TIGdb - The Indie Game Database
Posted by Derek Yu Mon, 24 Mar 2008 06:36:00 GMT
Hey, guys, I’m happy to announce a new addition to the TIGSource family: TIGdb, the indie game database! It’s a searchable, sortable compendium of independent games and independent developers.
Jeff and I have been talking about this for a while, and this weekend we finally got together and just set the damn thing up. 14 hours of video game music, disgusting energy drinks, and designing/hacking later, we came up with what you see here!
One thing that’s pretty cool is that we have a rating system. Anyone can sign up for an account and start rating games (out of five stars). Eventually, these accounts will let you do more, like keep track of your favorite games or submit games to the database. The task of populating the database is a monumental one, so it’d be great to crowd-source this… but until we have some controls in place, me and Terry (and perhaps a few other people) will be adding the games. I will, however, take submissions/suggestions very seriously! See this thread for details.
So yeah, this is a very early version of the site, but it’s a great start, I think. Once the site levels up a bit, there are a lot of things we could do with it. In an earlier post, we briefly discussed the idea of alternative business models for indies… well, once we have them all organized and sorted in one place, I’m sure there’s a lot you could do to that end…
But for now – sign up, rate games, and excuse any errors, unfinished bits. It was kind of a mad rush today to get the current 40 games/26 developers up so we could make the site public. I hope you like it!
Ooooo nice.
Pretty good for 14 hours work. I can’t wait to see how this pans out.
Though I think I noticed a typo in my email as I was registering, but thankfully it let me register anyway. I guess it’s good that it didn’t require me to receive a confirmation email because I’d have been boned.
On the other hand though, it’d be pretty easy for schmucks to just sign up with any old email and start vote-spamming 1’s. Or 5’s.
And I assume there’s an account settings feature planned for the future so I can eventually correct it?
looking very awesome indeed, I’d like a few more browsing options though, and a better search perhaps (a search for ‘RPG’ just turned up nothing =p)
but very promising indeed. I see myself browsing it very frequently soon :D
Wow! This is a GREAT start for the DB. I’ve been waiting for something like this FOR YEARS. =)
I knew it was only a matter of time.
I’d suggest modeling the entry submission after IMDB, but I’m not really familiar with how the system functions, but it evidently gets the job done well.
So where do you draw the line? What constitues as Indie and what doesn’t? I would say that’s difficult to judge at times…are all freeware games indie games? Will you thus include every freeware game? It’s a nice idea, but I’m not sure how it’s supposed to work out in the long term…
I think its acceptable to call “Indie” any game that didn’t had any kind of publisher support for its development
It’s going to be the mother of all databases, right? YES!! That’s awesome!
Excellent! I’ll blog it asap and try to help as much as possible!
This is great.
@Munin,
I think every “completed” freeware title should be listed… eventually. I mean, why not. It’s going to be a database right?
@Bad Sector,
If that was the case then it would disqualify all titles currently being offered on Steam. I’m not a fan of Steam anyway, but, there are a lot of people who use Steam because they either don’t know where to find these games otherwise (don’t know how to utilize the internet ;P) or aren’t hardcore gamers like the rest of us.
Final Thought:
I said it before, this is great. I was actually browsing around trying to find out when newer XBLA games would be coming out and too my very big surprise and disappointment, the XBLA title that’s being released this week is a friggin Collapse / Super Collapse clone. Amazing how some fanboys have the nerve to call the Nintendo Wii a casual gaming console when Microsoft releases this crap on their service at regular intervals (90% of the stuff up for grabs), and Nintendo offers up all of the original games that turned people into hardcore gamers in the first place. That’s irony in the face of those MS fanboys.
In conclusion, this database will help me forget this kinda crap by allowing me to browse through dozens (eventually hundreds and maybe thousands) of fun freeware (and some not) games that have been released! Too many games and not enough time oh my!
What’a Rant ;-P
Kudos to you… I think it’s a great idea, and I wish you all success with this!
(Registering right now…)
@MrBig: Those games didn’t receive fund from Valve for their development.
Yeah great, I hope it will grow and grow, becoming THE standard online database for cool games. It should replace every “…on MobyGames”-link on Wikipedia, at least for independent games :)
I like the very good design, it’s so clear. But I agree, there should be better browsing options, so that you’re able to find lots of new games.
Derek, can you write up some rating guidelines, so that folks will generally rate games on the same criteria? Something like:
5 stars: A classic. A game you can replay over and over again. Hailed as the paradigm which other games should aspire to.
4 stars: A great game. Excellent play mechanics and graphics, but has some fatal flaw or missing element to make it 5-star worthy.
3 stars: ???
Does 2-stars means a bad game? Or does it mean the game is good, but only deserving of 2 stars… ?
Nice! This is very useful!
Star ratings: irrelevant.
<3
Twat.
Cool idea. I some an issue with rating these games though. They’re all so great in their own way…I hate to see some put below others because of a rating system. I would much rather see a system where people can put up reviews of these games…and the reviews could be tagged with qualities such as positive, neutral, or negative. Something like that. This way people can read about what is good and bad about the game. A 1-5 scale for these games just doesn’t seem right to me.
boner :o
I like the star rating system because it is exactly the same scale I have to use in one of the magazines I’m writing for.
Basically my guidelines are as follows:
5 stars: excellent game 4 stars: good game 3 stars: average game 2 stars: bad game 1 star: abysmal game
I don’t mind if there was an additional rating system like Nu proposed but I don’t have anything against the stars. A 1-5 scale is enough to rate a game as I outlined above and complicated pros and cons are not what the average user will be looking for. We have to keep in mind that ANY public rating system usually is completely useless but can at least lead people to the more popular titles. =)
cross integrate/promote with indiefaqs somehow? Seems like there’s some overlap there, in a good way.
Also, the stars thing is kinda weird. I’d like to see something more like a ‘recommend’ button rather than a ratings system.
either way good work and hopefully this will catch on!
Hey, thanks for the feedback!
The stars ratings are kind of a baseline recommendation system. Later on, it’d be nice to make them more personal, and perhaps skew them for each user based on a number of criteria. And we’ll likely have “favorites,” “friends,” and things like that.
For now, I think it’s most useful for people new to the indie scene, because the games that float to the top via this system will generally be the ones that are most popular, and therefore most accessible.
It’s also just fun to have. :)
I dunno, star ratings are just so subjective they never really end up meaning much to anyone other than who rated them. And one has to question what the point is of rating the games anyway? What is the purpose of the DB - to have a place where people can find games, or a place where people can arbitrarily rate games? And what is the point of leading people to more popular titles - they’re already popular!
The favourites / friends thing would be a much better idea.
I quite like the up/down/piggie rating system from Pouet. It might be a tiny bit harder to implement, but I find it very helpful.
http://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php
@Cas: That depends… as long as a lot more than just say… ten people will vote it will usually be representative in some way.
Look at the gamespot user ratings, just because of the sheer amount it tends to be relatively “accurate”.
There will always be people that won’t rate honestly or just give bad scores out of envy… there’s no way around them I think.
I hear you on the ‘popular games are already popular enough’ point though… but that’s why we definitely need something of a category like ‘promising game’ or ‘my favorites’ or something similar that could potentially boost unknown games into popularity… I think Derek already plans to do this in time.
Sorry, Cas, it’s hard to take your opinions seriously when I know you’ve got a huge chip on your shoulder against TIGSource.
But, to put it simply, the purpose of the site is to have a place where people can find games and search them by a number of criteria, the ratings being one of those many criteria.
Once the proper controls are in place, the ratings will become more personalized for each user. But the infrastructure has to be in place in a basic form, first.
There’s really no difference, in the end, between “stars” and “recommendations” or what have you, and almost every crowd-sourced site runs on similar principles. And statistically, it works and is not “arbitrary” at all.
The favourites / friends thing would be a much better idea.
One thing does not exclude the other.
What do you have against the ratings? Are indie games that independent that they escape human judgement? Everything gets ratings all the time, including games. I think that the project isn’t supposed to be a pure “Wiki” or “just a database” but also a site to promote indie gaming. I’d rather someone began his/her adventure with indie games with something that appeals to a broader audience so that he/she isn’t taken aback by something that might be good but very “hermetic” and ratings usually reflect that very well.
Ah - as to the popularity of certain games. C’mon - they are popular among the indie community but the average gamer doesn’t know anything about them (which will hopefully change).
It took me several months to convince my editors in chief that indie games deserve some attention in a magazine that focuses on mainstream gaming (Derek got my article =).
TIGSource and the IndieGames Weblog are nice portals for indie game news but I’d rather have a place where I can point people to and where they could find good games without any insider knowledge. “Want to play some nice indie games?” “Click on the “Top” link in the TIGdb.”
That’s how I see it.
Derek, you people really do have a problem with criticism - I’ve got no chip on my shoulder at all with TIGSource. Feel free to pop a few links in a reply to show the world at large where I might have possibly upset everyone by having the balls to stand up to it all.
Actually mate, it’s just you I’ve got an issue with.
I’ll save you the effort and paste some links for you:
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=9.0 http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=1396.0 http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=1409.0
I know it’s shameful to rise to ad hominem attacks but y’know, they just begin to irk after a while, especially after nice big public posts which from moderators which one is unable to reply to.
I want moar games! :D
Good work guys. Be cool for future additions if you could search by genre and developer.
How is it going to be for adding games? If only you staff are going to add games, won’t that just take for ever with such a large pool of games?
Great addition to the site.
Eeek double post :( but I forgot to add that I’m really happy that it says what game engine the games were made on… something that I’m always interested in.
Cool! Right now it’s just me and Terry, but eventually, we’ll let users submit games. It’s a pretty big task currently, though. :)
Good.
Sounds like better browsing should be the next feature to add…
I don’t have a problem with TIGSource at all, it’s one of the best forums I’ve ever been to, but I agree with Cas, I don’t like the star ratings. Remember when a lot of TIGSource commenters were making fun of Game Tunnel for using numerical ratings? What changed since then?
It’s not a deal breaker for me, as I can easily ignore the ratings and just use it as a nice resource, but it really feels out of place. If you’re dead set on it, fine, but you should at least treat objections to it seriously and consider its cons as well as its pros.
I agree that a rating system should only be used as a promotional tool or for reference. In this case it’s kinda ridiculous to have ratings unless you can somehow prevent developers from rating their own and other peoples games. This database really doesn’t need a rating system, it’s kinda redundant. At the same time, it doesn’t really matter to me because I’ll be browsing the games anyway. However, a database isn’t very useful on the web if it can’t answer a persons simple query such as: “Hey what’s the name of that developer again? Did they make more than one game? Which games came out in 200X???” These are all obvious examples, but until the db includes all of the obvious examples and are included in the search engine it’s not really a database. A rating system is actually the last thing that needs to be put in place, if at all.
So, instead of a rating system I say just allow people to rate the game and even have a small comment about it but make them provide a legitimate email address that can be listed to the public so that the rest of us can flame the hell out of them when we don’t agree with their opinion… it’s only fair. ;-P
Well - you can only rate a game if you’re logged in and registered, so that system kinda is in place.
As to making e-mail addresses public - even if that comment was ironic I wouldn’t go that far. =)
Aha - if the rating system is the last thing that needs to be implemented, then it still needs to be implemented. Since it’s already there Derek and Jeff can focus on other things.
For me ratings are just like any other search criterion. If you’ll be able to search the DB by author and other stuff (from the unfinished link-placeholders and Derek’s posts I can see that this will be the case) then why not ratings? =)
By the way, Paul, if one has to consider the cons and pros of a rating system can you outline what its downsides are? I haven’t seen a single solid argument against the system, yet.
That devs can rate their own games? So what? If the DB really becomes popular one vote won’t matter and since only registered users can vote mass-voting would be really tiresome and could be easily noticed if there were e.g. comments below the games. Personally I don’t think that ANY public ratings indicate the quality of the given “thing” (like, many people vote on dumb blockbuster movies even if there are better ones out there) but I don’t see a reason why someone should ban people from expressing their opinion.
Paul, I’m taking the objections very seriously (although it’s more difficult for me when I know the objector has something personal against me and/or the site).
Remember when a lot of TIGSource commenters were making fun of Game Tunnel for using numerical ratings? What changed since then?
The difference, which is pretty big, imo, is that on TIGdb the community collectively rates the games. It’s not left to just a single person.
If you’re dead set on it, fine, but you should at least treat objections to it seriously and consider its cons as well as its pros.
I’m not dead set on it, but we have a lot of ideas that will make the ratings more relevant and personal, and I don’t want to abandon them until they’ve been properly tested. I’m also uncertain what the cons are (and I don’t believe that ratings are that subjective when they’re averaged across the community).
Basically any site that aggregates information uses some form of ranking system, whether it’s a binary system (like Digg) or not. With that kind of numerical data you can do a lot of cool stuff. (It’s also fun to look at.)
But yeah, comments duly noted - if the system is not working later down the road, we’ll consider abandoning it. But until then, I’d rather focus on other things.
I bet if the IndieGames blog made their own DB with the same exact entries, the resulting scores would be terribly different.
True, sig, true.
But would you still jump down their throats for not liking the early demo video of Beserker?
Cool! Great! SUPAR! :D
If you mean jump down their throats by sticking a chainsaw down their throat and raping the cavity, then yes.
<3
i agree with cas. this place has really become cliquey and “who-knows-who” kinda of a place.
Actually, its kind of the opposite. Look at the number of new folks signing up for the competitions. (Some people who have never made a game before, etc) That’s because the community is really welcoming and open to new people, and its based on the idea that its fun to make and play games.
I think its odd to target a group of people who are enjoying themselves, and who are welcoming others to come join the party and say: “fuck you for having a good time at your exclusive club”… when instead, you could just come hang out with us.
I disagree. This place is awesome and filled with a great bunch of guys.
And this database thing is off to a great start. I’m sure its going to evolve into something amazing in a short period of time.
Wow!! This is just so flipping cool! Thanks guys!
Gr8 idea hey, make sure to push a small like few sentance “review” when someone goes to add a star, stars are not very personal, infact they kind of miss the point sometimes.
Whys there hate against Tigs? Best indie gamedev spot on the interwebs.
I am all upons.
make sure to push a small like few sentance “review” when someone goes to add a star, stars are not very personal, infact they kind of miss the point sometimes.
This is a great idea. Maybe you click the rating and see the breakdown of why each person rated the game the way they did (make it mandatory). The game’s main page will have the aggregate score but if you want to find out why people love or loathe a game, you can get some idea of where they are coming from.
If you had a commenting system, it should probably be anonymous (except to admins) to encourage honesty, and have a reporting system for spammers. It does seem a good idea to ‘require’ people to explain things, so they don’t vote on a grudge.
In my experience anonymous commenting is not a good way to encourage honesty. Almost the reverse, in fact, because the commenter has no stake in the accuracy of the comment whatsoever.
But more importantly than comments or ratings is the existence of the database. Hurrah!
Anonymous commenters are cowards.
One more thing - would be good if the database was hooked up to the forum userid/password, PITA having to create another one.
Not a bad idea. Will certainly help promote independent games.
Thanks for the reply; I didn’t really mean that ratings are subjective, just that they are an objective measure of this particular community’s tastes, which isn’t that useful to people with different tastes.
Anyway, looking forward to seeing how it develops.
Cas, my point regarding anonymous posts was that it would be easier for someone to disagree with the community opinion - rate Cave Story as poor, for example :P ; outright abusive posts could just be reported. On second thoughts, though, bateleur is probably right; it’s more trouble than it’s worth.
Cool, yet another outlet for Tigsource to exclude my games from. I’ve still to find out why since I’ve released a few quite popular games.
I’m afraid I’ve got to side with Notderek. Not just for my own projects but several other indie projects too escape the radar.
Glad to see that the 1-5 ratings are just there as a basis for now, and that it seems there will be a lot of effort put into the site. As someone relatively new to the independent gaming “scene” (or whatever I should call it), a site like this would have helped me learn about certain games and developers much faster, and hopefully will help in the future too.
but Tigger, you could post about your games in the forum… oh wait.
;)
So we need to point out our games here? I suppose that gives Indiegamer the +1. Some kind of journalism could be good for this site instead of the self inverted clique it is now.
owls, monocles, and cliques, oh my!
Lim-Dul you have a weird way of looking at things.
Tigger, this site is (imo) heavily community-based, in a good way rather than a bad way - it’s not exclusive at all as Alec points out, but there are a lot of in-jokes that most people won’t get because they didn’t go to GDC or whatever. I don’t think the place is particularly impenetrable. If you go introduce yourself in the “introduce yourself” thread, point out your site and games there, people will be able to see them and play them.
There’s discussion about why there’s no announcement forum at TIGS in one of the links Cas posted above. I look at it like this - Tim’s blog is concentrated, unadulterated news, whereas TIGS is selective and community-focused news.
You’re all talkin out your arses and there just aren’t enough surgical masks to go round. Get over yourselves (“TIG is a place, TIG is a community, TIG got me pregnant”)… Stuff it and move on you winded blow-hards.
Derek and Cas can handle this themselves. Both seem like really nice guys.
The rest of you,
Lim-Dul, haowan, Alec, Xeres, etc. etc. Feck-off… Derek and Cas are big boys and will get over this. We don’t need some geeky internet posse going on here.
The rest of the so-called community can STFU on the subject now including me. Let’s discuss the database and the pros and cons of some of it’s features but lets not bash on each other (and no, the above wasn’t bashing, just a polite request that we all shut up regarding Derek and Cas… they’ll get over it, so should you).
There, now it’s time to Feck-Off and play some Cave Story! The greatest indie game ever made - and it’s free suckers!
;=P
I’m just expressing my opinion, and what I believe to be true. If you want to hate me for it, go right ahead.
Tigger, why are you posting anonymously if you want people to know about you and your games? Why not link to them if they’re worth posting about?
Yeah, we’re already over it.
Alec,
I don’t hate you, I don’t even hate that funny lookin kid named Lim-Dul. ;-p I understand what you’re saying and your opinion. I just don’t want to see everyone getting a knot in their faces because of a silly situation. This site and it’s people (the users, browsers, perverts… whatever) can be fun and funny. I just figured that you’re a dev, Cas is a dev, Derek is a dev etc. etc. But you guys aren’t just mainstream developers or big companies like Sony and Microsoft, out to eat each others prey, you’re indie developers and as a community you need each other and should support each other. This is just one of those situations that has gotten a little outta hand because of everyone being so opinionated when really the community should see what they can do to move forward and help one another. I can’t speak for anybody else, but I enjoy the news, info, and comments left here by people and don’t want to see things become nasty or turn into a awkward situation when they don’t need to.
Last thing we need here is a Romero vs. Wilson word war going on, it’s just silly and immature and also proves that those two have become retarded by their enormous egos.
Anyway, with that said it’s time for me to get back to playing Diner Dash… er.. I mean Crysis… yeah, that’s it. ;-)
Peace!
I don’t think things even got nasty. I was just stating what I think is good about the community, and I still see nothing wrong with that. My point was essentially the same as yours. :)
Hmm -“funny looking kid”? How do you know what I look like?
Also, I don’t think that a 24-year old video game journalist and professional translator qualifies as a “kid” - who are you to feel better than everybody else?
P.S. I don’t know what you were talking about when you mentioned some “internet posse”. Am I in any way affiliated with Alec? I posted some solid points about the whole DB and avoided any ad hominem arguments unlike you and some other people who only whined about it or went out to insult each other.
right that’s it L-D. you’re out of the posse
kick his shits in boys!
Ha, ha. ^^
By the way - I re-read the comments and I think MrBig is somewhat confused and labeling people without knowing what he’s talking about.
The first thing I posted about here is that I find the TIGdb project nice - and I do - it doesn’t matter if Derek is implementing it - it would be just as nice if Cas or even MrBig were making something like this. ;-)
The second thing I was talking about was the rating system in the TIGdb which some people seem to dislike for unknown reasons (they themselves didn’t say why it is so bad).
Anyway - putting me into some kind of circle-jerk “posse” (and apparently that’s what MrBig is trying to do) only because I expressed the same opinion as several other people (with whom I might disagree on another occasion) is kinda weird or even dumb. Hell, I don’t even feel as if I’m part of any “TIGSource community” since I’m only commenting on games that catch my eye and post next nothing on the forums (except for some game projects or my famous jumping-physics rants).
Alec,
I guess you’re right.
Lim-Dul,
Can’t seem to find all the right words to post it in a single comment huh? Didn’t you read what I read? You either have deaf eyes or you just can’t take a joke… or you look for confrontation that you can’t handle… either way, lets move on.
And once again I’m quickly reminded why I don’t usually look at the comments on TIGsource.
Did you turn to stone, honey? T_T
Alec: But it’s not just my games. I’ve seen a really awesome Metroid like shooter with some really stunning concept art, but hey the person obviously didn’t post on the forum so they’re discounted.
Giving the site a motto including “unfiltered” does not describe Tigsource. “Post your games in our forum in lieu of explorative journalism” would be more apt, albeit not as catchy.
TIGdb. luv it!
That said, I don’t think that star or numerical ratings are the way to go either. They usually end up in flamewars and whatnot. “Why didn’t X get a score of Y?! u sux0r i hat u all” While that is somewhat mitigated by community effort and various laws of averaging, you might be able to avoid it somewhat with some sort of ‘favorite’/binary system. Think Flickr or dA or Digg or Rotten Tomatoes (with their fresh/rotten system). Combined with a provided comment field (I think Farmergnome mentioned this), it might be a system worth thinking about.
I’d really love for the db to be super-searchable by rating, developer, date, genre, whatever.
Anyway, I’m sure whatever you choose will work fine. It’s gonna be awexome!
Oh, two more things:
The site design is stylin’! The game page layout clear and easy-to-read. I like it better than something like Mobygames.
I’d like the db login to be tied to the Forum login. It’s a real pain in the neck to sign up for yet ANOTHER internet account, especially when it’s pretty much part of another site with another account.
POM PYRO!
Tigger: that’s not my intention! Really, it’s just a time/manpower issue… I’d post about every game if I could, but I’d have to play them all first, and then find time for the write-ups.
I agree the site’s content ends up being skewed toward my tastes. But without more editors, there’s not much I can do about that, since… well, since I’m me. :’(
With TIGdb, though, I’ll try to be more inclusive.
<3 derek
As far as a rating system goes, I think they’re a curiosity more than anything else. Netflix is currently having a contest to improve their recommendation system… trying to come up with a means of guessing how you’ll rate a movie.
Their current system is ~0.8 “off the mark”, meaning if you rate a move “4 stars” then they’re within 0.8 up or down. Not too good I guess… but a difficult problem. Their contest looks to improve that by only 10% (so they’re within 0.72 up or down).
Note the numbers I quote might be wrong, but you hopefully get the point :) Which is that any rating system likely is of little value because people have such different tastes. I guess you have to start somewhere, though.
Bill
I actually helped build the Netflix Contest website.
My ideal is a rating system that is not just an average of everybody’s rating, but a personalized rating based on who you are friends with using a multiplier based on how popular their opinion is and how many hops away they are from you.
But I’m not set on anything. I’m an empiricist and I’m willing to experiment to find what works best.
I think that some sort of rating system is useful because whether or not they’re as objective or accurate as they should be, they’ll help newcomers get a rough idea of what is “good” or “classic” so they can more easily get hooked on the indie side of games.
“My ideal is a rating system that is not just an average of everybody’s rating, but a personalized rating based on who you are friends with using a multiplier based on how popular their opinion is and how many hops away they are from you.”
That sounds pretty awesome. One other way (and something which they do on DrownedInSound and last.fm for bands) is to have ‘neighbours’ who have similar tastes to you (you click to list/rate your ‘favourite games’) and then you can see a list of games you haven’t rated, but your neighbours/friends have…
Awesome, I love it.
Nice, would like to see working/linking with
indiefaqs.com