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[Jacob_]

Why is it so hard to get people interested a sandbox game? (I'm talking about the DIY ones like Roblox, Blockland, and GMod, not Minecraft or GTA.)

I recall the lead developer of Roblox posting on Twitter that after the game had been out for 2 years, there were still so few players that they considered hiring a high school kid during the summer to play. The Falling Sand Game (a literal sandbox) community was really active in 2006 and 2007, but it's been dying since 2009 with very few new members joining.

And my own game has been online for 2 months, and there are 5 user-created items on the whole site (none of the authors stuck around either) and even on developer forums, not as many members have provided comments as they did for my other games, even when I posted demos.

I suppose community driven games have the same Catch-22 effect you have when creating a forum--if there isn't any activity, then nobody will sign up, and if nobody signs up, there won't be any activity.

Does anyone have any experience in overcoming this problem?

[AndrewFM]

I think the problem arises when a sandbox game gets too close to intersecting with another medium. It needs something unique to separate it apart from everything else, and turn it into an experience you can't get elsewhere.

For example, Your World of Text most likely would have failed if it didn't have real-time online editing. That's because Notepad would have been a more practical choice, as it has everything World of Text would have had, plus more.

Infinite Blank probably would have failed if there was no way to play the levels that were drawn. An online sketchpad would have served a similar, and likely more practical purpose.

[Pineapple]

Because everything is always available all the time. It's hard to get into because it's overwhelming and easy to tire of because it doesn't take terribly long to exhaust all the game's content. For me, the definition of a sandbox game is one which has few, if any, goals save what you make for yourself. The key to an enjoyable sandbox game is to give the player some goals but not to restrict them to them, but allow the player more content once they're achieved. Minecraft does this - obtaining rare materials is an established goal but their sole purpose is to allow you to accomplish your own, invented means.

[increpare]

Lots of people like all of the games you listed [with the exception of your game].

It's more like "why does nobody like my sandbox game".  I gave feedback on earlier versions.  The newer version seems a lot more stable, but usability-wise is a bit weird I think.  Have you looked at how people use your program?

(I tried loading up some content there, and got a blank play area   On osx here - so there're still some bugs). 

there are 5 user-created items on the whole site

How many have you created and uploaded?

[LemonScented]

I've never heard of Roblox or Blockland. That might be part of it.

I've never heard of GMod either, unless you mean Garry's Mod - which I was led to believe was actually pretty damn popular. Likewise the Falling Sand game: if they had a lot of people playing it in '06-07' then that implies a "long tail" of a year or two, which is bloody good going by the standards of the attention span of modern game audiences. Individual games will always wane in popularity over time.

I don't think there's a problem with sandbox games at all - I don't know what the distinction is between Roblox/Blockland and Minecraft/GTA, except that I've never heard of the former pair, and I know the latter pair of games to be wildly successful. Are there differences in the gameplay that could account for that, or could it be that the problem is just with marketing? Which camp does LittleBigPlanet fall into?

[jwk5]

I like sandbox games with a point. Like Scribblenauts, for example, with all its puzzles and challenges. Crackdown and Mercenaries were really fun pseudo-sandbox games where I spent just as much time goofing around the city as actually playing the missions. The problem I have with full-blown sandbox games is eventually I just end up wanting some direction and challenge for all the cool tools I've been given.

[Jacob_]

@LemonScented, they've been marketing Roblox as a kid's game for the past few years, that's probably why you've never heard of it. Blockland is similar but kind of obscure.

The distinction between Minecraft/GTA and the first pair is that Minecraft and GTA have a few preset objectives, while the others do not.

@increpare, Buildism doesn't share any code with that other game (there's a 1 letter difference.) The editor is intended to be sort of technical--ideally, the experienced/creative players make games (pre-made assets will make the entry bar a bit lower), and players that just want to have fun can play games that others have made (once there is more content, it will be more appealing.)

Regarding the bug you mentioned, did you see the editing tools? Also, how long did you wait for it to load?

I've created 2 demos, and the default game that all new users get when they sign up.

I want to make a full game and I have some ideas, but every time I try I keep getting distracted by adding a new feature or fixing a bug... I guess I should work on that.


Let me rephrase my first question: "Why is it so difficult to get a sandbox game popular?"

Roblox was started in 2004 and didn't get popular until 2006-2007; the FSG got a lot of publicity from blogs initially, but since then there have been very few new users and it's almost dead. I don't know much about Blockland or Garry's Mod.

I'm guessing it's because the editors for these games (mine included) can be a bit daunting at first, and if there are no good examples, players don't know how much they  can create?

[increpare]

Regarding the bug you mentioned, did you see the editing tools? Also, how long did you wait for it to load?

Couple of seconds?  I saw the toolbar, and the tree in the left plane.  Then I pressed play, and drew some rectangles.  And danced about for a bit.  Then stopped.

[Jacob_]

That's odd... what OS are you using? Someone was having the same problem a while ago and I couldn't find anything that might have been causing it.

[increpare]

osx 10.6 w/ the latest firefox beta  (in case that matters).

[gimymblert]

Sandbox game live and die by the compulsion loop with embedded risk reward opportunity. Power and freedom must need to come with a friction cost.

GTA is a bit different, it's a serie of mini game tied by a world simulation + a goal directed main story in order than everything doesn't fall appart. You basically have a boredom loop, if you fail and is fed up of one mini game you can jump into a new one or self made one instantly. The chaos the player introduce in the world play a large world by creating surprise that pull the player out a simple mini game loop.

GTA is the best "menu" system ever made I would refer to it as a sandbox buffet.

[increpare]

Sandbox game live and die by the compulsion loop with embedded risk reward opportunity. Power and freedom must need to come with a friction cost.

Where's the risk/reward in gmod?  What's the frictional cost?

[gimymblert]

Let say most game

I have forgot to mention element of roleplay G mod start with the whole half life universe to fulfill fantasy with (as such it's can be seen as an extension with the messing things paradigm). But should we add creative software too?

My def is not perfect, okay, and I have not played Gmod to say anything more.

[Jacob_]

Sandbox game live and die by the compulsion loop with embedded risk reward opportunity. Power and freedom must need to come with a friction cost.

That's not necessarily true. I was interested in Minecraft Classic not because of any risks, but for the fun of building stuff and being able to admire it when it's done.

The element of risk does add some more fun to it--now I'm bored of Minecraft Classic, but alpha is still interesting to me because of the knowledge that any minute now, I might be killed by a creeper.

osx 10.6 w/ the latest firefox beta  (in case that matters).

I was unable to reproduce the issue on my Mac, but it's a five year old one with OS X 10.4 and Java 5.

Out of curiosity, what happens if you enter game:load(30) in the console?

[increpare]

I don't seem to be able to launch it any more

java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
   at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
   at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
   at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
   at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
   at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.executeApplication(Launcher.java:1904)
   at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.executeMainClass(Launcher.java:1842)
   at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.doLaunchApp(Launcher.java:1604)
   at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.run(Launcher.java:138)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:680)
Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/jdesktop/layout/GroupLayout$Group
   at net.buildism.GameView.<init>(GameView.java:22)
   at net.buildism.Main.main(Main.java:392)
   ... 9 more
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.jdesktop.layout.GroupLayout$Group
   at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:202)
   at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
   at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:190)
   at com.sun.jnlp.JNLPClassLoader.findClass(JNLPClassLoader.java:332)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:307)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:248)
   ... 11 more

[LemonScented]

@LemonScented, they've been marketing Roblox as a kid's game for the past few years, that's probably why you've never heard of it. Blockland is similar but kind of obscure.

The distinction between Minecraft/GTA and the first pair is that Minecraft and GTA have a few preset objectives, while the others do not.

Okay, so there are two distinctions:

1: Roblox because is marketed at a small segment of the potential games market, and it sounds like Blockland's marketing is even more niche. Whereas Minecraft generated huge amounts of coverage across many different parts of the games press (indie and mainstream alike), and Rockstar has the marketing budget to buy huge amounts of press for GTA. Might go some way to explaining the differences in success. People can't play a game they've never heard of.

2: Games need at least one objective to be considered games. A sandbox "game" without an objective would be better defined as a sandbox toy. Toys are fine, and are popular, but comparing games to toys is a little bit like comparing apples and oranges.

[Jacob_]

I don't seem to be able to launch it any more

java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
   at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
   at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
   at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
   at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
   at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.executeApplication(Launcher.java:1904)
   at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.executeMainClass(Launcher.java:1842)
   at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.doLaunchApp(Launcher.java:1604)
   at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.run(Launcher.java:138)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:680)
Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/jdesktop/layout/GroupLayout$Group
   at net.buildism.GameView.<init>(GameView.java:22)
   at net.buildism.Main.main(Main.java:392)
   ... 9 more
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.jdesktop.layout.GroupLayout$Group
   at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:202)
   at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
   at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:190)
   at com.sun.jnlp.JNLPClassLoader.findClass(JNLPClassLoader.java:332)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:307)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:248)
   ... 11 more

Get a new .jnlp file from the site, I had to add a new library and take out the Java 6 stuff to get it to run on my old Mac.

[baconman]

I'm gonna have to agree w two posts ago, it's really a tough balancing act. Most of them are either too sandbox and not enough game, or too game and not enough sandbox. If I wanted to make a stone hammer, chop some wood, and build a shelter, why would I need a game to do that?

That aside, there need to be fun, exciting things to discover (good and bad), and something to make them worth re-exploring! Or at least some flow to them that makes doing some things or taking some routes fun!

I think what a good "sandbox game" ultimately boils down to is a fun, explorable world, with a number of objectives, but untimed, non-linear gameplay that presents multiple ways to achieve victory.

[Alec S.]

It's difficult to get ANY game popular.  It's not a special quality of sandbox games.  Sandbox games like the ones your talking about just have the built in positive-feedback loop of a community, where if they do well, they'll do very well, and if they do poorly, they'll do very poorly.  But I'd think the elements of making something popular would be the same as in non-sandbox games (how much people enjoy playing it, how well you present it, how well you market/spread awareness of it, luck, ect...)

[Dacke]

If a game depends on users creating content, I think it is a good idea for the developer to fill the game with good content before release. That way, the first users will be greeted by what feels like a living content-filled world. And when given the opportunity to create more content, they will be able to create their own niche.