4/15/2021

3/29/2022 8:45 AM

11

0

0 wins / 0 losses

Warden

Well he's not talking down at us which is already a point in my book :P

Exactly! Given the lack of clarity on the line between CoG and HG, it's too much to remove posts about a Hosted game on the CoG subreddit outright. It feels like Jason wants every one to go to the site to double check which company the game you want to talk about falls under before posting. Which is just inane in my opinion. It only serves to prevent people from talking about games rather than keep things clear.

Please don't. We need the sequel of the sequel lol. Also if it makes things more meaningful, I totally forgot that you wrote it. It's so good that even in the middle of a rant I praise thee. :P

1. I'm not 100% certain about less advertising. From what I've seen, that does seem to be the case, but for me though, it's the perception that Hosted Games are made by amateur authors, less skilled than those on Choice of Games. Given Jason's replies on the subreddit, I think this is his perception as well. 2. Correct 3. Not worse overall. There are plenty of standouts on CoG, Tally Ho and its sequel to name a few, it's just that their quality isn't often as high as one would expect from a higher tier label. Not to mention the quality seems to be going down in recent years - I can't pinpoint anything more exact than this so I apologize, but recently, the only CoG game I really anticipated was Tally Ho's sequel and Night Road. 4. I would say that reviews are not sufficient, yes. 5. Yes. I initially thought the distinction was "pros write for CoG" and "newbies write for Hosted", which was indeed the case a few years back before the Infinity saga and the Samurai series released. Also, thanks for clearing things up Gower!

It's the conception that Hosted Games are "inferior" to CoG. Regardless of how popular and good they are, all Hosted Games are treated as works by amateur authors (which is the impression I'm getting) and as far as I know, receive the same amount of marketing as the other stuff that gets through the radar. Speaking purely from a customer's perspective, a brand that mixes good stuff along with the bad stuff is going to get confusing really fast. It doesn't help when the so-called higher tier has worse games than the lower tier. Reviews are handy, sure, but then you have one-star ratings complaining about the game being paid lol. I guess I'm asking a ton of different questions here, but all in all, it really comes down to the difference between CoG and Hosted and whether a customer can understand what that is or should care about it. Especially on a *subreddit* of all things.

I just seriously do not understand the business model. I get the mission of creating a platform for newbies to try out coding and writing their own stories, but when you have Hosted Games that are arguably 10x better and more popular than Choice of Games, then there's something missing there. Which begs the question:Why are Wayhaven/Fallen Hero/Samurai of Hyuga/Infinity Series so lauded despite being in the lower tier Hosted Games label? It's because of good stories, realistic characters, top-notch writing. Imo which are all things that not every CoG game has.

Series like Wayhaven and Fallen Hero make the company tons of money, yes? So if you want to earn more money, why not do something to attract authors who write and code like they can? Why not increase HG publishing standards so customers actually trust what they're buying? Why not market successful games (regardless if they're on HG or CoG) even more so more people can play and pay for them? It's just sad that people have to ask "Best WIP"/"Best Cog/HG Game of 20XX" again and again because we have no idea which games are actually worth it.

What's the purpose of creating a subreddit run by the exact same mods as the forum? If it's run by the same guys, then just idk use the forum? Heck, not even the forum segregates HG and COG. What on earth does a freaking subreddit have to do with business practices anyway?

Intentionally keep the bar low is... just weird wording. The most popular and best-written games under either the COG and HG labels are Wayhaven, Fallen Hero, the Samurai series, and the Infinity Saga. All of which are (IIRC) under the HG label. Granted, there are tons of crap under the HG label too which just annoys me when I want to read something new and *good* - not lame teenage fanfic where I can make "choices". Why not make good writing and good grammar a requirement for HG? CoG has harder publishing standards may be true. I just don't know if those are the standards people *actually* care about.

Well, I've been following CoG for years but lately their offerings seem really stale. The Vampire Masquerade games are the only ones I'm looking forward to for this year. So much more good stuff on Hosted for some reason. Back in the day, I avoided Hosted games because most of them were riddled with poor grammar, bad plots, and amateurish writing (things I'm not paying a dime for), but they've seriously overtaken CoG in my book these days.