- How are main stream Game Maker users going to hear about Enigma?Eventually, I'll create signature banners for people to use on the GMC. Most of ENIGMA's users are intelligent enough to be giving frequent help on the GMC. If each of them has ENIGMA in their banner with an enticing message (see next answer), we are bound to start drawing in new users.
- What information is best displayed to GM users in order to entice them into using Enigma?The first phrase in every ad will be about how ENIGMA is free. ENIGMA's strength is in extensibility and speed, but compared to GM, It is parsecs ahead in security, as far as the unlikelihood that games will be decompiled. It seems at this point that ENIGMA will offer an improved size compared to GM games. Also, we're leagues ahead of GM in the race for cross-platformability. Users who wish to display ENIGMA's banner in their signature can choose their favorites to brag on.
- Do you expect there will be any backlash from YYGs in the future over the development of Enigma?They might try. We're not concerned; they have no legal ground to tell us to stop, as no copyrightable material is used from GM in ENIGMA. (A language cannot be copyrighted, and we don't distribute anything they own).
- How are users of other game development software going to hear about Enigma?I don't intend to subtly invade other projects' sites. If other projects' users are discontent with pricing or speed of that project, they may happen upon ENIGMA in the same way they happened along GM, or whatever.
- What information is best displayed to these people?Again, start with how ENIGMA is free. From there, we'll make mention of the fact that ENIGMA uses C++, and is easily re-compiled for a different platform. We'll also make clear that ENIGMA offers a number of easy-to-use, unified resources.
- How in general are people going to hear about Enigma?Largely word of mouth. (As in, on message boards or in blogs related to game design). Only after ENIGMA catches on that way will search engines point our way.
- How common will it be for people to stumble across Enimga using Google?As I mentioned earlier, not very, until ENIGMA gains popularity by other means. That's just how search engines work.
- What information should be displayed to these people?Same as to those coming from other projects.
- Is it likely members of this community will take it upon themselves to advertise/mass spam Enigma?Spam implying unwelcome messages with the sole purpose of advertising ENIGMA, I don't encourage it, but it may happen. I'm not opposed to using signature banners as a small-scale Goo
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- Is this a concern for you?I'm not worried about it, especially if I'm offering signature banners (which are a subtle but effective alternative). I will probably post a message discouraging it so as not to be held accountable.
- At what stage in Enigma's development should marketing be considered? (Advertising before Enigma is reliable/useful enough can obviously have negative effects)When the collision system is done, I have all functions of std::map working in ENIGMA, and I have all local groups (such as path_ variables) managed by a set of YAML files that allow local-based resources to be added without modifying the compiler. At that point, ENIGMA will have more than enough functionality to make a decent game, and the rest of the the functions and resources will be trivial.
- How fast do you think the community will grow?Slowly at first, but faster with time.
- How popular will Enigma ultimately become?I can't say. I know ENIGMA has great potential, but that often isn't enough.
- What kind of users will end up here?I Don't think there's a particular kind of user that will be attracted to ENIGMA. If you're getting at the average IQ of GM users, then yes, we have some of those.
- How many users do you expect will be willing to work on Enigma's development?Right now we have more than I expected. At this rate, we'll have at least a dozen people with notable contributions.
- How is the forum/website/development going to change in order to cater for an increase in it's user base?In my wildest dreams, sure. As ENIGMA starts to gain popularity, we will move the ads to the forum pages like Yoyo did. Those will, I hope, generate more revenue from the increased traffic, some by accident, some by people who aren't sure if they want to go with ENIGMA or just any old game development toolkit from the ads. As we gain more revenue, we can move to a larger host, and start game hosting like Yoyo does. The more we grow, the more stuff we can do that Yoyo does now (Higher capacity hosting, competitions for small cash amounts, etc). At this phase, all of that is completely impossible; the ads on the front of this site barely generate enough revenue to cover this site's current host. But, if all goes this well, we can grow.
- At what point do you need to start actually thinking about all these things?I've been thinking about most of these all along, but they are quickly becoming necessary to consider.