>But marketing effectiveness. Which is closely related to marketing spend.
Marketing effectiveness is not closely related to marketing spend on the Steam market for indie games. You can't buy your way to the front page of Steam. Either your game is good and people buy it, play it and share it, or it isn't and then the algorithm will not promote it. There are many things you can and should do to try to nudge the algorithm your way, but by far the best is having a genuinely good game. If the game's quality isn't good you'll mostly be wasting money if you try to approach it with the marketing mindset you have.
>Even for an exceptional game, getting traction in the market is far harder than it used to be.
It's actually easier than ever because very few games are exceptional, as has always been the case. The offering of exceptional released games doesn't increase just because the total number of released games does. If there suddenly was an AI tool that let anyone finish a game very easily, you still wouldn't get a significant increase in exceptional released games because there aren't that many exceptionally creative people in the world.
Having a good game is table stakes for sure but I'd not ignore what the OP is saying about marketing spend relating to marketing effectiveness. You can't buy a frontpage slot on Steam but you can do simple things like adding translations that will get your game shown in more regions. Which is quintessentially a marketing activity.
Then you have the ability to affect things through off-platform marketing. If you make use of that to find success the organic discovery on Steam compounds the result.
A good game is table stakes though and good relates significantly to the market segment your game is in. Understanding that is also part of marketing the game.
> Marketing effectiveness is not closely related to marketing spend on the Steam market for indie games.
I would disagree with this, you can absolutely buy your way to the front page of Steam if you know what you’re doing. On Steam, everyone’s front page is different so it’s perhaps not as obvious as hitting the front page of HN though and it’s in the interests of Steam & most successful indies to paint a narrative of purely organic growth leading to great success.
You don’t necessarily have to have an “exceptional game” but you do need to know your audience, what they like & how to reach them. Even then, once you’ve got that stuff down, you don’t just build it & hope they’ll come via the Steam algorithm. That’ll only really help you once you’re over a certain tipping point & it’s getting to that tipping point where the judicial use of a sensible marketing budget will make all the difference.
Bringing it back to the points raised in the article, it’s very much the believe that “all you need to do is make an exceptional game” that causes indie developers to sink years into a single make-or-break game which almost certainly won’t recoup its development costs.
>id Software is an exception and makes a poor example to follow. Studying wild success stories is not without merit, but is -- if you are interested in how to do the thing successfully -- ultimately a trap.
The article has plenty of current examples of developers doing this on Steam now that are not at all outliers or an exception. For another concrete example you have something like Chilla's Art https://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=Chilla%27s%.... Two japanese developers who have been releasing games for 5 years very consistently and have slowly built up their audience while also increasing their skills as developers. They also have a Patreon, which is a model that works nicely, with another more known example of it being Sokpop https://sokpop.co/. And for all their consistent work they're now getting rewarded pretty nicely for it, without having had a single insanely huge hit as far as I can tell. You can find plenty of examples of devs like this, doing it and succeeding on Steam, right now. Calling all of them exceptions sounds like a poor excuse.
>You will not attract players to your (now generic) platformer by getting it to run at 60Hz.
Yes, you need to be creative in the creative profession and come up with good ideas. That comes with the territory. If you aren't very creative then you should probably consider doing something else.
>I'd probably agree, but I'm not sure who is calling all of them exceptions or what doing so would be an excuse for.
The excuse is basically most replies in this thread, yours included. They all take the shape of "yea, but this idea is wrong because [the market is saturated/the issue is discoverability/no one wants to buy your little games/you're better off at a normal job] and so on. All of these are defeatist mindsets that people use as an excuse to not try, and they also happen to be wrong, as the examples shown in the article as well as the ones I posted show.
>It also was framed heavily around John Romero and id, which is what I was talking about in that paragraph.
The article clearly uses id as an example of a broader point and ends the post by bridging into the present situation. Talking about what people should do in the present, which you did, while ignoring present evidence and focusing only on the past sounds like poor thinking, doesn't it?
I literally and plainly stated that I agree with the author, didn't make some sort of "gotcha" comeback to the article as you're suggesting and relatively successfully avoided being prescriptive, so I'm not really sure how to respond to you at this point.
>There is very little opportunity today for any team (let alone individual person)
>You will not attract players to your (now generic) platformer
>but the people you want to buy them (let alone play them) aren't going [...] to buy and try your weird little games.
>The market is saturated. The market being saturated pushes it to be (even more) hit-oriented.
These are the things you said. I'm simply saying they're all wrong and there's plenty of evidence, in the present, right now, as to why they're wrong, as I mentioned in my previous reply. Consider the last one, "the market is satured and it pushes it to be more hit-oriented". I posted an example of a small indie team consistently releasing games and succeeding without having had any super huge hits. You don't have to reply anymore if you don't want to, it's just that you posted things that are wrong, and I felt the need to correct them.
...those aren't the things he said. If you published those as quotes, you'd be deservedly fired for intentionally clipping context (the rest of the sentence) that radically changed the meaning of the quote.
You really don't see a difference between "You will not attract players to your (now generic) platformer" and "You will not attract players to your (now generic) platformer by getting it to run at 60 Hz"?
>There is very little opportunity today for any team (let alone individual person) to push the boundaries of the technology in a meaningful way.
This is what he said. The post is about succeeding in the market as an indie developer, so pushing the boundaries of technology is not very relevant, as that's not the only way to succeed with making indie games.
>You cannot make a game as radical and captivating as DOOM was.
OK, maybe true, maybe false, still irrelevant as succeeding in the market today doesn't require DOOM-level success.
>You will not attract players to your (now generic) platformer by getting it to run at 60Hz.
Again, irrelevant, because the post is about succeeding in the market, and there are multiple ways to succeed in the market, most of which do not involve technological boundary pushing.
Do you now see my point or not? The issue in contention is that he is fixating on the example of id in the past to make factual statements about reality today ("There is very little opportunity today for any team") without looking at the current market and the evidence that exists in it to the contrary. He makes multiple such wrong statements, which I quoted in the post you replied to.
>No way. Fucking hell, Valve. Sort your shit out. How many thousands of hours have been wasted because of this?
This is to prevent abuse. Some games will have 1000s of achievements as a feature, because gamers like games with lots of achievements (and because Valve kinda encourages that with some of their store features), so forcing people to do it manually is a way to decrease that kind of activity somewhat.
Valve already capped the number of achievements to 100 because of that kind of abuse, so I'm not sure it justifies having poor UX:
> By default, games are limited to 100 achievements at first. Reach out to us via the "Support" option at the top of this page if you have questions about this.
That's a lazy excuse IMO. There's a lot you can do, like letting small developers have up to 100 achievements, with more requiring talking to partner relations.
An easy solution to this is to give point-based weights to achievements and cap the max total "points" any given game can have, allowing a developer to have many small achievements for their game if they wish. But really, none of this matters because Steam achievements are easily auto-unlocked via SAM.
A shadowban has the property that it's hidden from the user. Elon seems to want to make these kinds of actions transparent, like, for instance, deboosted tweets being visible as deboosted by their creator/other users, which is a pretty big difference. This difference is already visible in initial intent: Twitter hid what they were doing https://twitter.com/Twitter/status/1022658436704731136, while Elon is explicitly saying what he will do.
> We do not shadow ban. You are always able to see the tweets from accounts you follow (although you may have to do more work to find them, like go directly to their profile). And we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.
It specifically mentions factoring in user behavior:
>What actions you take on Twitter (e.g. who you follow, who you retweet, etc)
> How other accounts interact with you (e.g. who mutes you, who follows you, who retweets you, who blocks you, etc)
Sure, there was human involvement. Seems irrelevant to the comment I was responding to - Twitter did not hide that they were deranking some Tweets and there doesn't seem to be any difference between their current policy 'revealed' in the Twitter Files and what Elon proposed.
He's going to speedrun learning moderation from "first principles". And we get to watch him learn (just like when he started banning people who changed their handle to mock him).
I think the issue is not that this feature exists, but that it was abused to silence criticisms primarily from the right, while at the same time twitter denied this.
Because people can see that their message that used to get x retweets and likes, is now only getting y which is far less. It is very common to see people complain about being shadow banned on twitter, and not knowing for what, or why.
> people can see that their message that used to get x retweets and likes, is now only getting y which is far less.
If we go up to the top comment in this chain we see
> Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter.
- Elon Musk
So... you're in agreement?
(btw, this isn't shadowbanning. Shadow banning would be 0 likes and 0 retweets and 0 views)
> t is very common to see people complain about being shadow banned on twitter, and not knowing for what, or why.
Actually this is my entire complaint with these Twitter Files. They show examples of people getting delisted but do not show the tweets that led to these decisions. That is a CRITICAL element of the story. We can't determine if Twitter was acting in good faith or not without this knowledge. We also have no idea if these examples are selection biased or not. Probably since there's only right leaning stuff and thefp.com is a right wing organization. Maybe Twitter does have a left bias (it probably does) but we sure aren't getting a fair shake.
Okay, so that gets us to “it seems that my account has been shadowbanned.”
Has someone compiled a dataset of users that appear to be shadowbanned, that tweet political content at least some of the time, as well as the political lean they have?
> Twitter is working on a software update that will show your true account status, so you know clearly if you’ve been shadowbanned, the reason why and how to appeal
No one needs to explain anything. I transact in it and it works, therefore it is an efficient mechanism for value transaction. If you don't want to participate then fine, but as the person you replied to said, evidently enough people do.
Sure. Let me rephrase: being taken seriously requires you to explain &c. This is a public forum; nobody particularly likes it when someone says "this is so" and doesn't offer an intelligible explanation.
With enough incentives (including a large pool of greater fools), you can convince otherwise reasonable parties to use your scheme. But that doesn't make it a financial scheme; that makes it a financialized scam.
That's the thing about this stuff: it's voluntary. That's the point the above commenters are trying to make. We don't need a consensus of you all to do what we want, and if you don't want to be involved, don't.
I take it seriously enough; I have a civic interest in harm reduction in this area.
“Voluntary” cuts it when you’re talking amongst yourselves, but again: this is a public forum, not one specially for your interests. I get to voice common sense objections; that’s the point of this place.
But the point being made above is that we need someone's respect, someone's consensus, someone's approval to do what we are doing. And to that I say if you don't like what we are doing don't get involved.
> And to that I say if you don't like what we are doing don't get involved.
This, of course, only holds as far as cryptocurrencies remain a non-risk to most "main street" investors. But they're creeping towards that group (as the next biggest free pool of capital), and I have a civic interest in those people not losing their shirts.
>You mean you are going to prefer anecdotal evidence over scientific research?
Yes, if it has the potential to ruin my life and the life of people I care about, as it is plainly obvious to anyone who pays any attention at all to the world around them that these drugs are extremely harmful to a subset of the population.
> these drugs are extremely harmful to a subset of the population.
I pay attention.
Decades of observing.
Some negative effects (the paranoia induced by repeatedly taking magic mushrooms for instance).
I too have heard horror stories, I just have not witnessed them.
But then I prefer to pay attention to the scientific research by people like David Nutt
You do what you want based on your own prejudices and if you must your bigotry. But places like thos that influence public policy statements like:
"as it is plainly obvious to anyone who pays any attention at all to the world around" as an argument against scientific research simply does not belong here
Sorry, but I'm just going to trust my own observations of reality over some random paper. It's plainly obvious that these drugs trigger schizophrenia and other mental illnesses in a percentage of people who use them. Sometimes all it takes is a single use even. If you haven't met people who have had this happen to them then I advise you to search online for people's stories since it's not that hard to find them.
However, what's unknown is whether people who develop schizophrenia due to psychedelic use wouldn't have developed it anyway for some other reason. Latent schizophrenia can be triggered by things such as stress.
Besides, it's not like even given this there's no way to consume the substances safely. A simple method is to way until 25-30 years of age. Since schizophrenia most commonly develops during a person's teenage years through to early adulthood, a person who hasn't developed it by 30 probably will never develop it.
If you're prone to it (family with history of mental illnesses) you shouldn't use it no matter your age. Why risk it? Something like schizophrenia is no joke and ruins your life completely. And if you don't find meds that work for you you literally can't fix it and go back to normal.
People do all sorts of dangerous things that don't seem to be worth it to others. The reason is really very simple: because it's fun. What's important is that it's each person's right to decide for themselves whether it's worth the risk, without having others force their decision onto them.
I believe a society where one is not free to use one's body however they see fit is not worth living in, and not worth keeping together. It should be opposed and sabotaged at every turn, dismantled, and remembered as an example of how good intentions can create monsters.
>I hate this "live and let live" type thinking with drugs because it enables people to ruin their lives.
Yes, one of the consequences of self-determination is that you're able to make wrong choices. You know what doesn't make any wrong choices? Cattle. The farmer decides for his cattle what and when they eat, where they sleep, when they mate and who with, and when they die. It's completely impossible for a cow to make choices so wrong that it ruins its own life. Now, I personally don't find living like cattle to be very appealing, but perhaps you disagree.
This is what your mentality creates by the way: https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/15682375482748641... At some point you have to be pragmatic and realize that some mental illnesses can't be fixed with more freedom. Some people need boundaries and structure in their lives or they'll make society worse for everyone. A responsible society provides said structure for those people who need it, and lets the ones who don't be free as you claim they should be.
I'm not sure what you're pointing out in particular. The homelessness or the fighting? Homelessness is caused by poverty, not by drugs. People fight, with or without drugs. If you don't want to see people fighting in public places, you need a police force patrolling the streets that will actively break up fights, or you need a culture where people will intervene in fights they're not involved in and break them up. It would appear San Francisco has neither.
>At some point you have to be pragmatic and realize that some mental illnesses can't be fixed with more freedom.
I'm fine with a world with more than the absolute minimum number of mentally ill people. Put another way, there are things that are not worth sacrificing in order to have fewer mentally ill people.
>A responsible society provides said structure for those people who need it, and lets the ones who don't be free as you claim they should be.
Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the goal of a society is to organize efforts in order to accomplish tasks that would not be possible by individuals or smaller groups. "Providing structure to those who need it" seems more like the responsibility of a hospital, not of societies in general. While a society that works like a hospital (rather than merely containing them) is conceivable, I think asserting that one that doesn't is irresponsible is going too far.
>I'm fine with a world with more than the absolute minimum number of mentally ill people. Put another way, there are things that are not worth sacrificing in order to have fewer mentally ill people.
Cool, that's your opinion. It has been tried. Your opinion creates the tweet I linked as well as this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB6gwOBClwE. I can post many more videos like these as there are plenty.
My opinion is that your principles are completely idiotic and they're not worth sacrificing other people's well being for. You disagree, that's fine. But you're obviously and verifiably wrong based on the state of reality and anyone with two eyes and a brain can see it.
The state of reality is more complex than "drugs are bad m'kay". Drug use and addiction are symptoms, not the disease. Cure the disease and you cure the symptoms.
No, it actually is that simple. Recreational drugs that significantly change your state of mind and that create chemical dependencies (this includes alcohol), or that permanently make you mentally ill are, in fact, bad, and their careless use should be shunned.
I think Godot shows there's a clear subset of people (generally indie developers) who are fine with the middle ground of a proper scripting language instead of either extreme. It's why languages like Lua are still fairly popular when the option to use it exists.
The problem is that at least until very recently, That subset of people have not been Epic's target market. UE had been targeting larger studios, and in that space, UnrealScript was largely a hindurance.
This is it for me. GDscript allows for quick prototyping and structural changes without fuss. If I really need it I could outsource some GDExtension (formerly GDNative) development.
This is so true. What really terrifies me is if this new monkeypox became more easily transmissible and killed millions of people. Imagine the backlash against homosexuals?
...imagine the millions of dead people? What are you implying exactly, that if behavior from a protected class is the source of a major social issue/catastrophe, that we need to avoid making that link, and allow this class to continue engaging in antisocial practices, because we are worried about stigma?
That doesn't seem like a sane ordering of priorities.
This sort of wokeness is actually dangerous. 99% of the cases in the US have been linked to gay sex. In europe its been linked to a couple of raves involving the participants having gay sex. Its ok for health authorities and people to say "hey there does not seem to be a need to panic as we have identified the infection vector and its gay sex". It calms the general population and it arms the gay community with the knowledge that this disease is currently a risk for them. Why lie about the numbers in order to not hurt peoples feeling and expose people to real bodily harm? I am a relatively left leaning person but this constant insistence of altering the narrative to make people feel better is inane.
I’m more than mildly amused that you assigned the label “wokeness” to my position. I don’t think that’s ever happened to me :)
Would you mind specifying exactly what kind of “gay sex” might spread this - or any other disease - that does not equally apply to heterosexual anal or oral sex?
The number of heterosexuals engaging in repeated random anal sex with strangers is significantly less than that of the male homosexual population. But you're smart, pretty sure you already know that.
It's a numbers game. 83% of gay men report having more than 50 partners, majority of whom are strangers. 23% report more than 1000 partners. That last stat is hard to believe but this link [0] has many damning publications.
You cannot elevate protected groups above criticism. That's a dangerous privilege and as we see in this instance, condoning this sort of irresponsible behavior puts greater society at risk. Straight people on average are not having nearly as much anonymous sex with nearly as many partners and, ergo, not spreading nearly as much disease.
It's probably a manifestation of sexual dimorphism. The average woman is not as willing to sleep with a stranger. Not sure about how much lesbians get around though.
Marketing effectiveness is not closely related to marketing spend on the Steam market for indie games. You can't buy your way to the front page of Steam. Either your game is good and people buy it, play it and share it, or it isn't and then the algorithm will not promote it. There are many things you can and should do to try to nudge the algorithm your way, but by far the best is having a genuinely good game. If the game's quality isn't good you'll mostly be wasting money if you try to approach it with the marketing mindset you have.
>Even for an exceptional game, getting traction in the market is far harder than it used to be.
It's actually easier than ever because very few games are exceptional, as has always been the case. The offering of exceptional released games doesn't increase just because the total number of released games does. If there suddenly was an AI tool that let anyone finish a game very easily, you still wouldn't get a significant increase in exceptional released games because there aren't that many exceptionally creative people in the world.