1
\$\begingroup\$

The question I have is not regarding game development nor design but gamers community / engagement. Topics would involve:

  • Understanding a regional gamers community (In my case, I would like to know about well-known/proven* techniques to research / scrap data about the gaming trends in a specific region).
  • Designing engagement mechanisms.
  • Integrating them in the game.

Specially the first point.

Are those topics allowed here?

(* there's no place for favorites here, but recognized in academic world / biography)

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ Can you provide an example of the specific question you want to ask? Your general bullet points can be addressed, but only in similar generalities, so if you're concerned about a specific question you should describe it. \$\endgroup\$
    – user1430
    Jan 25, 2016 at 17:33

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
2
\$\begingroup\$

"Community engagement" as a general topic is definitely appropriate here I think. However, as the domain tends towards subjective discussions I do think that some questions would end up being off-topic for various other reasons.

Questions about designing engagement mechanisms and integrating them into the game, provided they are suitably game-specific, seem like they have potential to be okay, as long as they don't lead into broad opinion-based discussions.

Questions about demographics in a particular region I'm less confident about, as that data is likely very time-sensitive. Questions about techniques on how to accomplish research into demographics yourself don't seem on-topic at all.

However, the above is just a general idea. As always, a specific question may or may not be on-topic on its own merits, regardless of the generalities in play, so it can't hurt to ask the question. The worst that can happen is that it would get put on hold.

\$\endgroup\$
4
  • \$\begingroup\$ In my particular case, I would like to know what already-used-and-documented/exposed techniques were used in the past by successful game developers to reach the community by their first time. \$\endgroup\$
    – Luis Masuelli
    Jan 25, 2016 at 17:45
  • \$\begingroup\$ i.e. If I have a product, I will know how to get feedback. But if I have no product yet, I would like to know how to undestand them the first time. \$\endgroup\$
    – Luis Masuelli
    Jan 25, 2016 at 17:46
  • \$\begingroup\$ I think that specific sort of question would be off-topic currently ("successful" is subjective, it's asking for a list, and that information is unlikely to be available to the general public anyway -- why share your success secrets?). However, perhaps the discussion on this question will change that. \$\endgroup\$
    – user1430
    Jan 25, 2016 at 17:57
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @LuisMasuelli I'd agree with Josh Petrie - after seeing a few questions of the form "What is a proven/standard way to accomplish X" in games, where X is anything fuzzier than "implement this specific common tech feature," the answer tends to be "games are so diverse, complicated, and rapidly changing that we don't have one single standard or academic demonstration of success" - you'll attract a few answers about someone's personal go-to method/example, but achieving any objective consensus is unlikely. You may do better searching postmortems on the GDC Vault and the like \$\endgroup\$
    – DMGregory Mod
    Feb 4, 2016 at 3:00

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .