TLDR: If you're a games developer or digital creative (concept artist, modeller, programmer, game designer etc) then the new changes that have been implemented on tsumea were made with you in mind. Establish your digital creative or games developer profile on tsumea and show off your work, or follow other members and favourite their work. Show which games developers you've worked for and games you've worked on, and get yourself listed if you're looking for work.
Also, are you in our games developer list, developer services list, or from a developer related organisation (GDAA, IGDA, educational like AIE etc)? Then claim your page now. Details below.
Since my last journal concerning the new direction of tsumea, I've made some good progress towards that goal. For the last two months, a lot of work has been putting the site's focus on a few specific core areas which will be useful for all digital creatives and games developers alike.
1. More social functions for all members
The best way to illustrate this is to simply show by example http://www.tsumea.com/user/souri
One of the first things we offered when starting in 2002 was a journal for members to show off their work since it was hard to find local talent and see their great work at one place. Things have certainly changed a whole lot since then, however something this is still needed more than ever so it was time to update what we can do in this particular area.
The new social functions on tsumea include:
- Follow other members. Following members has some benefits. If you follow members, your front page consist of their work and any new posts they make so you can keep updated on people or developers you are only interested in. If you're not following anyone, you'll get the default follow list. Also, the more 'follows' a member has, the higher they are ranked in all other lists they may appear in (available talent looking for projects, 3D artists etc), so you're helping them out too.
- Favourite members work. You can favourite images posted by other members and it will show up on your profile page. Anyone visiting your page will be able to discover other great work on the site this way along with the creatives section.
- Favourite any media and game on the site - Same deal, any media and game on tsumea can be 'favourited' and they will appear on your profile page for others to discover.
You can also follow games developers, developer services, and organisations too.
2. Work history and games credits for members
- You can now associate yourself with a games developer listed in our developers list. Click on the "I currently work here" tab, and the developer (or organisations which may also include IGDA chapters, Audio developer services etc) will be listed on your profile page as your 'Current' place of work.
- You can also list developers, organisations etc you've worked for in the past by clicking on the "I have worked here in the past" tab. You can list multiple developers.
- You can list games you've worked on through our new games section (details below). Click the "I've worked on this game/app" tab on its page, it'll get displayed in your credits list. In the past, it's been requested that we offer a local games listing and credits resource similar to "Mobygames" on tsumea, and finally this is something we can do without too much work.
All the previous functions are still there too. You can request friends with other members, and contact anyone else via private messages. Also, don't forget to update your account with your profile information on who you are, add all your social links (Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, Soundcloud, youtube etc). List yourself in your skill category (3D artist, programmer etc), upload your profile image and header image etc to make your page a whole lot more informative.
So what's the goal here? Why not just use LinkedIn?
How many times have you read that it's not what your credentials are but what you can show you've done? In a field like games development, being able to show your work and directly link to the games and companies you've for is so much more informative than simply providing a text listing of your skills and experience. You can still link off to a more verbose page on yourself on LinkedIn, but I think we can fulfil a much better specialised purpose here for games developers and creatives.
3. Changes to our developers listing - claim your developer page now!
For years I've received requests from developers for more control over their own pages on tsumea, and after realising that work was being duplicated for both developer pages and user profiles, I've come up with an excellent solution.
If you'd like to take on the role of looking after your developer page, then send me a private message and I'll upgrade your account and change your url to the proper address (e.g www.tsumea.com/games-developer/(name)).
Developers will be able to:
- add your own social links (facebook, youtube, twitter etc) as well as your company logo at your own leisure
- have the same social features as user accounts, where other members can favourite and keep up to date with your posts and job ads
- Members will also be able to list you as their current workplace, or associate you as a place they've worked for in the past
- Your company wiki data, media, your games, news/jobs listings etc automatically attached to your page
- With a certified developer account, you can post job ads directly to tsumea and remove them at your own convenience
There is one proviso, however.. you *must* have a username that matches the developer's name in our list. We'll have to rename your login to "Halfbrick Studios" if you've already registered a username as "Halfbrick", for example. So, register a user account with your exact developer name (capital letters and spaces included!!) and shoot me a private message from your account on tsumea, and I'll set you up. If you already have an account that you'd like renamed then I can do that also. Let me know via private message.
Additionally, we're also providing certified accounts to developer services and other developer related organisations. So if you're from an organisation like IGDA Sydney, Games Developers Association of Australia, Surprise Attack etc you can set up a page on tsumea too to take advantage of the same social features.
This is currently being rolled out to all developers and developer services in our list. If no one claims their page, I'll create a fake user account for it which can be claimed at a later date.
4. The new games section - coming real soon now
Our games/apps section is undergoing a huge revamp. You will soon be able to favourite any game from the new games section and even list it as a title you've worked on. If you can't see your game listed then you can import it yourself as long as it has a page on Steam, Desura, Apple's App Store, or Google Play. Any member will be able to import games data and images with just an url or app id number. I'll be posting more about the new games section in more detail once all the new developers accounts have been rolled out. This section of tsumea will be a big part of our upcoming tsumea app for iOS and Android and will showcase all the latest games and apps from Australia and New Zealand.
If you have any questions, feedback or suggestions, feel free to respond in the comments below. Anonymous comments have been turned off and won't be coming back, ever.
Are these features live?
Signed up, took a little tour around the website but couldn't find any "I currently work here" links or ever multiple "tabs" on the developer pages like was mentioned.
Yes
They currently only appear on the developer pages where the developer has claimed their page - I have a small but growing list of 'certified' developers on the developers list page. Eventually, that list will be split into states and back to normal once the migration is over.
Awesome stuff - some issues
I'd like to add Bluetongue and Firemint/Firemonkeys as places I've worked, but I'm not too sure how to do it.
I can't find Firemonkeys on the developers page.
And the Blue Tongue entry is in the old Wiki format, and maybe doesn't support me saying I worked there, in it's current state...?
Keep up the good work, Souri!
- Murray
Blue Tongue
You should be able to do it from Blue Tongue's page since that's one developer not around anymore that I tested on (Firemint/Firemonkeys will come shortly since I'm slowly migrating all the developers over who haven't claimed their pages yet)
This is Blue Tongue's page, can you see the link/blue boxes on right column? http://www.tsumea.com/games-developer/blue-tongue
Update on social
So, just an update on what I've been doing the past few weeks. All of the social features I had planned have been implement and I've transferred our entire list of developers, educational institutions, developer services, and organisations over to the new format so they can take advantage of the new features.
You can follow other users and have their posts appear on a special 'following' stream on your front page - initially this replaced the normal stream that everyone sees if they aren't following anyone, but since we haven't hit the sort of mass needed to make a 'following' stream update regularly, we've settled for having both streams appear for members.
When you favourite or follow another member, they'll get notified of the follow/favourite. It was tricky to implement but seems to be a staple feature of any social site.
Members can mark any developers, educational institutions, developer services, and organisations listed on the site as a place they currently work for or have worked for in the past, and this will show up on a users profile page as well as the organisation's page.
If you look at the developers list, we've put indicators to show how many users are following or marked them as their current workplace. We used to have coloured icons to show which platforms developers focussed on - they're back and have been replaced with more informative icons. Developers can update and change this any time they like, of course, in their profile settings.
A whole bunch of other things had to be adjusted and reconfigured due to the changes made with developer, organisation etc accounts mentioned earlier but really isn't interesting enough to describe but needless to say, that's done too!
I'll be working on the games importing function on the site - it's already in a near complete stage but barring any hickups, it should be operational real soon. I'll make a more indepth post on that when I open it to the public.