to fund this, nothing will happen. And all the crappy forks on spamdroid will continue to exploit the free MT software, thus depriving us of the very advertising you are seeking.

Simple mods, that require simple keys. Mods that CAN verify the client on which they run, by normal everyday means, like file size hash checks, to do what we can to ensure that only official clients are allowed, thus shutting down the vulture exploit forks, and driving those users to the real source of the fun.

Better to just play the game, and not worry so much what others are doing, seeing, being advertised to, or any other concern regarding other peoples general lack of care.

Tell everyone, put up posters, flyers, get involved with a local school or community organization that might enable you to expose more people, (ie, children).

And then hope for the best.


Shad

[Andrey01]

Main question related to Minetest advertisement is where to advertise it? What most popular publication sites to select and the exposed topic there to be striken the eye to everybody? Reddit obviously can`t promote it because people have to create own communities what nobody will know about. Or create own websites? Since my joining I have not ever seen somebody actually advertised the app on some specific websites as minecraft does already habitually.

[ShadMOrdre]

Paid for advertising.

By an advertising/media/data/information and, uh ... former software? company.

Oh wait, when you control the advertising medium, you don't have to pay to advertise your own products.

MS can outspend the entire open source community on advertising, cause they don't pay a dime to themselves to have Windows 10 proudly advertise all things MS. They don't pay a dime to themselves when they own or co own or are in partnership with the advertisers.

[Yvanhoe]

Minetest is a platform, not a game. The default game is more of a demo example than a game that is actually designed as such. If you advertise minetest, advertise it to game developers. Minetest competes more with things like Unity than it does with Minecraft.

If you want to advertise to players, you have to advertise a final experience, that is, a solo game, or a server. Pandorabox for instance is a server that can be advertised, Lord of the Test as well. But I do think neither are at a state where they would benefit form a sudden influx of players. Pandorabox is close to its maximum capacity, LOTT requires more polish and to be independently packaged as a game.

I do believe these will get there, but having more players will help them less than having more devs.

[Fixer]

By making it better, by doing good balanced default game with an engine.

[Linuxdirk]

Pandorabox for instance is a server that can be advertised, Lord of the Test as well.

The awesome Inside The Box for puzzle mazes.

[Festus1965]

yeah, so far I got the point:

* wrong name - how want to test ... something
* separate the parts (engine and/OR just own game on the engine)
* wait until stable ... (sure that will happen before my 70th ?)

ok, keep status WAITING, and just game = less problems

[LMD]

> separate the parts (engine and/OR just own game on the engine)
No, Minetest needs to be shipped with some default game, even if it's just minimal. I'd go the other way : Have some preinstalled games. And nicely greet the user, introducing them to Minetest (sort of a "Tutorial", but inevitably popping up), opening all the tabs, giving new players a nice start.

[mcbits]

An optional tutorial would probably help some new users, but please nothing that I have to dismiss/skip or click next, next, next every time I reinstall Minetest. See the Firefox "new install" experience (notice I didn't say "new user") for an example of how not to do it. Generally if a tutorial is needed, it's a UI problem, not a lack-of-tutorial problem.

I like the idea of bundling more than one game, e.g. minetest_game plus something more complete, although I don't know of one that's complete enough and careful enough about licensing (including all the mods that would be included), etc, to bundle at this point.

[Buddler]

* How:

Well, we shouldn't do what FLOSS projects usually do, namely sit and wait until someone comes and discovers us.

There are two ways I can see working. One is to approach the FLOSS community because even there Minetest is largely unknown. The other one is to approach gamers who have only ever played non-free, commercial, closed-source binary blob games so far. This includes frustrated M***c***t players who might be the most grateful to find out about Minetest. On the other hand, they may be difficult to approach because the M***c***t community will probably not take it kindly if a competing product is so blatantly advertised amongst them.

How we do it depends on the target audience. If you address to a gamer, don't talk about software freedom. By far most gamers don't know anything about software licenses, and they don't care a bit. If they don't want to pay money for M***c***t, they'd pirate it at the drop of a hat if they knew how. Instead you have to demonstrate to them what makes Minetest awesome and, if necessary, which are Minetest's advantages over M***c***t. Easy modding, possibility of switching mods on and off and using different sets of mods for different worlds, playing online while having an arbitrary number of mods installed, different games (Lord of the Test may not be technically spectacular since it's based on minetest_game, but oh boy, a Tolkien-themed game?! Also Hungry Games. And if you happen upon someone familiar with SCP, show them Infinite IKEA.), overall snappiness thanks to not having Java in-between (which won't matter to hardcore gamers with souped-up rigs)...

Important: Don't just talk or write. Give them something to feast their eyes on. Screenshots aren't bad. Videos are way better, and there are Minetest videos aplenty on YouTube. Just don't show them those typical "I don't know jack about Minetest, I've just discovered it, now I'm derping around a vanilla world with no clue what I'm doing" or "I've been playing M***c***t for a gajillion years, I've just discovered Minetest, now I'm derping around a vanilla world, confused about everything that's different". Show them videos made by experienced Minetest gamers in worlds modded to the hilt, maybe even made on public servers.

* where ... ?

As I said above, among FLOSS enthusiasts and gamers.

The former can be reached online as well as in meatspace. It may be worth representing Minetest at FLOSS and hacker events and the like. Rubenwardy is planning to run a Minetest stall at 2020 FOSDEM, that's a good start. Demonstrating Minetest at GNU/Linux events may also be worth it, also because there's still the ongoing rumour that you can't game with GNU/Linux. For Germans, Chaos Communication Congress may be a target. Sure, it's mostly about net politics, hacking and hacktivism, but it's just as much a platform for free projects like OpenStreetMap and free, decentralised microblogging and social networking projects, so why not demonstrate Minetest there? Especially at CCC the major selling point will be how hackable it is, and this can be demonstrated a) with worlds decked out with mods, b) spectacular subgames and c) especially Mesecons/Technic/Pipeworks galore.

As far as gamers go, maybe it's worth the risk to show more presence in the M***c***t community, especially if M***c***t players grow increasingly discontent with their game. General gaming communities may be easier to work with since they may be less defensive of M***c***t, but they may also be less efficient.

* what:
as mention the machine, games, mods

The tech underneath is only interesting for the FLOSS crowd and especially for hackers. Your typical Steam user doesn't know what C++ is and how it makes Minetest snappier on his overclocked Ryzen than M***c***t.

Games and mods are interesting for both sides, and they're one of Minetest's biggest selling-points. The gamer might be interested in what you can do with existing mods and what games there are. The hacker may be more interested in what you can do by creating your own mods and games.

* whom:
developer, modder, gamer ???

As I said, all of them, but all of them in different ways.

That is, I think we've got enough core developers for the engine. But we can always use more of them for modding and especially getting good games to one day come pre-installed with Minetest.

[texmex]

Excellent post, Buddler. Couldn’t agree more.

[Steamed_Punk]

It was an accident.
I came across Minetest by pure accident, i was ducking and tubing all over the place looking for pages and tools or at least something i could use to build mods. Yes the tools are there but everytime MC gets an update you have two choices. Either you forget modding and keep playing the new update, or use a previous version of MC so that the modding tools are still compatible. There can be months between updates and the tools are always lagging behind. This is why i never took modding seriously, to much farting around and hoping everything works together.
This is not the case here, a main point to get across.

Watching rather than reading
It was in fact videos that caught my attention. Mainly Nathan's tutorials and reviews. Great it caught my attention but digging deeper i noticed that the Minetest content is rather limited. There are a few decent ones out there but most are just people that seem to be walking around aimlessly in an empty MT base game, there is a decent series about a medieval build, but globally there is far from enough videos to make an impact big enough for people (even by accident) who come across a MT video to simply say WOW/OMG i must try that.
Personally i think without reaching out and begging rags 'n' stuff to give MT a decent write-up, the main way of getting people to MT are videos that make it stand out. Not people just testing it, but similar things to MC. I am sure some of you know each other well and maybe for a couple of years or so. Halo did it with red 'v' blue, MC does it with a Noob a Pro and a hacker (sometimes god) Surely some of you could put together a comedy series!? for example. Something entertaining.

Forums and attitude.
One of the main reason i released a 32x32 TP years ago and never followed it through with new stuff or updates was because of the attitude within the MC forums. It is run and moderated by kids from the age of 12 and up and over run. So many snotty nosed little B....... removing or editing posts, so far up themselves that most of them need a good slap to bring them back to ground level. The forum is a joke.
Here things seem that little bit different, i registered and started posting and outside of basic politeness, i don't feel i need to watch my words and live in fear of some brat removing my post. I can explain the fact i know very little and it is understood. I can honestly say that here you are made to feel welcome and post reactions seem honest and to the point.

Learning
Tutorials are definitely a missing issue at MT, sure there are various guides and api's but not many straight forward tutorials, i have spent almost as much time looking for help and not finding it as i have actually working on my projects.
Minetest needs more layman's tuts for those that have difficulty with code, i learn 10 faster through looking, trying and playing with snippets and examples than i would by just reading the lua api. Hands on and straight into the soup rather than trying to understand why a "," here and a ";" there and this "}," and this "})". Some people who come straight from gaming thinking they can come here to learn to mod etc will have a hard time and may just give up and go back to previous activities. There needs to be something to help people want to stick at it. Tutorials with working examples, snippets, images and videos.

Licensing
I know all this is open source and based on 'freedom' and free stuff. Even if i agree this should not feel like it's an obligation. People should not feel that their hard work and time given on mods 'n' packs should automatically become free for everyone. For most it will be automatic, they will do it off their own backs without having to be informed about licenses, where-as others will not like the idea of losing control over their gear. I have used a non-commercial-license. This still gives everyone the usual freedoms and as long as they hadn't the intention of straight taking and selling my stuff then the non commercial license should never be an issue for anyone except the dishonest, untrustworthy thieves. This is in place not to prevent people making cash from work, but to protect me and other devs from the risk of problems because some of my images come from websites that don't allow commercial use. This way everything and everyone is safe and covered. Simple really.

Conclusion
If this is to work and become big it won't be down to a write-up somewhere.
Keeping things friendly, being there to help where you can, easy to understand tutorials and decent quality videos.
Minetest will either die or become enormous and there is nothing anyone can do about it, the direction can only be influenced by the way things are run both behind the scenes and within the community.
If everyone has a simple half hearted attempt and attitude towards things then you will all kill it yourselves, whereas if certain people pulled together and worked on different projects, tuts and vids then the basic principal of "word of mouth" will do all the advertising for us.


On a side note and as a selling point, i personally feel the most important thing Minetest needs before anything else is shaders, if these can't be integrated in today's day and age of powerful computors then it could be a killer. Lots of people will NEVER leave MC just because of the beauty.

Just my neuronal wanderings.

[benrob0329]

the non commercial license should never be an issue for anyone except the dishonest, untrustworthy thieves

Plus any websites which are ad-supported, monotized YouTube videos, people who don't want NC licenses mixed up in their own projects or websites, and Wikipedia.

EDIT: Also Schools depending on the circumstance.

[rubenwardy]

I will not use any mods or anything with an NC license, and I'm probably one of the contributing members of the community - definitely not a thief

See this page for reasons why NC licenses are bad: https://freedomdefined.org/Licenses/NC

[parasite]

the non commercial license should never be an issue for anyone except the dishonest, untrustworthy thieves

I would like to point out just one important case here. (If you do not want to read the entire text, go straight to the last paragraph.) "Not for commercial use" licence do not allow to use software with such license in any situation where someone receives reward/payment of any kind, for the time in which they use the software, regardless of whether they publicly advertise such software, provide any other information related to this software (or the result of its use) to other people, or use that software in secret so that other people have no clue about it.

This include usage of such software in schools in any kind. Teachers get payment for their work, so if they use any software while working, this software helps them receive money - this logic is cruel but true in any court, legal analysis or personal sense of dignity and justice. Even if the janitor or cleaner runs such software for children's entertainment, when no one is looking after children, then such software is still considered as commercially used - it helps the teacher or janitor or cleaner to take care of children in school in children free time, i.e. it gives a measurable benefit for the school worker, facilitates paid work. That condition also include the usage of such software as a demo / presentation / workshop during a lecture at the university (or at school). And it doesn't matter if the teacher makes the presentation or the student during the lesson - everything that happens in the lesson and student`s home work is the teacher's job (it helps the teacher to receive the money). It would probably be illegal even to use only screenshots taken from such software during the presentation in school! Such situation includes also running this type of software on the freely available computer or tablet in the waiting room of the clinic to relax people who are waiting for a physician, in trains to entertain travelers, and even using such software in the context of teaching other programming online, when on this occasion it is mentioned that "you will learn more from online commercial courses and books".

Perhaps rubenwardy - in an abstract theoretical situation - could use such software legally during a presentation at a non-commercial mass educational event, assuming he doesn't get a penny for it, but as soon as he would like to open a patronite profile in the context of that software, the usage of software with NC licence on mentioned presentation would become illegal.

"Not for commercial use" licence do not allow you to use any kind of payment, even if it is a single penny received with the help of patronite profile. Minetest devs who have such profile have already made the minetest a commercial software under the law of most countries of western world. And there's nothing wrong with that!

[Steamed_Punk]

I will not use any mods or anything with an NC license, and I'm probably one of the contributing members of the community - definitely not a thief

See this page for reasons why NC licenses are bad: https://freedomdefined.org/Licenses/NC

Normally i don't react to this sort of participation it always leads nowhere and leaves a bad after taste, but in this case i feel i have to.....

Firstly: I AM NOT CALLING ANYONE A THIEF.
Secondly: I don't understand why you are posting about half a sentence pulled out of context.
Thirdly: Why would anyone not use something just because they can't sell it? Are you trying to say that my opinion is not welcome amongst you?

Yes i am aware of who you are, your roll here and your contributions, what do you want me to say? I don't understand what you are trying to get across by letting me know? I have had a look at your book btw, not bad, well structured and informative.

I followed the link you posted and outside of not knowing who wrote it and what makes it true is beyond me. It's nothing more than an ideological movement. Saying that and seeing that the share alike has similar interests it could be a way to go if i decide otherwise. The most interesting point was the last sentence and i quote:

There is, however, one important truth connected to this argument: hostility hurts us all. When ideology becomes dogma, and when movements become factions, important (essential!) common causes are all too easily set aside. Therefore, the discussion about issues such as this must always be pursued in an atmosphere of mutual respect and understanding. Those who poison this atmosphere with anger and irrational animosity must not be permitted to lead, regardless of how virtuous they may appear.

It's a shame i am being pulled on only a small part of a sentence.

[Steamed_Punk]

the non commercial license should never be an issue for anyone except the dishonest, untrustworthy thieves

I would like to point out just one important case here. (If you do not want to read the entire text, go straight to the last paragraph.) "Not for commercial use" licence do not allow to use software with such license in any situation where someone receives reward/payment of any kind, for the time in which they use the software, regardless of whether they publicly advertise such software, provide any other information related to this software (or the result of its use) to other people, or use that software in secret so that other people have no clue about it.

This include usage of such software in schools in any kind. Teachers get payment for their work, so if they use any software while working, this software helps them receive money - this logic is cruel but true in any court, legal analysis or personal sense of dignity and justice. Even if the janitor or cleaner runs such software for children's entertainment, when no one is looking after children, then such software is still considered as commercially used - it helps the teacher or janitor or cleaner to take care of children in school in children free time, i.e. it gives a measurable benefit for the school worker, facilitates paid work. That condition also include the usage of such software as a demo / presentation / workshop during a lecture at the university (or at school). And it doesn't matter if the teacher makes the presentation or the student during the lesson - everything that happens in the lesson and student`s home work is the teacher's job (it helps the teacher to receive the money). It would probably be illegal even to use only screenshots taken from such software during the presentation in school! Such situation includes also running this type of software on the freely available computer or tablet in the waiting room of the clinic to relax people who are waiting for a physician, in trains to entertain travelers, and even using such software in the context of teaching other programming online, when on this occasion it is mentioned that "you will learn more from online commercial courses and books".

Perhaps rubenwardy - in an abstract theoretical situation - could use such software legally during a presentation at a non-commercial mass educational event, assuming he doesn't get a penny for it, but as soon as he would like to open a patronite profile in the context of that software, the usage of software with NC licence on mentioned presentation would become illegal.

"Not for commercial use" licence do not allow you to use any kind of payment, even if it is a single penny received with the help of patronite profile. Minetest devs who have such profile have already made the minetest a commercial software under the law of most countries of western world. And there's nothing wrong with that!

I read the whole thing and strange enough it was this part that actually made me stop and think...for a while. Sure i understand the implications, but are these really legally binding, i don't think so.

EDIT: They seem legally binding after a quick check, we live and learn.

[benrob0329]

You said that anyone not "the dishonest, untrustworthy thieves" would be fine and covered by an NC license. We pointed out that this is very much untrue, and now we're shunning you? No, I didn't want to dissect your entire paragraph and reply to every part, I had a very specific thing I wanted to correct to avoid misinformation about the lack of consequences NC licenses have. Your post is right above mine, context is easy to obtain.

Not allowing use by people who accept donations, schools, Wikipedia, make ad-revenue, or otherwise recieve compensation (including server owners) is not just an "idealogical movement", its real consequences to choosing a NC license. If you're ok with that, go ahead. Just know that it does more than lighly discourage lawful-evil thieves who for some reason care about the license of what they're stealing.

Yes, these are really legally binding. As the creator of something (at least in the USA) you automatically obtain copyright of it. Any license you then apply is as legally binding as a big ol' EULA most companies provide, within the enforcability of the specific license (WTFPL is most likely not enforcible, for example).