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Hi I want to create a self help story.
I’d like to have the user email address so I can further send emails to the user or respond to user queries.
How can I do this please?
In general, most people don’t expect games to phish their personal information. It’s better to put your email (or link to a web contact form) in the credits and let players reach out to you with any questions.
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First of all, @Pilotbk welcome to the intfiction.org community, it says this is your first time you have posted. I think having a self help story is a fine idea for IF. I would encourage you to post more about the project.
If you are interested in collecting user data, I would suggest you make that 100% “opt-in” by inviting players to give feedback via posting a link to a survey or a website of some kind in the ‘about’ part of the game somewhere. Trying to do something other than this is likely going to be considered suspicious by the community. (as Hanon’s “phish” comment would suggest :))
Trying to harvest email directly from the game is most likely going to annoy people and also fill your email database with a bunch of bogus email addresses (if it’s a question that can’t be skipped, for example).
I would also encourage you to be cautious about collecting user data, because data storage is a responsibility that sadly too many organizations take far too lightly. Only collect what is absolutely needed.
-virtuadept
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Thank you virtuaadept for the welcome, yes this is my first post!
I want to track how far the user got into the book, and then follow up with them to see why they stopped, so I can improve the book with user feedback. This could be for a set of friendly beta tester users.
I’ll be perfectly honest: if an author emailed me out of the blue to ask me why I stopped playing their game, not only would I not answer, but I’d also block their email and never play anything by them again.
If it’s for a closed set of beta testers who presumably agreed to give you feedback, just ask them for their email address beforehand, or have them email you instead. If it’s for more general purposes, just link a survey where you can ask how far the player got and why.
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It’s not a game, it’s a self help and healing book customized to the users need. I definitely want to follow GDPR compliance to ensure users are voluntarily signing up and opting in.
How can I do that, ask users for their email, ensure they opt in before proceeding and so on?
In older statistics I read that games (mobile games or browser games) lose 90% of their players the moment they have to register. I don’t know if this is still the case, but the percentage is definitely high.
And of the remaining users who register, many use disposable email addresses so they don’t get spammed afterwards.
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Sorry to give this answer, but don’t do it at all. Get beta readers/testers to give you feedback before releasing it, and then don’t track data at all once it’s released. Asking for personal information is a no-go for me. I bounce off pretty much 100% of games/websites/etc that ask me to register or give any information.
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This may not be what you want to hear, but it is even more important for a self-help tool to preserve the privacy and anonymity of users than it is for a game. Do not track any user activity, do not ask for any personal data (email included), and never even hint at the possibility of your book giving anything less than iron-clad guarantees that no information will flow to your side that has not been requested and initiated by the user.
If you are intent on going the opt-in route, do make sure you get legal advice for disclaimers, legal notices, and mandatory data processing records. You are going to need it, depending on the jurisdiction.
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Honestly, just state at the beginning of the story your developer email address and users can contact you directly in a very natural, no pressure way. Though, you might not get many emails that share personal experience unless you are an accredited therapist/psychologist and can convince users as such.
If you feel this IF product will be very successful, you should use web server technology, like WordPress to create mailing lists. In fact, you could have the email/contact stuff occur completely outside of your IF application through a web page. The feature you are requesting is outside the scope of any IF tool. You are talking about web server/hosting technologies that feature a database. You can definitely build a form in your IF application that connects to web server technologies, but that stuff has to be set up first… and, again, not related to IF authoring.
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This.
Unless it’s changed since I last used it, Twine just makes a self-contained HTML file. It can’t store any data for you, the author - although it can link to, submit a form to, or send AJAX requests to something else.
I don’t think this is the place to learn what that “something else” should be, unless you want very simple answers such as “an email address” or “a Google Forms page”, or very vague answers such as “a web server”.
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I really appreciate everyone’s input and it seems like I hadn’t thought this through.
I’ll definitely go ahead without an email address request or add some kind of option at the end, if the user enjoyed the experience, and wishes to provide it.
For my development cycle of the book, I will do aggregate anonymous tracking KPI’s just to see where reading falls off and see if I can make changes to the flow to encourage readers to continue reading.
Thank you everyone for chiming in !
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Just to second @HAL9000’s suggestion. If you provide a link/means to sign up to a mailing list, as opposed to directly opening contact with you, I think many more people would go for it. Making direct contact is daunting, and also active, while joining a mailing list is safe and passive, especially if it uses a recognised tool (like MailChimp) that the user can easily unsubscribe from.
1 Like