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[stevesan]

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/09/minimum-viable-personality.html

I think this applies to indie games more so than most products

[harima555]

PERSONALITY IS API FOR LOYALTY

BEST QUOTE EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so much thanks for the link, now i can't stop reading : http://fakegrimlock.com/blog/ totally full of win!

[Hijinkz]

They get bonus points for driving home the point by using Grimlock's personality throughout the post. Being human is really the most important thing now. Also, don't be afraid to tell your story. Do you go to school full-time, work nights and weekends AND still find time to create a game while working from some random location or something similar? That is a fantastic story to tell.

[Irock]

FINALLY ARTICLE SPEAK IROCK LANGUAGE

I think it's relatively good advice, but I don't know if I can have what this article calls a personality. I'm a guy making the best god darn games I can, and that's what I stand for. My enemy is bad games. That doesn't sound original enough to be marketable. Granted, I'm relatively new to the game dev scene, but I don't see how my "personality" would change over time.

[Hijinkz]

Personality doesn't mean you walk into a room and everyone stops what they are doing because the awesome aura you project. It means you are a human and say human things. Just saying your enemy is bad games shows exactly that. Opening up a blog post or email to someone saying, "My enemy is bad games so I spent a lot of time with polish for this game," is infinitely more attention grabbing (and human) than, "I hope you like this game I spent a lot of time on, I spent a lot of time on polish."

[PompiPompi]

Yea, I realized a lot of indies are just acting in front of a camera much like actors do when they are in front of a camera outside the filming set.
I thought it's a good thing in the past, but I find it really fake and disgusting. It's just another hype and PR trick, to sell this hyperactive interesting personality so people will buy your game because of who you are and not because of the game itself.
I am starting to think that a faceless formal company is better in that respect than a wacky personality to sell your games.
I am not opposing for people to buy my games because they find me intersting, though I would think it's kind of dumb of them to buy my games because they want a peek into my life instead of thinking my games are cool.
It's ok to know a developer for his technical and design abilities, appreaciate his game making abilities, but it's kind of celebrity\gossip\reality show way to want to take a peek into the developers' life and how he is suffering (or in a "concentration camp") when he makes a game.
I think some of the big indie developers know this, they know selling your personality means having more sales and they are not ashamed to generate this shameful PR.

[stevesan]

@PompiPompi: Ya know who I really respect? Playdead. No "personality" or PR - it's all in the game.

[PompiPompi]

Well, I don't mind developers telling their opinions, and keeping contact with their fans.
But there is a lot of difference between keeping in touch with your fans via twitter or other means, than acting in front of the camera and trying to sell your game using your personality.
Just like showing gameplay videos of your game is not the same as making a live action hype trailer that doesn't really show what the game is about, but has really cool CG that is not part of the game.
Though, eventhough I prefer those things, I am not that fanatical about not doing these things and telling others not to do it. That's just my ideal.
And yea, another interesting ideal is releasing a game without even telling you did it, so you people will want to play your game because of the game itself and not because of exterior motives. Kind of like how writers have "nick name" signature when they don't want to be identified as themselves.

[harima555]

i thought that the article was talking about building a personality for the product and using that for making loyalty, i also consider my self to be a not-so-interesting developer (yet),but i guess anyone could still make a game and give it a nice personality

[Poya]

That's how I read it also...that your product (game in this case) needs to have a personality. Something that is more than the sum of its parts.

It reminds me of Jesse Schell's Art of Game Design. He talks about how you need to asses every single element (mechanic, graphic, sound, etc) and see if it reinforces the theme of the game. If not, either change it or get rid of it. I feel like that's a big part of what gives a game personality.

Story of the developer can be very interesting, but it probably shouldn't become a means of feeding the ego.  And in a way I think a good game makes the story of the developer, whatever it may be, more interesting.