Taking the Rough with the Smooth - Version 2

This is partly a replacement and partly a follow-up article to Taking the Rough with the Smooth, as the original doesn't really get across what I wanted to say, or more importantly, why I felt the need to say it.

Not long before I wrote that article I'd received my first piece of hate mail. In the couple of years I've been publishing software online (since 2002 in fact) I've been lucky in that the correspondence I've had from users has been positive, even from those who've had problems. So this one came as a nasty surprise.

I'm not going to repeat the email in question, but needless to say it was far from encouraging or constructive. When people contact me with problems, I usually go out of my way to help resolve their issues. More out of habit than inclination I did the same here. I thanked the sender for taking the time to get in touch, explained some of the points he had raised and promised an updated release which would fix another issue that he'd had.

Needless to say I didn't receive a reply.

I didn't feel very good about myself after that. Even though I hadn't done anything wrong (and forgetting the positive things that people had said about the same game) I felt thoroughly de-motivated.

I'm always very nervous about releasing stuff online whether it is a game or a blog entry, so this was a serious blow to my self-confidence.

This got me to thinking. Why am I putting myself through this? What am I getting from the many hours of my time I pour into each game? What gives some ungrateful twonk the right to pull the damn thing apart?

The answer to why I do it is easy. Positive feedback, the thank-you emails, unsolicited reviews on other sites, those are the things that keep the spirits up.

Discovering that RetroRoids is this weeks "Game of the Week" on Games4Mac.dk has really brought this home to me. I didn't submit the game to them. They found it, wrote about it, and linked to it. More importantly, they liked it!

I suppose that is what I mean by taking the rough with the smooth. To get the plaudits I've got to keep on risking criticism, I've also got to learn to be more thick skinned about it.

Taking the rough with the smooth

Blogging gives you a whole lot of freedom. As someone who in real life works for a newspaper (albeit in an I.T. role) I can appreciate the fact that as a blogger I have complete control over what I write.

Admittedly there have always been ways of doing this. A couple of years ago I could have started a fanzine which, if I was lucky, would have reached a hundred or so people a month. With a blog I can reach that many people in a day.

It is the same with programming. Back in the day (pre-internet) most of the stuff I created would have ended up either being sold through the small-ads of a computer magazine or via a budget software company. It would have reached maybe a couple of thousand players. Publishing it myself for free doesn't make me any money, but on the other hand has reached many thousands of people.

One of the high-spots of doing this is getting positive feedback, either in comments or via email. I've had my fair share of both, but don't let that put you off telling me how great I am! Someone telling you that your game is one of their favorites, or that they really enjoy reading your blog is the payment that we are after.

On the flip side however are the people who don't like my stuff. This can be damn depressing, but as I remind myself "You can't please everyone."

When it comes to the games I take negative comments very seriously, as long as they aren't just "your game is bad, and you should feel bad". Just telling someone who is giving you something for free "you suck!" doesn't help anyone.

If they tell me what they don't like and why, then it gives me something I can look at improving. Changing someones mind about a game by fixing what they hated about it is the biggest challenge you can face, but can certainly improve the quality of your output.

The same goes for blogging. Hopefully over time you find your own voice, and maybe an audience to go with it. If you take the time to read what people say, and take notice of constructive criticism, then you can improve the quality of your output.

Just remember though, that behind every blog post and every bit of freeware software is a person. Be constructive when giving feedback, not destructive. Who knows, they might thank you for it!