Late Night Fiction

After sending chesse111 a comment about how I know he stole my work and how I’d please like him to remove it, I revisited the site today to see if I, perhaps, had a response. Turns out he deleted the comment I left and then “muted” me (which, I take it, is the same as blocking someone). I looked into it a bit more and flagged both The BUTTONS and Kill the Fireflies as “inappropriate” (which could mean “stolen” as well, I’m finding).

I won’t go into how stupid it is that he would do that. But we’ll see if it really does get removed; I’m hoping the moderators over there pick up on it soon enough.

Internet internet, People

After a recent check to my Mochibot account, I realized that The BUTTONS was getting some hits from a site that wasn’t FlashStuf, Newgrounds, or some proxy site. I checked out the link and it showed me that another site was hosting my game, but after some Googling discovered the page it was (and is) on. It turns out someone submitted the game to the website Kongregate, and is taking full credit for creating the game.

While I don’t have much of a problem with people hosting my work on their site, it is completely different to blatantly claim ownership of the game, and post a comment like this in response to some criticisms of the game on that site:

chesse111 Jun. 01, 2008

i put a lot of work in to this game plase dont critisise me

This is just ridiculous. I can’t even explain to you how much this blew my mind that someone would be so dumb as to upload my work as their own, obviously thinking I wouldn’t find out, and then complain when people started criticizing them about my work! It just makes you ask what the hell was going through this person’s mind.

I know this isn’t new to some people but this is my first encounter with this kind of thing and jesus, it makes me glad that all my work isn’t that popular. I just couldn’t take the stupidity of some of these people. For those who don’t know, I was the sole creator of The BUTTONS and clearly indicate that in the credits on the game, and by submitting/displaying it on three sites (two of which are my own): FlashStuf, Chicken-Cheese.com, and Newgrounds.

Note to people who want to steal my work next time: I (and many others) use Mochibot in my flash, which is a service that allows me to track who hosts my work and how many views it gets, etc. If you see that I’m putting Mochibot in my credits, that means I am tracking that game or movie. In fact, you can even see the stats on The BUTTONS for yourself. Please, please don’t be such a dumbass next time!

But in all seriousness, chesse111, you should’ve contacted me, and suggested that I submit my game(s) to Kongregate myself. It’s a simple courtesy to the creator and the work he did. If you enjoy my games so much, let ME know and I can take the action to submit it to more sites or even let you host it as my work on your site (assuming you had one). The internet isn’t some place you can walk in and simply take what you please. There are people like myself who put time and energy into creating content like these games so that others can enjoy them, only asking that they receive the credit they deserve in return. It’s just nonsense to think you’d claim the game as your own and steal it when I don’t even make any money off it. This isn’t music you’d normally pay for. This is free entertainment. Don’t claim my (or anyone else’s) work as you own because it’s simply idiotic. However, I hope we can resolve this and it won’t happen again. I didn’t mention specifically, but Kill the Fireflies is mine as well.

Internet Flash, internet, People

Now that I’m in college, things have been changing. Mostly old habits, but one thing that will change is my sites. And by that, of course, I mean FlashStuf. It’s always been geared at my own age bracket, and a quick demographics report courtesy of quantcast.com confirmed that the teen crowd is really who my site attracts. Well, I think it’s about time for a change so I’m starting to, continuing over the next few months/years, move up an age bracket into the “young adult” audience for FlashStuf and out of the teen audience. How I’m going to do that isn’t quite obvious after only two days on my own, but that is the direction I’m headed in.

If you are a FlashStuf visitor or have some ideas that could really take us in this direction, just drop a comment.

Life FlashStuf, internet

People always love their comfort zone. It’s evident to you every day if you use the internet; web sites usually use the same basic principles: underlined/different-colored links, an image at the top of the page that links back to the home page, etc. But when a web site makes the links the same color as the rest of the text on the page, how easy is it going to be for you to navigate around? Furthermore, how long are you really going to stay on that site? Things that appeal to the broadest audience are ones that use an already established method; ones that people already know.

Unfortunately, when a bold step is taken to go away from the norm and try to improve these already familiar ways, it can be drowned out and left unnoticed by people’s natural tendency to resist change. I’ll start with a big one, the very basic for anyone who is reading this right now: Web Browsers. Obviously, Internet Explorer would be considered the “norm” here. Many average internet users haven’t even heard the words “Firefox” or “Opera” (and would associate them to browsing the internet). But when you compare the advantages of a “different” browser like Firefox to the likes of Internet Explorer (CNET did just that), it’s a wonder more people aren’t using it.

Next week: Diverting from Myspace ..to Facebook

Thoughts internet, Software