This isn't a suggestion as much as a topic asking for suggestions from our community. Either way, it's an important matter to discuss, and Suggestions is the most natural place for it to live. At its core, MFGG is a community for making, sharing, and discussing games, especially fangames based on the Mario universe. Unfortunately, there hasn't been much of that happening lately - certainly not the making games part. Games production, as measured by [url=https://mfgg.net/index.php?act=resdb&param=01&c=2]games submitted to the mainsite[/url], has dropped considerably. Only three games have been accepted on the mainsite in 2017. While game submissions tend to pick up during the summer months, there's been a noticeable downward trend in the number of games submitted, which has fallen every year since 2013. In the past few months, both quantity and quality have been lacking. Very few games have been submitted to the mainsite, and a large percentage of the games we've seen have been declined because they didn't meet MFGG's quality standards. There's been an uptick in the number of indie projects on the MFGG forums, which is nice, but people haven't been finishing many fangames lately. As admins, our most fundamental goal is to create an environment conducive to making enjoyable, creative games, especially Mario fangames. So I have two questions for y'all: 1. What could we do to encourage people to make, finish, and release high-quality Mario fangames on MFGG? 2. Is there anything hindering you from making, finishing, or releasing a fangame project?

Shouldn't this be obvious?

[quote="Thatgamerguy2234"]Shouldn't this be obvious?[/quote] Spell it out for us

[quote="Syaxamaphone"][quote="Thatgamerguy2234"]Shouldn't this be obvious?[/quote] Spell it out for us[/quote] People are afraid of potentionally get their fangames taken down by Nintendo. It's possible that they might know about MFGG.

I really think that we need more collaborative projects, because people tend to work harder when they feel others are depending on them (so long as those others are also putting in the effort). Could we try a second Community Fangame Project? The only thing is that we need to make sure it's something set up to last. Project Purplius fell apart because none of us cared after a few months.

That's silly. Fan games are fine, just stop trying to make silly remakes of games they're currently selling. I should get around to maybe making a small fan game or two. I've had ideas I've just never acted upon them.

[quote="Syaxamaphone"]That's silly. Fan games are fine, just stop trying to make silly remakes of games they're currently selling. I should get around to maybe making a small fan game or two. I've had ideas I've just never acted upon them.[/quote] AHEM https://www.polygon.com/2016/9/2/12770344/nintendo-slaps-metroid-2-remake-and-500-plus-fangames-with-takedown-orders

[quote="Thatgamerguy2234"]AHEM https://www.polygon.com/2016/9/2/12770344/nintendo-slaps-metroid-2-remake-and-500-plus-fangames-with-takedown-orders[/quote] Really? :blank: The amount of fangames which Nintendo takes down PALE in comparison to the amount that aren't. Not to mention, an on-site MFGG fangame has never been attacked by Nintendo.

It has nothing to do with Nintendo taking down fangames. Really it's more likely that the quality bar is ever increasing and people aren't as happy nowadays to make a mediocre game simply because it's fun. Fangaming has changed drastically through the years, look at the quality of Sonic fangames that are coming out. Here we have DJ Coco making full 3D Paper Mario or Mario Kart games, where back in the day people were using the default platform engine in The Games Factory and weren't concerned with clashy resized graphics and Goombas on a path movement. Even Fangame competitions usually have a certain level of quality that's far above what the asking price of fangames used to be. This isn't something that can be "fixed" either because it's just the natural progression of things. The first artists in the world drew crude stick figures on cave walls. Now if you want to be taken seriously as an artist, you obviously have to try harder.

[quote="Willsaber"][quote="Thatgamerguy2234"]AHEM https://www.polygon.com/2016/9/2/12770344/nintendo-slaps-metroid-2-remake-and-500-plus-fangames-with-takedown-orders[/quote] Really? :blank: The amount of fangames which Nintendo takes down PALE in comparison to the amount that aren't. Not to mention, an on-site MFGG fangame has never been attacked by Nintendo.[/quote] "Oh, PFF, who cares if they take down 500 games, there are still plenty out there that Nintendo will take down!" Also, remember, Super Mario Remaker got taken down too

[quote="Thatgamerguy2234"] AHEM https://www.polygon.com/2016/9/2/12770344/nintendo-slaps-metroid-2-remake-and-500-plus-fangames-with-takedown-orders[/quote] AM2R and Remaker are remakes my dude. What did you expect? The other 500 is a thing between Gamejolt and Nintendo. Gamejolt was actually turning a profit on fan games made by the community and that's a huge no-go. These are two incidents that the community has already weighed in on and came to the conclusion that these outcomes were to be expected. We're still fine.

I can only hope that that'll be the case in the future. I don't want Nintendo destroying this site...(IDC if I'm paranoid)

I imagine that the existence of Mario Maker quelled a lot of interest in fangaming. A very, very large amount of Mario fangames tended to just be attempts to (mostly) imitate the main sidescrollers, and Mario Maker (mostly) satisfies that desire. There's also argument that the next generation of potential fangame developers aren't growing up with Mario games that can be easily imitated with amateur software.

[quote="Thatgamerguy2234"][quote="Syaxamaphone"]That's silly. Fan games are fine, just stop trying to make silly remakes of games they're currently selling. I should get around to maybe making a small fan game or two. I've had ideas I've just never acted upon them.[/quote] AHEM https://www.polygon.com/2016/9/2/12770344/nintendo-slaps-metroid-2-remake-and-500-plus-fangames-with-takedown-orders[/quote] [url=https://youtu.be/hqwP6uuYOWo]no[/url]

[quote="Magnemania"]I imagine that the existence of Mario Maker quelled a lot of interest in fangaming. A very, very large amount of Mario fangames tended to just be attempts to (mostly) imitate the main sidescrollers, and Mario Maker (mostly) satisfies that desire. There's also argument that the next generation of potential fangame developers aren't growing up with Mario games that can be easily imitated with amateur software.[/quote] Also both very valid points. Really the lack of games being submitted now is a sign of the times in my opinion. The quality bar is way higher than it used to be and if people want to mess about making Mario games, they're more likely to use something like Mario Maker now. Plus if you're going to spend ages making a quality game, people now are FAR more likely to dip their toes in the indie scene rather than spending time on fangames, especially due to the exposure and general ease of getting your game out there thanks to platforms like Steam and word of mouth platforms like Twitter and so on. I mean I have about 15 game ideas saved up for a day when I can be bothered making them and none of them are fangames. Even my ill-fated Minigame Mayhem sequel has turned to the indie scene. Fangaming is only exciting when it pushes boundaries and Mario Fangaming peaked some time ago, save for a few examples. Maybe there'll be a resurgence again some day. Edit: Another small sidenote is fangaming is also less fun when there's not much of a community to see what you've made. It's like making a cool house in Minecraft and having nobody to show it to.

[quote="VinnyVideo"]1. What could we do to encourage people to make, finish, and release high-quality Mario fangames on MFGG? 2. Is there anything hindering you from making, finishing, or releasing a fangame project?[/quote] 1. Yeah, that's a good question. While things such as SM2DU and SMFlashback are very inspiring, they are also hindering, because as Kritter said it sort of reduces competition because no one wants to knowingly create something below the "bar". Also, the whole Pokémon Uranium thing is kind of an example of a high-quality fangame, and it got DMCA'd. 2. The fact that you can work for something for 8 years and it has no legal protections beyond "well if you don't advertise it then it probably won't be noticed". I don't really think that people shouldn't be able to ham it up if they want to because it creates an audience AND people who will be able to give valuable feedback before you create a whole game and the design is irreversibly flawed when someone could have corrected you before you made the game. I'm really excited for SM2DU because of the great website and PR but if it got DMCA'd then people would say "well it made a show of itself so it deserved it". Also the fact that I don't really want to create a Sonic game even though it is cool that they are allowed. Unless I have an airtight seal against a DMCA I just don't want to start a fangame.

There's this wonderful website called Glorious Trainwrecks, whose goal is just that, to make games, who cares about the quality, just like fangame making and Klik and Play used to be. And there's a LOT of them. And none of them are stellar, but most of them are games that do what they're supposed to do. Heck even I made a few games for them. Maybe we could do something similar. It's not to make bad games, but just to make games and ignore things like "baselines". Make this big package of a hundred or so average games. They can be weird, they can be funny, or they can be basic, but they should be made.

we could have a separate section for games like that on the new main site, it'd promote experimenting in game creation tools at really basic levels which is a great idea.

I've been trying to get back in the fangame production groove myself for there are still "concepts" that torment my mind to this day. The only enemy I've got are real life "family issues" which is connect to "creator's blocks", which I hate with a passion. But I do hope to overcome it because recently, I've been making progress on finishing the engine itself for one of them (and yes, still using Clickteam's "The Games Factory" procedure for it; been used to doing it that way for years now). And then there's that... "other project" that I need to get back in the stage creation groove for. Not planning on giving up on that either. Fingers crossed.

The problem is that the quality standard's been raised a lot over the past decade. Back then you could just edit an engine and throw a bunch of assets together to have some fun, but nowdays in order to get positive criticism you need to pour a whole lot of effort into it, and once you do that you might as well make an original game instead and not waste your efforts on a product you will never be able to sell or own in its entirity.