Wow... Didn't go to Game Artisans much... But... RIP GA. Really sad to see a whole community implode overnight due to something kinda separate from it. (The challenges/kickstarter) Even more sad for the people that were still actively posting up until that happened.
Man! I crunch for one month and you guys kill GA... Heh! It hit list continues. First it was CGhub now GA... CG society should be sweating right now. Raise the jolly roger!
...Wait did I have a bunch on non-backed up art on GA... Damn!
@Kend Awesome of you to start that thread! Really not cool GA imploded while the contest just started; I want to feel bad for GA but this has been a long time coming, ever since the DWV blowup the site has never managed to recover.
Man! I crunch for one month and you guys kill GA... Heh! It hit list continues. First it was CGhub now GA... CG society should be sweating right now. Raise the jolly roger!
...Wait did I have a bunch on non-backed up art on GA... Damn!
Bro its talonhawk I feel your pain, I put work into my Comicon 2016 and now the whole thread is gone, I'm upset and think its a bad move. That is messed up, but I will still finish it and post it, because its coming out great. As for Fred, I don't know him personally but DW back in 2012 was the first online contest I entered and really pushed me as an artist, I received a ton of feed back and encouragement, sad to see the place go. I personally was upset he still didn't fix the site before the new challenge was up, I have offered to help him develop a better site told him, its too busy I even made a paint over layout of how things should look but to no avail he didn't take my advice, the entry had missing broken images and looked unprofessional.
To run a website successfully all you need is: The Forum Passion Sponsors Advertisements via click bank, google adsense, amazon affiliates, etc
All the other stuff is not needed and is more a luxury but seriously have a contest make it the forefront of your website show active thread thumbnails like ZBSEE has for example or polycount newsfeed and you are good. No one needs hand written html pages, graphics, video intros, it isn't necessary. It's a website for artist to show their work not for you to create big graphics that delay an event for months because it has to be just right. If you have the funds, the time, and dedication then more power to you. By pulling the plug you basically proved what everyone has been saying, and I have lost respect for you.
Despite the allegations against Fred and GA, I am thankful for the past DW and CC challenges I got to observe and participate in. I think he handled things improperly at times but I still have lots of fond memories of participating in those contests and meeting a ton of awesome artists along the way. It was just time to move on...contest will always be around. Maybe polycount can bring back Brawl in a more official manner to replace Comicon Challenge?
I think a big problem with the challenges (on every website including this one) are that the communities have gotten WAY TOO LARGE. It used to be there were about 30-40 entries in a cgchat or polycount competition, and everyone would look at and comment a bit on everyone else's work. Now there's 1000 entrants and it's such an intimidatingly large amount of entries that there's no sense of community. It just starts to feel lonely, whereas before you were motivated by the idea that you were working on the same thing as other people.
Despite the allegations against Fred and GA, I am thankful for the past DW and CC challenges I got to observe and participate in. I think he handled things improperly at times but I still have lots of fond memories of participating in those contests and meeting a ton of awesome artists along the way. It was just time to move on...contest will always be around. Maybe polycount can bring back Brawl in a more official manner to replace Comicon Challenge?
I feel the same way, if it wasn't for GA I wouldn't of met you online and been able to see your progress threads over the years, so there is alot of good that came out of GA I made some great friends on there and I am still in contact with most of them, the website was great at first but then later down the road it was a mixed bag. Time to move on indeed from now on I will put my time into artstation and polycount.
I think a big problem with the challenges (on every website including this one) are that the communities have gotten WAY TOO LARGE. It used to be there were about 30-40 entries in a cgchat or polycount competition, and everyone would look at and comment a bit on everyone else's work. Now there's 1000 entrants and it's such an intimidatingly large amount of entries that there's no sense of community. It just starts to feel lonely, whereas before you were motivated by the idea that you were working on the same thing as other people.
Even though some of these challenges have exploded, at most there are like 60 people posting regular progress. The majority of people start, and by start I mean post a mood board and then don't post anything else. Then there are those who have done work and for whatever reasons can't finish and the final entries consist of the 60 or so people who were putting in regular work, and then about the same amount of noobs who submit some sub par stuff for the sake of saying they finished.
I do agree more needs to be done to emphasize community and feedback on other people's work.
Really upset about the whole thing because I was really looking forward to this comicon comp and then to have my past threads deleted, is really messed up.
I think a big problem with the challenges (on every website including this one) are that the communities have gotten WAY TOO LARGE. It used to be there were about 30-40 entries in a cgchat or polycount competition, and everyone would look at and comment a bit on everyone else's work. Now there's 1000 entrants and it's such an intimidatingly large amount of entries that there's no sense of community. It just starts to feel lonely, whereas before you were motivated by the idea that you were working on the same thing as other people.
Even though some of these challenges have exploded, at most there are like 60 people posting regular progress. The majority of people start, and by start I mean post a mood board and then don't post anything else. Then there are those who have done work and for whatever reasons can't finish and the final entries consist of the 60 or so people who were putting in regular work, and then about the same amount of noobs who submit some sub par stuff for the sake of saying they finished.
I do agree more needs to be done to emphasize community and feedback on other people's work.
Yeah, if i remember correctly with Retrogasm's contest there were only about 50 finished entries. Gav and Haz can talk more about this since it was their baby.
If anything the V2/DWVI/GA meltdown has thought us what a community should not strive for. Bloated competitions and a person in charge that clamors to profit out of the hard work of participants above actually building a site with good atmosphere that people would want to visit regularly . I am really happy that polycount exists and the current state of the community.
Just saw all of this, O___O I was discussing with Fred on FB just 2 weeks ago just after the cancel of the kickstarter campaign, how it was odd to ask money to lauch a Montreal Based business to people from all the world. As most of them would probably never visit the place. Also the logic behind financing GA Montreal to get dominance war and unhearthy challenge to run when one could ask funds directly to run the challenges and that's it. (This one I kept for myself).
Wow I forget about this thing for a week and all this goes down. Talk about an awesome rage quit. Shame that it seems he pulled the plug on GA. That place was my old stomping grounds when I started learning game art. Feel bad for all the folks that started their Comicon entry.
If he would have asked for funds to just run the comps, kept the goals low and had decent rewards, I'm betting that he would have been able to fund his kickstarter. The bullshit meter went sky high when he pulled out the v2 team thing, I'm sure most people felt that way when they watched the vid.
A little skeptical that "trolls" would actually take down the site and Facebook pages, i just don't think people would care to that degree. I would assume that "annoying trolls" actually just mean people here that annoyed him so much that he quit again...only to regret it and come back.
Thanks Gav for the clarifications, I knew about the drama but not to this extent... any who in my mind i was helping the community more over there with what I was allowed to do. Anyway I am done with GA, sry to say the reason i was so active and still heading there was for the challenges and stuff. I like Continuous Volume and not long duration of pauses between contests/challenges, this is apparent in my 3 most recent designs I entered Pc's(semi-rough) Art stations(rough) and the would have been GA(Zombie)(decent/current wip).
So that is my reasoning for continuing there but that is done with, i spoke my peace about my history with GA and as far as i am concerned i left neutrally no bad mojo, just letting it be and moving on.
I really hope to see more challenges I saw the Hexels one, might jump on it when i don't feel like working on the current thing, looks like fun and something new to learn, but i agree with others it is hard to pick a location to recreate (if someone hasn't already picked it.). Anywho back to the arts, got to love the fight for our rights, too bad loop holes ruin a lot of things and I agree about the community, there has been loss, I mentioned it once earlier in the year, it seemed dead, I would really like to see a 2nd Brawl or something along those lines.
A little skeptical that "trolls" would actually take down the site and Facebook pages, i just don't think people would care to that degree. I would assume that "annoying trolls" actually just mean people here that annoyed him so much that he quit again...only to regret it and come back.
Wow I forget about this thing for a week and all this goes down. Talk about an awesome rage quit. Shame that it seems he pulled the plug on GA. That place was my old stomping grounds when I started learning game art. Feel bad for all the folks that started their Comicon entry.
If he would have asked for funds to just run the comps, kept the goals low and had decent rewards, I'm betting that he would have been able to fund his kickstarter. The bullshit meter went sky high when he pulled out the v2 team thing, I'm sure most people felt that way when they watched the vid.
To quote Roger Sterling: "That was the deftest self immolation I've ever seen."
What makes this situation so disastrous is that he refuses to take criticism constructively and just continues to double down with misguided ideas.
Hahaha oh man i was not here a day and 20 messages popped up literally. Alright, this guy is really weird, one moment, he wants one thing and make it perfect and next thing he just blow the thing all over the place.
Why don't we just make our OWN Comicon, Dominance, Unearthly and what else not challenge here on polycount ? Wouldn't that be easy. It takes a few people to do it, with a little bit of dedication of course. Who doesn't want this to happen, really ?
Why don't we just make our OWN Comicon, Dominance, Unearthly and what else not challenge here on polycount ? Wouldn't that be easy. It takes a few people to do it, with a little bit of dedication of course. Who doesn't want this to happen, really ?
+1. I am in. I got a month of free time to blow. Bring it !
Hmm Kend, I was thinking more in a way of a sub-domain for polycount specifically for challenges, rather than a single polycount forum thread. It'll be a hell of a hustle in my opinion. Something like what those challenges were from Game Artisan but with a few modifications. More like what ArtStation has with them now. It's just my opinion. It takes a bit of a man power to do it tho
A little skeptical that "trolls" would actually take down the site and Facebook pages, i just don't think people would care to that degree. I would assume that "annoying trolls" actually just mean people here that annoyed him so much that he quit again...only to regret it and come back.
Oh thats definitely what happened. I just think its hilarious that he points the blame to 'annoying trolls' rather than his own self-destructive behavior. He's not only doubling down on his ill-advised ideas, he's going so far as to remove any and all blame on himself for his failings. Not surprising really, this was his same reactions years ago when everything else went down with DomWar the first time.
@FredH Now that your commenting in this thread i'm sure you've read everything said in this thread so far, So I got to call you out why did you shut everything down without any warning and TBH nobody is buying the troll argument. Also do you have anything to say about comments made so far?
@FredH Now that your commenting in this thread i'm sure you've read everything said in this thread so far, So I got to call you out why did you shut everything down without any warning and TBH nobody is buying the troll argument. Also do you have anything to say about comments made so far?
-
To be honest, as of Sunday, I no longer
care what people say about me. I spent a year of my life on a
Kickstarter. It totally and absolutely bombed, and then the fan
criticism that ensued, plus my reaction to it all (shut down)....
it's absolutely comical! I can't help but laugh at all the crap that
has happened.
I think some guy said something like
this earlier “why does he even care what Polycount thinks?”
I
care because Polycount was once like a brother in arms. The troll
like comments that come out of here, cat pic mockeries, harsh w.i.p
comments that either makes or breaks student artists, and other forms
of bs... Polycount was always the Evil team in both DW and UC and I
was always darn proud to have this troll of a forum, as a
team.
Truth is, I miss the hell out of Polycount. Perhaps
people think that after all these years, I am angry at what happened
and how things went down in 2012. Yes, I was angry. Was also hurt. In
time however, I got over it. Today, when I discuss future challenges,
I always think “what can I do to get Polycount to join again? What
can I say, how can I ask?” I fucking miss Polycount. My family and
close friends think I am absolutely crazy. They say “after all they
have done, why the hell would you want them back?”
Well, when I look back at what
happened, I seriously don't blame Polycount for wanting out of my
challenges. I was continually late, my projected launch dates were
off by "months" which made it hard for other forums to
synchronize schedules, I got lazy with prizes, I miss managed
sponsors money, I messed up judging, I wrote un-pro comments,
basically, I messed up quite a lot of things. Nobody expected that
other forums would join DW. Each year, more and more forums wanted
in. DW was where the party was at! It was one hell of a roller
coaster ride, with some rough turns and a big spectacular crash
ending.
Today, even though I run challenges, the magic is
lost. Polycount was the one adversary that I was proud to make
challenges for. I particularly enjoyed seeing Polycounters at GDC in
2009 and I enjoyed the friendly rivalries between both camps. Now,
it's like walking around without the left side of a body. Things get
done, but the spirit behind everything is lost.
I would do
anything to restore and perhaps even surpass, the friendship that once was. And when
I say anything, I mean ANYTHING. It seams like there is a lack of
trust because artists think I have a hidden agenda? To lift this
veil, I am going to reveal absolutely EVERYTHING. So much of
everything, that you will be embarrassed by the shiiit that you are
reading.
I need time to gather things. This Thursday, I will
make 3 rather large posts. - Everything about Myself, even secrets
that no one outside my family knows about. - Everything about V2
and how it will function (system builders, if you can help make this
plan better, please suggest away!) - A new proposal for moving
forward... with both Polycount and GA (this proposal is, of course, also open to suggestions)
There is a big chance
that after posting this massive embarrassing post on Thursday about
me, plus revealing how V2 will function, and making a new proposal,
that Polycount might still say NO. But, like my Kickstarter campaign
that bombed, it never hurts to, at the very least, try
TL;DR: The moment PC started to do its own thing was the moment I stopped care for or thinking of GA, Fred, et al and was able to focus on bringing competitions to Polycount that could make bigger differences to artists than hardware, small cash amounts, of their artwork being flourished somewhere they have no control over.
Fred, I no longer am involved with Polycount so I cannot say for certain, but I am pretty positive Polycount will never join whatever-it-is you're doing or up to in any official capacity. I'll feel fine if I am wrong about that, but thats where my 2 cents on this lies.
And here's the thing: It's not about you. Nor is it about GameArtisans. Polycount has its own goals and working with you or any other third-party organizers historically just got in the way of those things. (Do you know how Polycount does third-party contests now? We make that third-party a forum, give them admin rights to it, and let them take it from there. We house the forum to which their competition can live. They get access to the PC community while the PC community gets access to their different contest ideas. No drama. No miscommunication. Easily manageable.)
Do you yourself a favour for once and skip this dramatic bullshit you're building up to be posted on Thursday. I was the one who ultimately made the decision to stop associating Polycount with GA and I can tell you whole hardheadedly I do not give a shit what your personal, 'embarrassing' stories and situations are. I only left PC back in January but I can still say Polycount as website and as a business will not care. And judging by the reaction the community here has had I see nothing of gain for you to share - and promote - such stories. Please, man, save yourself from embarrassment.
As for 'the split'. For what its worth, the day we split up was the day I forgot about GA, you, and the contests you had put together. I honestly haven't given it more than 10 minutes of thought in the years that've passed. That is until the last couple of weeks when I saw your Kickstarter. The day we announced we were going on our own was the best day for PC as a business. Did you know that the following years after that we turned a profit? Polycount! Making money!? Yup. And at times, a really healthy amount. It's what afford us the opportunity for metal or gold trophies, a brand new expensive website under professional CMS care, HUGE events at GDC where hundreds of Polycounters turned out to party, merchandise, and so on. And not once did we do it from community hand-out, charities, premium accounts, or any other way that resulted in artists sending Polycount money or Polycount making earnings directly from their artwork without their permission. Hell, even in those cases the artists have to opt-in to profit sharing on their artwork with Polycount (or whomever else they choose) without fear of that diminishing their own returns (re: Steam Workshop contests). Incredible, right? We found a method of generating revenue that was fair to everyone involved, never took cash away from the artists in the community, nor flipped that artwork in the future for potentially future company gains. We did it in a way that respected the community, their goals as artists, the process, and everyone really seemed to enjoy it. And we (mostly) did it on time and without drama.
(Fun maybe-fact: I heard a rumour that a few of the Polycounters who have won previous contests are now millionaires in their own right as a result of their participation in the competitions. Or very very close to that kind of money now because of competitions we ran. In some fucked up niche way Polycount was able to positively affect someones life well beyond being an online forum for them to get art critiques. That's incredible to me. This is something I feel would never be possible had we stuck to the old GA mold of contests.)
I am sorry you view Polycount as a troll community. That's a pretty shitty thing to think and then feel the need to prove your intentions with embarrassing stories. You must be so conflicted.
I don't make the decisions on this stuff around here any more, but I would bet money that Polycount continues on its own while encouraging its community to seek out contests from other website that suit their specific needs of a challenge. Just as its done ever since going on its own. If you want Polycounters to participate, then open the contests up to all artists, regardless of which community they feel is their home, and let them define the community they're "fighting" for. Not you. Make it an open call to all artists and not one where community sites need to get behind it in order for them to participate. Polycount will support whatever its community wants to focus on and get excited for, but the team here is small and has their own goal that don't need the official distraction of teaming up with a third party whose organizing events we're apart of.
I purposely skipped the V2 studio nonsense. That is such painfully stunted idea (and almost insulting if I didn't care as little for it as I do now) of a business I didn't want to put more time in to it than a sentence or two. So here you go.
well coming clean on everything will be a good restart for you so thats good, but I think you need to skip the V2 stuff though, you never know what will happen in the future but for now I don't think you have any chance on getting any support for it. go back to the roots and start simple,
FredH said: The troll
like comments that come out of here, cat pic mockeries, harsh w.i.p
comments that either makes or breaks student artists, and other forms
of bs... Polycount was always the Evil team in both DW and UC and I
was always darn proud to have this troll of a forum, as a
team.
I think you fundamentally misunderstand polycount as a community if you view us as a troll forum. And in fact, I'm not even sure how you could draw that conclusion.
Holly smokes that was an interesting read ! Props @Gav btw for the explanation . I heard a few rumors here and there but had no clue the rabbit hole goes this deep.
On one side I`m so gutted I missed the DW period when I could have participated and taken part at the madness and excitement, but then again ... reading all of this that went under the hood of DW ... makes me be less sad -__-
- Everything about V2
and how it will function (system builders, if you can help make this
plan better, please suggest away!) - A new proposal for moving
forward... with both Polycount and GA (this proposal is, of course, also open to suggestions)
Replies
For anyone whos interested or already started something for the challenge : http://polycount.com/discussion/171109/heroes-and-villains-thread-challenge#latest
...Wait did I have a bunch on non-backed up art on GA... Damn!
To run a website successfully all you need is:
The Forum
Passion
Sponsors
Advertisements via click bank, google adsense, amazon affiliates, etc
All the other stuff is not needed and is more a luxury but seriously have a contest make it the forefront of your website show active thread thumbnails like ZBSEE has for example or polycount newsfeed and you are good. No one needs hand written html pages, graphics, video intros, it isn't necessary. It's a website for artist to show their work not for you to create big graphics that delay an event for months because it has to be just right. If you have the funds, the time, and dedication then more power to you. By pulling the plug you basically proved what everyone has been saying, and I have lost respect for you.
I do agree more needs to be done to emphasize community and feedback on other people's work.
(That being said, I'm all for second chances & redeeming oneself. Everyone loves a good turnaround story)
Also the logic behind financing GA Montreal to get dominance war and unhearthy challenge to run when one could ask funds directly to run the challenges and that's it. (This one I kept for myself).
Just WTF.
If he would have asked for funds to just run the comps, kept the goals low and had decent rewards, I'm betting that he would have been able to fund his kickstarter. The bullshit meter went sky high when he pulled out the v2 team thing, I'm sure most people felt that way when they watched the vid.
http://polycount.com/discussion/171109/heroes-and-villains-thread-challenge#latest
The thread that was linked to has been deleted for what its worth.
Kinda like this, but 6 years in the future: http://polycount.com/discussion/159559/dom-war-founder-resigns-future-plans-revealed
I like Continuous Volume and not long duration of pauses between contests/challenges, this is apparent in my 3 most recent designs I entered Pc's(semi-rough) Art stations(rough) and the would have been GA(Zombie)(decent/current wip).
So that is my reasoning for continuing there but that is done with, i spoke my peace about my history with GA and as far as i am concerned i left neutrally no bad mojo, just letting it be and moving on.
I really hope to see more challenges I saw the Hexels one, might jump on it when i don't feel like working on the current thing, looks like fun and something new to learn, but i agree with others it is hard to pick a location to recreate (if someone hasn't already picked it.).
Anywho back to the arts,
LOL!
"That was the deftest self immolation I've ever seen."
What makes this situation so disastrous is that he refuses to take criticism constructively and just continues to double down with misguided ideas.
Alright, this guy is really weird, one moment, he wants one thing and make it perfect and next thing he just blow the thing all over the place.
Why don't we just make our OWN Comicon, Dominance, Unearthly and what else not challenge here on polycount ? Wouldn't that be easy. It takes a few people to do it, with a little bit of dedication of course. Who doesn't want this to happen, really ?
I am in. I got a month of free time to blow. Bring it !
http://polycount.com/discussion/171109/heroes-and-villains-thread-challenge/p1
OK. I am reserving a place. I will go to Akihabara tomorrow and will think about my idea
It's just my opinion. It takes a bit of a man power to do it tho
http://polycount.com/categories/contests-and-challenges
We're not going to duplicate Heroes & Villains here, it's still open over there.
But we do have competitions here, both currently running and in the works to start later.
We also have looser challenges here and there on the forums, worth a look. And we're listening about possibilities for future comps.
It was a very rough animatic of a cinematic that I wanted to do one day lol.
-
To be honest, as of Sunday, I no longer care what people say about me. I spent a year of my life on a Kickstarter. It totally and absolutely bombed, and then the fan criticism that ensued, plus my reaction to it all (shut down).... it's absolutely comical! I can't help but laugh at all the crap that has happened.
I think some guy said something like this earlier “why does he even care what Polycount thinks?”
I care because Polycount was once like a brother in arms. The troll like comments that come out of here, cat pic mockeries, harsh w.i.p comments that either makes or breaks student artists, and other forms of bs... Polycount was always the Evil team in both DW and UC and I was always darn proud to have this troll of a forum, as a team.
Truth is, I miss the hell out of Polycount. Perhaps people think that after all these years, I am angry at what happened and how things went down in 2012. Yes, I was angry. Was also hurt. In time however, I got over it. Today, when I discuss future challenges, I always think “what can I do to get Polycount to join again? What can I say, how can I ask?” I fucking miss Polycount. My family and close friends think I am absolutely crazy. They say “after all they have done, why the hell would you want them back?”
Well, when I look back at what happened, I seriously don't blame Polycount for wanting out of my challenges. I was continually late, my projected launch dates were off by "months" which made it hard for other forums to synchronize schedules, I got lazy with prizes, I miss managed sponsors money, I messed up judging, I wrote un-pro comments, basically, I messed up quite a lot of things. Nobody expected that other forums would join DW. Each year, more and more forums wanted in. DW was where the party was at! It was one hell of a roller coaster ride, with some rough turns and a big spectacular crash ending.
Today, even though I run challenges, the magic is lost. Polycount was the one adversary that I was proud to make challenges for. I particularly enjoyed seeing Polycounters at GDC in 2009 and I enjoyed the friendly rivalries between both camps. Now, it's like walking around without the left side of a body. Things get done, but the spirit behind everything is lost.
I would do anything to restore and perhaps even surpass, the friendship that once was. And when I say anything, I mean ANYTHING. It seams like there is a lack of trust because artists think I have a hidden agenda? To lift this veil, I am going to reveal absolutely EVERYTHING. So much of everything, that you will be embarrassed by the shiiit that you are reading.
I need time to gather things. This Thursday, I will make 3 rather large posts.
- Everything about Myself, even secrets that no one outside my family knows about.
- Everything about V2 and how it will function (system builders, if you can help make this plan better, please suggest away!)
- A new proposal for moving forward... with both Polycount and GA (this proposal is, of course, also open to suggestions)
There is a big chance that after posting this massive embarrassing post on Thursday about me, plus revealing how V2 will function, and making a new proposal, that Polycount might still say NO. But, like my Kickstarter campaign that bombed, it never hurts to, at the very least, try
Will be back Thursday.
Fred, I no longer am involved with Polycount so I cannot say for certain, but I am pretty positive Polycount will never join whatever-it-is you're doing or up to in any official capacity. I'll feel fine if I am wrong about that, but thats where my 2 cents on this lies.
And here's the thing: It's not about you. Nor is it about GameArtisans. Polycount has its own goals and working with you or any other third-party organizers historically just got in the way of those things. (Do you know how Polycount does third-party contests now? We make that third-party a forum, give them admin rights to it, and let them take it from there. We house the forum to which their competition can live. They get access to the PC community while the PC community gets access to their different contest ideas. No drama. No miscommunication. Easily manageable.)
Do you yourself a favour for once and skip this dramatic bullshit you're building up to be posted on Thursday. I was the one who ultimately made the decision to stop associating Polycount with GA and I can tell you whole hardheadedly I do not give a shit what your personal, 'embarrassing' stories and situations are. I only left PC back in January but I can still say Polycount as website and as a business will not care. And judging by the reaction the community here has had I see nothing of gain for you to share - and promote - such stories. Please, man, save yourself from embarrassment.
As for 'the split'. For what its worth, the day we split up was the day I forgot about GA, you, and the contests you had put together. I honestly haven't given it more than 10 minutes of thought in the years that've passed. That is until the last couple of weeks when I saw your Kickstarter. The day we announced we were going on our own was the best day for PC as a business. Did you know that the following years after that we turned a profit? Polycount! Making money!? Yup. And at times, a really healthy amount. It's what afford us the opportunity for metal or gold trophies, a brand new expensive website under professional CMS care, HUGE events at GDC where hundreds of Polycounters turned out to party, merchandise, and so on. And not once did we do it from community hand-out, charities, premium accounts, or any other way that resulted in artists sending Polycount money or Polycount making earnings directly from their artwork without their permission. Hell, even in those cases the artists have to opt-in to profit sharing on their artwork with Polycount (or whomever else they choose) without fear of that diminishing their own returns (re: Steam Workshop contests). Incredible, right? We found a method of generating revenue that was fair to everyone involved, never took cash away from the artists in the community, nor flipped that artwork in the future for potentially future company gains. We did it in a way that respected the community, their goals as artists, the process, and everyone really seemed to enjoy it. And we (mostly) did it on time and without drama.
(Fun maybe-fact: I heard a rumour that a few of the Polycounters who have won previous contests are now millionaires in their own right as a result of their participation in the competitions. Or very very close to that kind of money now because of competitions we ran. In some fucked up niche way Polycount was able to positively affect someones life well beyond being an online forum for them to get art critiques. That's incredible to me. This is something I feel would never be possible had we stuck to the old GA mold of contests.)
I am sorry you view Polycount as a troll community. That's a pretty shitty thing to think and then feel the need to prove your intentions with embarrassing stories. You must be so conflicted.
I don't make the decisions on this stuff around here any more, but I would bet money that Polycount continues on its own while encouraging its community to seek out contests from other website that suit their specific needs of a challenge. Just as its done ever since going on its own. If you want Polycounters to participate, then open the contests up to all artists, regardless of which community they feel is their home, and let them define the community they're "fighting" for. Not you. Make it an open call to all artists and not one where community sites need to get behind it in order for them to participate. Polycount will support whatever its community wants to focus on and get excited for, but the team here is small and has their own goal that don't need the official distraction of teaming up with a third party whose organizing events we're apart of.
My 2 cents.
I think you fundamentally misunderstand polycount as a community if you view us as a troll forum. And in fact, I'm not even sure how you could draw that conclusion.
On one side I`m so gutted I missed the DW period when I could have participated and taken part at the madness and excitement, but then again ... reading all of this that went under the hood of DW ... makes me be less sad -__-
Above, you have my thoughts on the matter. I don't think anything more is needed.
Joopson - Just let it rest.
Jonas - Yeah, will find another way. No rush