► Ascentrium was a series I worked on non-stop for several months after quarantine began. "Now's my chance," I thought. And I was right - I had all the time in the world. But I didn't expect the entire project to have a runtime of over 2 hours long. Yikes.
I always knew I'd submit it all to Newgrounds, but how? I thought about making the submissions long and weekly, like I did with my YouTube Channel, but I thought I'd try something a little different: a short episode everyday. Here's what I've found.
- I found I received my best scores when I submitted just after midnight. That said, I've been happy with all the scores I've received regardless of my time of submission. Newgrounds is generous and seems to be consistent giving each submission its fair shake regardless of the time it was submitted. Here's today's submission.
- The submissions seemed to get quicker views when I posted one of my female characters in the screenshot. Hey, it works.
- Though I only have 85 or so official fans, I found those fans to be extremely dedicated to seeing each episode. I may not have gained the numbers, but the viewers I did retain were very interested in the project. Quality reviews and feedback as opposed to quantity.
- There are so many submissions on this site, that I didn't seem to annoy anyone with my large surge of new submissions. Newgrounds is so alive and active, that my daily animations were but a drop in the bucket.
- The Portal is still a mystery to me. Sometimes the submissions fly through 'judgement' like nothing, other days the entire 'new submissions' column stays that oh-so-uncertain purple. I'm sure there's someone much smarter than me who could explain this phenomenon. Anyone up to the task?
- I've been on Newgrounds since I was 10 (those awesome Pico days), started submtting when I was 12, and now that I'm older I've noticed that Newgrounds has matured while also retaining so much of the things I loved when I was a kid - we can indulge in animated violence, laugh at the absurd, or be transported to an entirely different world. That's the beauty of animation I suppose but I can't stress enough NG's ability to perpetuate the fun while also having a serious, more professional aspect to it all. This site is chock-full of talented artists.
► Fellow animators, I'm interested to hear what you think. Did you find submission times affected your scores? How do you like to utilize your preview screenshots? How have you found NG has changed over the years? Let me know.
I think that's all I can really ramble off the top of my mind at the moment. All of this said, my series is still ongoing. I have 10-13 more submissions of Ascentrium left before the story is told and my daily submission experiment is over. Hopefully by the end I'll have more findings for anyone who is interested.
► Now that I've somehow held your attention this long I wouldn't be doing myself any favours if I didn't ask you to please check out my series Ascentrium and tell me what you think! I only have a few more weeks left of uploads, now could be a good time to hop on board and theorize. The end is nigh.
► My Youtube page is above, and our Instagram page can be found here.
► Our Facebook page is here.
Cheers!
-Tom from Animatrium
Cyberdevil
You make #4 seem like a positive thing though. :) Alas, the time when ou could easily really stand out here may be more of a memory now... competition's tough! You really need to put out stuff that people have an interest in, and make sure you promote yourself well enough they really start partaking in your work to start with.
#5 Could it be that some days there is simply such a large surge of new submissions that it takes longer for people to sift through them? That not enough people manage to vote through one, before another comes along and pushes it down the list, making it a steady stream of almost-past-judgement submissions that don't get the required attention fast enough to pull through as fast as they usually do?
As I vote on all UJ submissions it's easy to keep track of which ones are new via the darker purple tone when I've already clicked the link, and certain mornings the portal's flooded. There's over 50 new submissions overnight, so you can't even reach them all via the Portal page, whereas most mornings it's more like 20-30 new ones. Sometimes less. I've been wondering if there's any pattern to how this varies, but I assume it has a lot to do with current jams and trends and other things (whenever Ludum Dare comes around there's usually a flood). Also seems to be slightly more during the weekend, but amounts are never really consistent.
Anyway that's my theory there!
#6 Amen to that. :) Love this place.
Was fun to read these observations, and this is also really the kind of thing that might just make me get into your series too. Been seeing your name frequently in the P-Bot posts lately but never really took the time, The passion you radiate here though: inspiring. :)
Also submission times. I haven't experimented much with this, but at least back in the day you used to get the highest score just past judgement, so if you can time your submission so that it passes judgement just before P-Bot presents the list you should potentially rank the best. I believe this is because a lot of users just vote on stuff to gather B/P, and at least a group of users vote as high as possible on anything they want a save on, and as low as possible on something they want to blam (whichever state they believe the submission leans towards), and as such the initial votes are either a real boost or vice versa. With this in mind users who submit often are probably easy to recognize as ones that'll pass, and thus get an even bigger boost overtime. In addition the larger your number of fans the more initial views with a tendency to give you a high give right away, and then for the score overtime to even out as people who maybe don't like your work as much partake in it and rate it too.
Of course, presentation has a lot to do with the initial votes people give too. Like you said with how your female thumbnail got more attention, you'll probably get a certain boost in scores if you manage your clickbait content well, too. :) So much factors in. In a way it seems a bit unfair in that the more popular you are the more popular you get. Scores and views rise by automatic exposure, rather than the quality of the content itself.
The theories above seem to hold true as even amazing submissions can, if they're the first thing a new user submits, pass by on a trophy entirely. People just don't expect the content to be good. They neither have the necessary fan count to get an initial boost, nor the initial support of all those who vote for points, and skew the scores as they do. It's a fair system in some ways but unfair in others, it's like there's a portal guard that does keep out trash, but occasionally also accidentally kick out the wrong people just because they seemed a bit shady.
Anyway, with regard to time again, it seems like depending on popularity it'd be good to adjust your upload time too. The faster your submissions go through judgement the closer to the P-Bot post you can submit. if you really need to cater to any of this. :) Good content speaks for itself too! As a new user you might actually want to submit as early during the day as possible, to get more exposure and more fair votes if you really do have an amazing first submission.
Regarding submission previews I've never been good at selling those. Don't think at all about what people will click but more so what I want there to be there. It's an art though! If a thumbnail is clearly clickbait you might get a backlast for it, but done right you'll be happy you clicked it. Gotta match expectations but bring out the best in your work at the same time to have the perfect balance... I believe.
And hell yeah NG has changed! :D Lately for the better. Mostly. So much. I could fill the character limit on that though so I'll just end this with a: thanks for an inspiring read, instead. You've definitely mastered the clickbait writing thing... if that's a thing.
Will definitely check out the series when I have some time. Really cool you've been able to keep making it a daily thing so long now. If you have...