At 6/22/17 04:31 PM, Luis wrote: I kind of wish there was streaming capabilities on this website, i feel like animating and making shit has become such a shareable platform that it might give things a shot in the arm to not only see the end product on the portal but also be on the website WITNESSING people making shit. Probably really expensive but IT WOULD BE COOL IF.

This isn't out of the question, it comes up sometimes and is doable and would be especially feasible if it required supporter status, or X fans.

At 6/22/17 04:38 PM, TomFulp wrote:

At 6/22/17 04:31 PM, Luis wrote: I kind of wish there was streaming capabilities on this website, i feel like animating and making shit has become such a shareable platform that it might give things a shot in the arm to not only see the end product on the portal but also be on the website WITNESSING people making shit. Probably really expensive but IT WOULD BE COOL IF.

This isn't out of the question, it comes up sometimes and is doable and would be especially feasible if it required supporter status, or X fans.

i like the supporter and X fan status, maybe it could be like another little glowy light underneath online (o) thats like streaming or something and its like one of those record off on red lights? or maybe in your userfeed, where it mentions activity of your friends there could be like an override that bubbles to the top if someone is currently streaming or in chat or online? maybe thats too stalkery, im just thinking out loud as i type this.

At 6/21/17 06:30 PM, TomFulp wrote:

I was tidying up some folders on my computer when I came across Vision.txt, a use case I wrote on August 6th, 2009. Reading this can be kinda inspiring and kinda sad, I've made some notes at the bottom.

original ideas:
1) A primary license, meaning the viral copy contains NG branding but site-locked versions with custom branding can be sold to individual websites.

2) Integrated Flash Ads.
3) Integrated Medals.
4) One week exclusivity on NG before site locked versions can be sold.

man, the 1) part of this list, the one where flash art/movie/game license deals can be sold to other sites for the benefits of advertising an exclusive, viral NG movie/game, ITS AN AWESOME IDEA!
this should be materialised, or, at the very least, NG's brand/logo+watermark should be hard-coded into all of our movies+games, so that if someone posts/advertises any NG movie/game on their website, that at least, NG would get all the fame that it deserves...

also, part 2) worked (partly) on the site, and part 3) worked perfectly. (the idea of adding NG-medals to the games was genius!)
as for part 4), this would be a great idea, so my thoughts are the same as the ones that i've written about part 1), above...

What we accomplished after this was written:

listed below:
(many acomplishments)

10) MindChamber created some beautiful BLAM / PROTECT animations but they hadn't made it into the layout yet and many of the files died in a hard drive explosion.

while i love that you have acomplished most of the targets from your list...
(castle crashers! supporting artists and hosting large, epic contests! (for best movie/game of the month...), creating functional and beautiful userpages, complete with large header pictures, nice page-customisation, AND with the perfect option of creating ''newsposts''...)

im still sad with part 10) :
WHY did mindchamber's BLAM/PROTECT animations got lost?
didnt anyone have a back-up of those files? didnt mindchamper had back-ups/copies of the animations?
didnt any NG-fan/viewer/supporter had any of those animations? (saved/downloaded somewhere?)
can't we find those animations?

i remember seeing those animations on my page, every time i saved (or blammed) a movie that was ''under judgement'', and it made me feel so cool!
this brings back many good memories.
i hope that we will be able to restore those animations, if not for portal use, at least so that they can be submitted to NG's/mindchamper's page, for posterity.

11) Lit Portal... Would still be cool some day. More interviews, at the least.

this would be a GREAT idea!
many people like to write books/short stories/to take interviews on NG's legends...
but will the site handle the bandwith/upload size of so many texts?

(ofcourse, if we compare text's size with the size of flash games+movies, then the comparison becomes funny...
yet, lots of text can become a huge workload for the site...)

Of course, this vision didn't mention anything about the site being mobile friendly or pivoting away from Flash. I also couldn't anticipate just how much revenue would decline in the years to come.

indeed. many changes have happened over the last 8 years...

one of them being many people changing internet platforms from PC's, to smartphones and tablets...
(thus, forcing NG to become mobile-friendly, and/or with a flexible smartphone version APP...)

and an other, being, the sudden change where, people were moving away from flash as an animation program...
but i still believe that there is hope in there.
many people still carry the torch, and the flame will stay alive!

(because many legendary animators are still linked with NG, and many people stick to creating flash animations/working with flash, because they've grown up with NG's classic values and art qualities...

because, it might have started with ''the problems of the future today!'', and it later became ''everything by everyone'', but its still the same site that we know and love, and on its core, it is the place that united us all, into one HUGE, united art collective....

In Plan B land, we've been developing our first-ever Newgrounds release for console and PC, Nightmare Cops! Hoping it will ultimately fund some big projects in NG-land. There's another old document called "Everything, by Everyone, Everywhere" that has yet to be realized.

lastly, yes.

i would love to buy+play ''nightmare cops''! :D
will it get uploaded on steam as well?

plus: i wonder what project is this ''everything by everyone''.... im sure it will be epic, tho! :)

keep up the great work, mr tom fulp!
lets keep this place strong, people!

At 6/22/17 05:31 PM, chris-the-stick2 wrote: man, the 1) part of this list, the one where flash art/movie/game license deals can be sold to other sites for the benefits of advertising an exclusive, viral NG movie/game, ITS AN AWESOME IDEA!
this should be materialised, or, at the very least, NG's brand/logo+watermark should be hard-coded into all of our movies+games, so that if someone posts/advertises any NG movie/game on their website, that at least, NG would get all the fame that it deserves...

We actually had this model running at the time I wrote this, I just wanted to get militant about a weekly release, which we did manage to pull off most weeks for a good while.

im still sad with part 10) :
WHY did mindchamber's BLAM/PROTECT animations got lost?
didnt anyone have a back-up of those files? didnt mindchamper had back-ups/copies of the animations?
didnt any NG-fan/viewer/supporter had any of those animations? (saved/downloaded somewhere?)
can't we find those animations?
i remember seeing those animations on my page, every time i saved (or blammed) a movie that was ''under judgement'', and it made me feel so cool!

You're thinking of the OLD MindChamber animation we played in the early layouts. Those went away around 2004 or 2007 and we intended to bring back the concept in the 2012 layout. MindChamber had done all new animations and Stamper was adding some polish to them as well, so theoretically there were copies on two different computers but no one has seen them in years.

11) Lit Portal... Would still be cool some day. More interviews, at the least.

this would be a GREAT idea!
many people like to write books/short stories/to take interviews on NG's legends...
but will the site handle the bandwith/upload size of so many texts?

Handling the text wouldn't be too big a deal plus we're in the process of expanding our storage capacity.

i would love to buy+play ''nightmare cops''! :D
will it get uploaded on steam as well?

We intend to release on Steam as well!

Thanks for sharing Tom!

Really a cool post showing just how much can change in a few short years. I love finding old documents or work of mine in my filing cabinet or on my computer, it always shows just how different I am now compared to then.

At 6/22/17 09:46 AM, TomFulp wrote: I know a big failing is that we still haven't released mobile apps and that has been on ongoing resource concern. A native mobile app needs to be built from the ground up and needs to be maintained. For example I developed an NG Roku app years ago but it was recently removed due to a sunset of their old SDK - I don't have time to redo our Roku app while also developing Nightmare Cops and managing NG.

The goal remains to release mobile apps that are more integrated with our in-progress mobile friendly site, so there is just one codebase to maintain vs runaway native apps.

cant help but feel this is the hugest bottleneck, in terms of NG potential. Having lived 4 years now in a world where computers are almost obsolete amoung my peers. It pains me.. I could easily see myself paying more monthly for a video app that allows me to view content on the go, or.. more importantly, share it with people who consumes hugh amounts of content, but never sit behind a computer, ever.

Still want that donate to creator button on every submission

Tom, I just wanted to say I love you man, come what may that will never change.

(can't wait for Nightmare Cops btw)

The Blam/protect animations didn't get lost.. they were repurposed into the awards interstitials used in our final tank awards video.

At 6/22/17 04:43 PM, Luis wrote: i like the supporter and X fan status, maybe it could be like another little glowy light underneath online (o) thats like streaming or something and its like one of those record off on red lights? or maybe in your userfeed, where it mentions activity of your friends there could be like an override that bubbles to the top if someone is currently streaming or in chat or online? maybe thats too stalkery, im just thinking out loud as i type this.

Maybe not too creepish, in fact having an additional link and notification of streaming would be a great bonus for our content producers. IF only the NG Passport system, could join hands with Twitch, Discord, Sleepy Cabin and other sites...

Considering the supply lines are falling below 25% of all internet ad revenue spent, there has to be some consolidation of who's left. We need an EU or AU sort of organization/trade group to stand up for the little sites, or at least call for a break up of Google, which is clearly a monopoly and threat to national and international security. IF wishes were horses, we'd all be eating steak lol

There are some ad companies that are getting around the ad blockers Tom, and are being used by sites that have similar sized audiences. Either way, I wouldn't consider it a waste of funds if you were to inspect and act on all possibilities. As always, best wishes to you and yours.

I'm just happy that we're still even here at all. Given the current state of the Internet and our rights.
Newgrounds has been a big part of my life and it saddens me that our governments are actively discouraging this kind of thing. While pushing wars of terror and other ironic regimes.

At 6/22/17 06:41 PM, Tyler wrote: Still want that donate to creator button on every submission

Planning to address that too, just want it to be more rewarding than the Paypal donate buttons we had when the Portal first launched (no one used them, although people have changed) so it will take some work.

At 6/22/17 07:11 PM, BoMToons wrote: Tom, I just wanted to say I love you man, come what may that will never change.

<3

At 6/22/17 10:01 PM, MindChamber wrote: The Blam/protect animations didn't get lost.. they were repurposed into the awards interstitials used in our final tank awards video.

Do you still have those files around?

At 6/22/17 04:38 PM, TomFulp wrote:

At 6/22/17 04:31 PM, Luis wrote: I kind of wish there was streaming capabilities on this website,

This isn't out of the question, it comes up sometimes and is doable and would be especially feasible if it required supporter status, or X fans.

Wait what?! This is an idea floating around? Man that would change a lot :O

I am Joe's broken heart

This was a nice read, I love this stuff. Since it's sorta related, any idea when the last... five or so years might be added to the NG history page? Maybe I'm the only one who cares about that part of the site but I skim over that and even newgrounds lit every few months. I know there's way more important shit to be working on too, just a friendly reminder.

And oh shit, I didn't know the game's title had been unveiled. Dis gonna b neato.

11) Lit Portal... Would still be cool some day.

Still waiting with the patience of a thousand mild-mannered men. Someday.

At 6/22/17 06:31 PM, MindChamber wrote:

At 6/22/17 09:46 AM, TomFulp wrote: I know a big failing is that we still haven't released mobile apps and that has been on ongoing resource concern. A native mobile app needs to be built from the ground up and needs to be maintained. For example I developed an NG Roku app years ago but it was recently removed due to a sunset of their old SDK - I don't have time to redo our Roku app while also developing Nightmare Cops and managing NG.

The goal remains to release mobile apps that are more integrated with our in-progress mobile friendly site, so there is just one codebase to maintain vs runaway native apps.

cant help but feel this is the hugest bottleneck, in terms of NG potential. Having lived 4 years now in a world where computers are almost obsolete amoung my peers. It pains me.. I could easily see myself paying more monthly for a video app that allows me to view content on the go, or.. more importantly, share it with people who consumes hugh amounts of content, but never sit behind a computer, ever.

The hugest bottleneck is there's a mountain of work on the shoulders of 2 people. WE NEED SUPPORTERS TO CHANGE THAT!

At 6/23/17 08:14 AM, TomFulp wrote:

At 6/22/17 10:01 PM, MindChamber wrote: The Blam/protect animations didn't get lost.. they were repurposed into the awards interstitials used in our final tank awards video.

Do you still have those files around?

Yah,
Though I have the rougher files, not the ones Stamper touched up.

At 6/23/17 01:47 PM, PsychoGoldfish wrote: The hugest bottleneck is there's a mountain of work on the shoulders of 2 people. WE NEED SUPPORTERS TO CHANGE THAT!

So more supporters would allow you guys more Staff,? for apps n stuff?

At 6/22/17 04:38 PM, TomFulp wrote:

At 6/22/17 04:31 PM, Luis wrote: I kind of wish there was streaming capabilities on this website, i feel like animating and making shit has become such a shareable platform that it might give things a shot in the arm to not only see the end product on the portal but also be on the website WITNESSING people making shit. Probably really expensive but IT WOULD BE COOL IF.

This isn't out of the question, it comes up sometimes and is doable and would be especially feasible if it required supporter status, or X fans.

@TomFulp @Luis

I would TOTALLY stream on newgrounds if this was a thing. Newgrounds, to me, is the last bastion of an animation community online. I want to start streaming on youtube, but that community is different. Same with twitch.

A sobering yet inspiring read rolled into one.

At 6/21/17 06:30 PM, TomFulp wrote: 3) We did get medals to unlock real-time in the page, although we need to get that working for HTML5 games now.

I never have been big into medals. Lately I just seem not to be able to unlock them, though I have no idea how they are implemented on our end and the problem could very well be my PC setup.

4) User pages still don't have custom skins but we did add multi-pictures to blogs and have an awesome user page update coming. Still no Twitter status integration, which would be dandy.

The last few updates have been good, my favorite being the text editor. Still wish there were more options for text, such as strikethroughs.

Twitter integration would be a boon, although Instagram boosts the highest engagement, last I checked.

5) We did introduce rev share ads to user pages but ad performance was never great and we ultimately had to pull user page ads due to the unpredictable content people would post.

Would it be possible to reintroduce these ads (despite low performance), and somehow aggregate the ads shown based a new rating system for userpage contents similar to the ones we use in the Portal? The userpage ads were the only way I ever earned any revenue here on Newgrounds, not that I'm here to make money -- but seeing a few pennies roll my way gave a strange sort of hope, a reachable milestone, if you will.

6) The project system launched in 2012, which does allow authors to give beta access to a private preview page.

I was extremely happy with this update. Have beta-tested several games for people in this way, and it works quite well. The audio project preview can be a little buggy sometimes, not playing nice with Firefox or Opera, etc., but overall, a lot of fun.

7) Would still like to have scheduled project publishing, although it hasn't been as pressing as other features.

This would be most useful for larger developers/musicians. Scheduling track releases at present requires I be up at a certain hour. We all know that's just not me, haha. Still, I don't mind a wait. I suppose one could always type up the particulars and set the computer to hit submit at a certain time, hahah.

8) First Friday would be a cool event. "Response art" was an idea by @W-P-S that would still be a fun addition.

Themed days in general seems like something to get behind. A local music shop in my town has grown considerably from having daily events for art, music, crafts, etc. All the ideas presented are great, but I like the themed days most.

9) The NG store closed in 2014 and all those cross-promo ideas bit the dust with it.

We've talked about this previously, I know, and I know where you stand on that one. I still think maybe allowing people to have stores on their userpage would be super cool, and perhaps a percentage of sales go to NG for hosting, set by the seller/buyer. That way, NG wouldn't be responsible for maintaining a catalog of items, but our people would have a way to get their merch out there, right on NG. There are all sorts of flash stores on the web selling digital merch via Paypal transactions. NG can pay out via Paypal. I'm sure the legalities might get a bit weird outside of the US, but nothing is stopping us from one-upping DeviantArt and bandcamp on those fronts.

10) MindChamber created some beautiful BLAM / PROTECT animations but they hadn't made it into the layout yet and many of the files died in a hard drive explosion.

Are the old animations from 2006 and previous still around? I found those satisfying.

11) Lit Portal... Would still be cool some day. More interviews, at the least.

Yes, absolutely. I'd love to be able to search through the interviews of @Asandir and the like in a more concise manner, perhaps scored, with author credits. I never thought about that, actually. I mostly just thought of stuff like goes on in our writers' forum. Don't often go there. Rarely write anymore.

Of course, this vision didn't mention anything about the site being mobile friendly or pivoting away from Flash. I also couldn't anticipate just how much revenue would decline in the years to come.

I don't think anyone could have anticipated how quickly phones and tablets almost completely replaced your average PC browsing the internet, but I am sure of one thing: we will adapt. We always have. As revenue continues to decline, even when it comes to giants like YouTube, we may have to make more noise on other websites, be industrious, and share one another's magnum opuses -- whatever it takes. But we'll adapt. Speaking of, I do wish more people shared theirs and others' works more often, and NG had better Twitter/FB embeds!

This is why supporters are so vital to our future!

Well, I tell ya what, one of these days I'll have a bank account and that'll be the first thing I do after making sure I have enough in there not to incur any fees! For all Newgrounds has done for me as a person and an internet junkie, I owe ya.

In Plan B land, we've been developing our first-ever Newgrounds release for console and PC, Nightmare Cops! Hoping it will ultimately fund some big projects in NG-land. There's another old document called "Everything, by Everyone, Everywhere" that has yet to be realized.

Looking forward to laying eyes on it!

At 6/23/17 09:58 PM, MindChamber wrote:

At 6/23/17 08:14 AM, TomFulp wrote:

At 6/22/17 10:01 PM, MindChamber wrote: The Blam/protect animations didn't get lost.. they were repurposed into the awards interstitials used in our final tank awards video.

Do you still have those files around?

I miss seeing the blam and protect videos on here

At 6/23/17 09:58 PM, MindChamber wrote:

At 6/23/17 08:14 AM, TomFulp wrote: Do you still have those files around?

Yah,
Though I have the rougher files, not the ones Stamper touched up.

This is starting to sound hopeful! :O

At 6/22/17 09:46 AM, TomFulp wrote: "Facebook and Google captured 77 per cent of US digital ad spending last year, up from 72 per cent in 2015, according to a recent analysis of data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau by Pivotal Research Group." That's really messed up to think the rest of the internet is fighting over the remaining 23 percent of ad spending.

Hmm, I can't help but feel getting rid of ads completely might be a mistake though. How about removing them on front page, but then keeping them on submissions? The adult section especially seems like a good place to keep ads active. Those numbers are startling though!

If we HAD done something mobile friendly that launched in 2012, it would be a horrible mess now and would need to be completely replaced. Nothing mobile friendly from that time has actually held up very well and mobile standards have changed a lot.

Wow so NG would have been a lot worse off if it had jumped on the bandwagon immediately. That's actually pretty lucky!

The goal remains to release mobile apps that are more integrated with our in-progress mobile friendly site, so there is just one codebase to maintain vs runaway native apps.

That makes sense. It's kind of like saving money for a product that will last a lifetime instead of buying a second-grade product that will break down over time.

I already knew the tide was turning in 2009 but I kept it private for a long time. You hope that people will rally when they hear things are tough but in reality it just hurts morale and makes a lot of people go looking for their own Plan B.

Makes sense. I reckon the shift was rather fast and the effect on Newgrounds was unpredictable. In the end all you could do was brace for impact.

Those same companies don't really hesitate to shut down completely when the VC money runs out, whereas I intend to keep NG running in whatever form possible for as long as possible.

I have this urge to believe some of the Behemoth profits (Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers especially) were used to support/elevate Newgrounds back in the day. Is that correct?

Also if we could have finished Nightmare Cops in three years that would have been pretty amazing and NG would be reaping huge benefits right now. Alas it's not a three year game but we're getting there.

The game certainly looks amazing from what I've seen. I'm looking forward to it!

At 6/24/17 06:23 AM, Cyberdevil wrote:

At 6/23/17 09:58 PM, MindChamber wrote:

At 6/23/17 08:14 AM, TomFulp wrote: Do you still have those files around?

Yah,
Though I have the rougher files, not the ones Stamper touched up.

This is starting to sound hopeful! :O

We're witnessing NG history (':

Did this vision.txt document also include totally obliterating a functioning way to browse or filter the portals, both flash and audio? Gutting a "Top ##" chart in favor of some completely random sorting algorithm? Making it harder to browse collections and series?

For all the good ideas Newgrounds has implemented, there sure have been a handful of severely negative ones. The site has lost so much character in the uncontrollable urge to make things mobile-friendly. Hopefully figuring out how to incorporate the things the previous iterations of the site did extremely well with the new, mobile-friendly design ends up somewhere on that list.

I probably sound bitter, but I still love NG just as I did in 2005 and beyond. So I stick around and root for its success, week in and week out. Unfortunately, I cannot overstate the frustration I have had in chasing nostalgia just as you have with that document, when I cannot find old Flash videos that I used to love because I cannot find things anymore and the search/sorting features cannot help me.

At 6/23/17 09:58 PM, MindChamber wrote:

At 6/23/17 08:14 AM, TomFulp wrote:

At 6/22/17 10:01 PM, MindChamber wrote: The Blam/protect animations didn't get lost.. they were repurposed into the awards interstitials used in our final tank awards video.

Do you still have those files around?

Yah,
Though I have the rougher files, not the ones Stamper touched up.

At 6/23/17 01:47 PM, PsychoGoldfish wrote: The hugest bottleneck is there's a mountain of work on the shoulders of 2 people. WE NEED SUPPORTERS TO CHANGE THAT!

So more supporters would allow you guys more Staff,? for apps n stuff?

Apps, new features, in-house content, more contests and prizes... all sorts of stuff could happen with a bunch more supporters. Right now, though, we're spread very thin.

With the new Steam Direct thing costing only $100 per game, I'd love it if I could make a more fleshed out flash games, stick it up on Steam, sell it for a quick buck and then "donate" a chunk of the profit to ol' Neo Geo in a way of different form of ad rev and then always have a smaller free flash version to capture people into buying the game. This site really got me into the world of indie games, with out it I'd prolly be still on the dole.

I've been with this site since around 2005, (under different usernames/profiles until I stuck with this one. There is no way I'm going to show people my first ever flash animation :3) I wish I could be more active but real life came into play and now I have bills to pay :( Miss those care-free uni days.

At 6/25/17 01:46 AM, PsychoGoldfish wrote: Apps, new features, in-house content, more contests and prizes... all sorts of stuff could happen with a bunch more supporters. Right now, though, we're spread very thin.

I agree ya'll are definitely spread thin,. I guess what Im asking is, with more supporters will you bring on more coders, or possibly license engines and stuff?.. more money isnt going to change your workload.

At 6/21/17 08:11 PM, PhantomArcade3000 wrote: Heh, Lit Portal. It feels like a lifetime since I recall hearing about that.

This list will be child's play compared to what will be accomplished in the bright future. It just didn't happen immediately, but a come back after a tough struggle makes for an even better story.

Thank god that never happened.

I have to start doing this basically. Open it every ten years and read it.