NG is Life, nothing but life. I practically live on here for the animations and games.

At 8/5/14 02:29 AM, Zachary wrote:

At 8/5/14 02:26 AM, Player-exe wrote: Then the problem is that you can't comment at all, not every single thing said about an animation needs to be a review.

What needs to be said that isn't a review? I honestly can't think of anything.

Thank god that you can't reply over and over again. I highly appreciate that Newgrounds review section (even though there surely is a lot of crap posted too) can never turn as awful as the shithole of mankind that is the youtube comment section. That endless pointless discussion usually derives into meaningless blah blah about who is right rather than the actual content.

It disgusts me when animators such as egoraptor leave for youtube and can't even be bothered to continue supporting newgrounds, the site and community that is largely responsible for their success. It helped them grow, it made them who they are... and they can't even be bothered to give a little back to the site that gave them everything. It doesn't take much effort to also post your animation to NG when you upload it to youtube, Maybe include the newgrounds logo in your animation.. NG doesn't have the user-base it deserves today because of the laziness and selfishness of these people.

Damn YouTube

At 8/4/14 10:38 PM, fluffkomix wrote:

I don't know what's going on from the optimization end of this website but I can't even show my friends stuff I did in the long long past, as when I open up a NewGrounds animation from either my computer or my laptop, flash stops responding and the tab I have open crashes.

try turning off adblock if you have that enabled.

yep

At 8/4/14 10:53 PM, TheSin wrote: I got a question, I uploaded some animations here long ago, but I upload more frequent to Youtube because they make it easier with the ads, here I have to copy/paste a coding to the flash to make the ad work plus I have to fulfill a format sheet because I'm not from the U.S., so I can actually cash the income.

Is it possible if you can make easier or friendly use the way to use the ad system? On youtube all you have to do is "Click" enable the ad and that's it, I think that helps them a lot too for animators who don't have to have to deal with the "enabling the ad" on their animations.

Now that we have pre-roll video ads that run in front of content, it's no longer recommended for movies to integrate Flash Ads. The Flash Ads have always performed better for games since they spread virally to other sites, while SWF movies tend to not spread at all. Just be sure you've enabled rev-sharing under your account options and the rest happens automatically.

The paperwork is frustrating but necessary. Google got around it by setting up Google Ireland, so they pay international users via Ireland and dodge US tax laws. NG is a US company and we plan to stay that way and play by the rules the way they were intended to be played by, which means paperwork and international withholding taxes on US-sourced royalties, unfortunately.

NG has always been my favorite site on the net. I truly hope it is alive at least as long as I am. I am on a different side of the fence, one that has basically nothing to do with money, though - posting art on DA vs NG. Usually just post to both sites, but I treat DA as more of a social media platform so it gets all my sketches and crap...

Yeah I pretty much gave up on YT a while ago and only post on NG

NG 4EVER

Even when I had Adblock, I was still a Newgrounds Supporter.

I still consistently find content here (especially games) that trump anything that YouTube has to offer. May Newgrounds live to be a thousand years old.

I really understand what you mean. I forgotten this whole time that while YouTube was just a site for anyone, Newgrounds was the specific place for animators to grow. I was originally planning to post things on YouTube, but with the way things are now, I will try my best to support this platform as long as I can.

I never liked Youtube anyway, so you can count me out!

I love the high self-esteem in this post!
Tom Fulp, I am glad you are my friend! :)

At 8/5/14 12:05 PM, TheAdventMaster wrote: I love the high self-esteem in this post!
Tom Fulp, I am glad you are my friend! :)

On another note, Tom, how many monthly views with a loading screen ad only would I need if I wanted to make a couple hundred dollars a month off of NG?

I can make games on the weekends, but I currently make around $4k / mo doing web applications. I don't like starting things I can't finish. I need to know posting stuff to NG is worth it.

At 8/5/14 09:53 AM, TomFulp wrote: The Flash Ads have always performed better for games since they spread virally to other sites, while SWF movies tend to not spread at all.

How come games have pre-roll ads then? I'm like 5:4:1 Flash Ads:Flash Portal Ads:Pre-roll Ads.

i got so lost .

Newgrounds has been one of my favorite sites since I discovered it back in 2006 and it just keeps getting better. I am proud to be a supporter and a content creator here and I wish NG all the success and recognition in the world! I hope that NG manages to stay around as a prominent place for creative people and can succeed in keeping it symbiotic. Newgrounds truly deserves a hell of a lot of love and recognition as one of the best websites in the world.

- Seething

Well, you know, this is quite motivating. I've been relying on Youtube for the past year, and I have paid some attention to my Newgrounds account, but very little. I feel ashamed. It was also laziness holding me back. When I look at my old Youtube animations, I can't help but notice how unprofessional they were. But thanks to Newgrounds, I can actually re-upload videos, regardless of any circumstances. The only reason I've been too lazy to upload anything here is because I feel like I must perfect it, to make it more professional. In Youtube, I just slop everything together and upload it. But I'm going to have a new standard here. And here's another thing I like about Newgrounds: you can review stuff. I'm sick and tired of spam and crap, instead of constructive criticism on Youtube. I don't know what I've been thinking all this time, letting my account sit like this. It deserves WAY more attention. Sure, there will always be more videos on Youtube (only because of my Retro Gaming Playthroughs series), but I'm also making games to put here. So far, all my Flash games suck; but I hope to improve, and I'm also hoping I'll be able to get my next animation done soon. For those of you reading this, feel free to give my videos page a look. It's not great, but I've got some pretty good things coming right this way. If you prefer, you can look at my Youtube channel, to see some of my future animations. Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/user/SpiceDawgCanimation I guess my only other excuse for not uploading as much here on Newgrounds is to prevent my stuff from being stolen... but that's not really a valid excuse, plus it could get stolen and posted here, anyways (that is not a suggestion).

I've always wondered what Tom / staff has to say about the great youtube exodus so this has been an interesting read. Makes me sorta happy I stayed in the Art Portal during this time. Go NG!

I still think wanting to pay your bills with internet videos borders on insanity if you aren't popular already or amass 11m subscribers by pure chance.

Honestly this site is the best thing that has ever happened to my art.
If it weren't for this site I may have never started animating.
Though I still suck, I hope this site stays afloat long after I get awesome. And I will send youtube fans over here because youtube sucks. They promote boring crap like lets plays, and kids react, and other pointless shit that has very little entertainment value.

I think the key to this sites success is making it focus on art, animation and flash games. Because youtube will never do that. Youtube wants long videos uploaded three times a week. You can't do that with animation even if you have a committed team and studio. Because of this the most popular things are shitty parodies and poor in taste humor.

The only thing this site should change is the comments section, people should be allowed to say anything, not just critique the post. We need to be more social to expand our friends list and network without relying on pms.

I do have noticed that, and I thank you for that, I will have to fill out that tax form then.

Thank you so much for the reply.

At 8/5/14 12:33 AM, SwollenHero wrote: It goes without saying that the main reason for a lack of people using Newgrounds over Youtube to try and make a living is the fact that Youtube is much more popular than Newgrounds. Obviously this lack of popularity comes largely from the fact that Newgrounds serves a niche in Flash products, while Youtube has the capacity for any kind of video content. However, I think another big reason for NG's small user base is the UI. I'm obsessed with animation in general, and that's a majority of what I enjoy on Youtube, but I haven't gotten that much into Newgrounds (I made an account just to make this post) because the website design is super confusing to me. It's hard to tell what's what and, and I've found it especially hard to browse for different content creators. Comments (or "Responses") are also pretty confusing, the fact that you need to enter HTML commands to use different kinds of text. Some might argue that this is part of the charm, but the fact is that the your casual internet user would be confused by this. I think this is probably something that turns off content consumers who are new to this site, and I think the reason websites like Youtube and Facebook are popular because of their easy to digest interfaces. Whatever you want to call it, "streamlining" or "dumbing it down", I think an interface redesign is vital to Newgrounds' expansion. But that's just my two cents.

I respond to underline this statement as I thoroughly agree with you! I think you should stick around and try to figure this website out though. The community has a lot of valuable things to offer. In this regard, I would like to shift my attention to the Newgrounds reviewing system, which apparently is a hot topic in this thread:

At 8/3/14 08:36 PM, Zachary wrote: Maybe it is because on Newgrounds it is easier to actually read every review that comes through because of the way it is setup and on YouTube the comments are a little more chaotic, but on animations on YouTube I see basically the same horrible "reviews" you are talking about, and some worse. For the most part, Newgrounds reviews are better because there is a team of moderators filtering out reviews that are exactly what you said. On YouTube, it is a free for all.

At 8/3/14 11:53 PM, Step wrote: I actually got a taste of popularity on YouTube. One of my music tracks was used in a top-selling mobile game and now I'm getting an average of 8 new subscribers a day and hundreds of thousands of views. It feels great, but also meaningless. On here, if I got even an eighth of that popularity I'd be getting meaningful reviews with constructive feedback, my music used in games and movies and messages from content producers in other sections of the site creating more opportunities.

At 8/4/14 01:16 PM, Razoric wrote: The stuff I learned while making Flash cartoons for Newgrounds viewers was invaluable in my professional career. I'm not talking just technically either. The feedback system on NG taught me how to take creative feedback and use it in the next project to make my output stronger and more appealing. I learned not to take bad feedback personally and how to weed out the constructive from non-constructive reviews to improve my skillset. I literally use this every single day even now.

Newgrounds is really quite civilized, and the reviewing system is a big part of it. The quotes above are from this thread and serve as my backing evidence. Basically, most other commenting systems spoil the users and teach them nothing. Newgrounds' reviewing system however actually has been part of people's upbringing, which I myself can attest to. It's pretty strict though, and I guess that scares people off.

I'm not sure if you're a content creator (are you?), but I feel that spectators are just as important. All of the things I mentioned earlier are especially helpful towards artists, but how about spectators? Is this place very welcoming for them? I guess not so much...

Hell yeah! I owe a lot of happiness to NG! I'm always so excited to release an animation and see what people think of it.

Thanks Tom! Long live NG!!!

At 8/5/14 09:53 AM, TomFulp wrote:

At 8/4/14 10:53 PM, TheSin wrote: I got a question, I uploaded some animations here long ago, but I upload more frequent to Youtube because they make it easier with the ads, here I have to copy/paste a coding to the flash to make the ad work plus I have to fulfill a format sheet because I'm not from the U.S., so I can actually cash the income.

Is it possible if you can make easier or friendly use the way to use the ad system? On youtube all you have to do is "Click" enable the ad and that's it, I think that helps them a lot too for animators who don't have to have to deal with the "enabling the ad" on their animations.

Now that we have pre-roll video ads that run in front of content, it's no longer recommended for movies to integrate Flash Ads. The Flash Ads have always performed better for games since they spread virally to other sites, while SWF movies tend to not spread at all. Just be sure you've enabled rev-sharing under your account options and the rest happens automatically.

The paperwork is frustrating but necessary. Google got around it by setting up Google Ireland, so they pay international users via Ireland and dodge US tax laws. NG is a US company and we plan to stay that way and play by the rules the way they were intended to be played by, which means paperwork and international withholding taxes on US-sourced royalties, unfortunately.

Hey Tom, I noticed whenever I try to upload my animations in video format instead of SWF the color gets all jacked up and it doesn't look as "rich". That's why I still upload in SWF format instead. However, those same videos go up on YouTube and they look exactly as they should... What gives?

I don't tend to post on Newgrounds very often because, a) before the video format thing went public, it was a huge pain since most of my cartoons didn't actually exist in finished SWF format (this is not a problem anymore, but the file size limit might be a problem with my next project, which I expect to exceed 500MB in size), and b) most of what I do is too short for Newgrounds, and all I end up getting is "make it longer!!!!11!!1!!!!!". This year I've tried posting more, but I think I've still got more on my YouTube channel than on NG.

Yeah I never really had much luck on Youtube. I just post there cause thats what everyone keeps asking for when they want to view your stuff. Don't worry Tom, NG is a home to many animators. This site has done way too much for me to forget it. Support for life

Then the problem is that you can't comment at all, not every single thing said about an animation needs to be a review.

No.

What else needs to be said that will contribute to anything? Why would you waste an artist's time by giving them nonsense over something that can improve their craft? That's infuriating.

Comments would DESTROY this site.

At 8/5/14 07:09 PM, Logo wrote: Hey Tom, I noticed whenever I try to upload my animations in video format instead of SWF the color gets all jacked up and it doesn't look as "rich".

Can you upload an example video and PM me the link to the project? You can just create a project and upload the file - you don't have to publish it.

Even though Newgrounds seems to be primarily focused on games and animation, my music still gets more traffic here then it does on other sites :) Also, being able to post all your different types of content (games, movies, art, songs) under one account is awesome.

NG is one of the few sites I still visit regularly from way back when (and one of five I keep adblock off on). I just wish I could contribute content, never was all that skilled.

Hopefully people who want to look for genuine content will look back to Newgrounds. Not saying that youtube doesn't have it, but it's just too crowded there and attracts all sorts of weirdos.