Hi, to all!

Lately I had a great time here on newgrounds, begining with the pixel day, to the day to day interaction with the comunity, lurking on the forum, etc...

I have to thank to @TomFulp for creating such an amazing comunity driven website. I feel that has nailed the sweet spot between an anon image board (Everyone can share their thoughts) and a social media site (A cohesive comunity with certain moderation). People say the site is dying, and I don't feel it, to me it looks better than ever! Also I have to say that when I was a teen I got on this site only for the porn, lol.

When I started my journey to become a game developer (fulfilling my childhood dream of making games) a little more than a year ago I thought that Newgrounds (and Kongregate, even if I'm not so active there.) was the perfect place to start and here we are, almost after a year since I started actively posting I've grown as a developer, artist and of course as a person itself.

The Shyning had an overwhelmingly positive reception (I really didn't expect it), even from a lot of critics of it, and also I too understand the people that don't like that particular game. I was unsure of the reaction from the comunity, maybe I was pushing too hard in some parts of the game, but I thought I can stomach criticism. That reafirmed my position on the first thing an artist, (game dev, etc...) has to have is "artistic integrity", with that I mean a vision of your project, objectives and intent with that art.
Feedback is important, but not so much if it comes from people whom intent is lost. I have a recent example brought to me some days ago about a Steam game named "Ladykiller in a bind", I hadn't played the game but looks like the dev sacrificed one of the most shocking endings because of player feedback and very bad reception on it, even when those people can like other parts of that game. If her (I think the dev is a woman, I didn't check :P) intent was an impactful ending that disgusts the player I feel that falling under the pressure of other peoples opinion is a huge mistake. A weakness that in these times one has to be strong, social media gives people the delusion of having more strength than they would in reality, and the receptor of those messages (feedback, etc...) have that same delusion against them.

So, in the end I have to say that you have to stick to your artistic vision, and also you have to separate good feedback from the bad (A dificult task, yes, but not imposible!).

(What a rant...)

Finally, Thank you all, all the users and staff from Newgrounds!

P.S.: I've been using DeathInk's Moods without knowing who it was from (I like skulls). :P Now Thanks to @RealFaction I have another person to admire!