GDNet+ Showcase

Although I have nothing to show for there, I heartily endorse this idea.

Or maybe they could put links to their own websites in the showcase? Or there could be a seperate section for that (because people don't like being redirected 100 times just to download something), like a non-member showcase?

Or just place a limit for non members.
Only a maximum of 1 showcase @ a time & it only stays there for a week or so. Maybe only give the option of putting something on showcase every fortnight or so.
So if the person really wanted they could repost the same thing every other week or so & could use the service to a minor degree, but just got a kick in the nuts now & then.
Services usually sell better if you wave things right in front of people faces, but never really let them @ the real deal
Also things like a thumbnailed list for members & a "top this month" in gold flashing @ the top with a few reviews next to them, then some grimy little text list for the rest of us
Something like this is probally planned atm anyway, but it's hard to do this when you don't have the numbers to start with. So I'd say go with the non-member-cripple option & then after a few more have been attracted & abit more popularity appears round the section, go for the proper image listing & reviews etc & kinda push the rest into the shadows

We have been kicking some ideas around to make the showcase more prominent. Opening it up to non-plus members hasn't been mentioned before, though.

Didn't the whole thing go to hell in a hand basket last time we tried it? I thought the whole thing got too bloated..

I think that's a great idea!

How about a ranking system for the Showcase Items? It would reduce Bloating if you could sort the items by most popular and newest items.

That'd kick butt if I could put the GDNet Firefox Extension in the Showcase, since begging for hosting kinda sucks. ;)

Note to self, work on 0.2 some more...

I agree with OrenGL.

The ability to give a showcase item a rating (as well as the existing comments system) would be pretty good, so you could sort entries by rating level.

But that would mean my stuff would sink to the bottom...

oh well! On with the show [wink]!

Isn't there a risk that people would only ever look at the entries with high rating levels?

if you categorize the games by genre then rank them, there would be less of a chance of lower ranked from being unseen.

also you could have different categories (within the genre or as a whole) such as: newest games, highest ranks, most downloaded, most reviewed, alphabetically-ordered, system-requirements, etc. that way ranks wouldn't be the most focused or even the first thing a user sees.

I'd that recommend view by rank it would be an option. The initial view would be by most recent and you'd have the ability to rate them.

I agree it does suck to work on something for a long time and have a lot of people think it sucks. So I would not do it as a 1-10 but rather as a similar system to the user rating system, just without the bad points. The more good points you get the better.

Anyway sorry for going OT. I'll say again, I think that opening the Show case for everyone would be a great idea, and whoever does not have a '+' account would just need to store his stuff (including pictures) elsewhere.

It would be nice, yes, but then it deters from the incentive to get a GDNet+ account. GDNet+ members are paying for the opportunity to use the showcase and put their files on our server. If it is opened up to everyone, then the benefits and incentives for signing up for GDNet+ are reduced, leaving current GDNet+ members hanging. The furthest I would be willing to go with the GDS is offering a free trial week, after which all files and entries would be removed from the database.

My website does this! For free, you can host up to 5MB of files on it. When you create a screenshot post showing off your game, you can also host up to three files on the post, with a combined size no more than 5MB. That should be plenty.

that is the only reason I am going to gd+ soon, I dont care about the avators, site or anything like that. adn they know there are people like me that would give the money like that for this, that is why it is not free, and why should they host your game for free?