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Supposed I am the developer of a newly released game. Would it be acceptable if I post and self-answer a couple of questions about my own game? Assume of course that:

  • They are questions a player might reasonably ask about my game and which would usually be considered on-topic.
  • The questions and answers are written in a way a regular player would write them.
  • I do not shamelessly praise the game, try to sneak in links to the store page or otherwise try to advertise the game in a way a regular player would not.
  • I disclose in my user profile that I am the developer of the game.

How would the community react to this?

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    This is just my personal opinion, but I feel like questions should largely be asked organically. This is more akin to forced cultivation. If you see people asking the same question about your game other places online, then maybe consider asking and answering here.
    – MBraedley
    Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 13:43
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    Also, if your game already has questions that may need to be preemptively be answered, it should go on a FAQ with the game. If someone doesn't read that and come ask here, then we answer (and cite that it was mentioned on the FAQ)
    – Moacir
    Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 13:50
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    In theory it seems reasonable within the rules; but from a player perspective, it seems strange that you would need to provide this information via Stackexchange.
    – JMac
    Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 20:40
  • If you feel like these questions could come up a lot, consider making an official FAQ or avoiding the need for it by designing the game in a way that explains it (other than a hand-holding tutorial if possible).
    – Fabian Röling
    Commented Dec 12, 2018 at 14:16

2 Answers 2

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I don't see anything wrong with doing this. We do encourage self-answered questions here. I've done it myself a few times. I don't see how you being a developer makes much of a difference in that policy. However, you should keep in mind a handful of caveats:

  • Don't post a bunch of questions all at the same time. It's annoying when the front page is filled with a bunch of questions from the same game. There was a user a while ago who asked like 10+ Skyrim questions within the span of a couple of hours/days. Though their questions were technically all on-topic, it was still brought to meta because of the frequency of their posts. Try to space them out, with at least a couple of days between questions if you're planning on posting several.

  • Don't post for the sake of posting. The more questions about the game that exist on this site, the more "publicity" your game will have. That makes it very tempting to simply post a bunch of simple and easy questions just to get the name out. DO NOT do this. Simple questions should be answered either by an in-game tutorial or a game wiki.

  • As the developer, consider creating your own FAQ. You're in a unique situation where anytime you see a Question that is Asked Frequently, you can add an answer to the question in places that are more readily available than Arqade. Perhaps you can consider adding some clarification for the most common confusions into a tutorial or FAQ section on your game's site or wiki.

  • Don't advertise or self-promote. You already mentioned you'd be careful about it, but I'd like to reiterate it here. Nobody likes having a product pushed on them, and there are better places to advertise than Arqade anyways.

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Self-answered questions are encouraged and are directly integrated into all facets of the StackExchange network. There's no asterisk saying that developers are exempt from this.

However, I'd like to offer a counterpoint that you have direct control over the development of your game. If you have to ask/answer a question on Arqade, perhaps that is a prime place to make your game more intuitive?

Rather than pointing players to an Arqade question, it seems like it would be a better practice to show your players that answer through the game itself.

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