I agree it's a bit of a conspiracy theory right now, but how often have conspiracy theories ended up being proven right a couple of months down the line? A surprising amount, everyone's buzzing about nonsense around Trump right now as per usual to distract from what I feel is the real news story and that's the lawsuit around twitter's fakery.

If twitter loses the court case, it's going to blow them and all the other big tech sites wide open, this will then lead to advertiser lawsuits and further investigations into other companies. While I don't think that all the traffic is fake on steam and other places, I think there is going to be a greater percentage than even paranoid people like me think potentially. I was very surprised for example when there was a fake account wiping happening on twitter that even Taylor Swift's account lost about 10,000 followers, that's more than I was expecting on a fairly innocuous brand name. If this is the case then perhaps it wouldn't even be a stretch to say that music labels were somehow paying for these fake followers to boost themselves onto the trending pages.

Even if the big tech sites aren't all directly involved in bot follower shenanigans and fakery, they certainly don't clamp down on it as they should to make sure their traffic is legitimate.

    Lethn If twitter loses the court case, it's going to blow them and all the other big tech sites wide open, this will then lead to advertiser lawsuits and further investigations into other companies.

    Well, shaking up the swamp would be useful.

    cybereality In terms of my own experience, I have around 3,000 followers on Twitter. But I actually only get around the same 50 people interacting with my posts

    In reality, if very roughly and approximately: 1000 people browse, 100 comment from time to time, 10 actively discuss, 1 can really help. Well yes, it looks like it.

        5 months later

        Who says you can't make a fortune in game development and become a trillionaire?

        It's a very lucrative field:

        Funding from backers exceeded $300 million in June 2020, [117] surpassed $400 million in November 2021,[118] and $500 million in September 2022.[119]

        cybereality Lol I tried giving Star Citizen the benefit of the doubt because it was Chris Roberts being involved and everything ( He made Freelancer ) but something very shady is going on over at RSI and I would not be surprised if some scandals finally start surfacing. They're keeping the gravy train going though by constantly introducing ships rather than doing any real coding. You know it's bad when even the die hard fanbois on their own forums are getting really tired of it.

          cybereality That's gotta be the biggest scam of all time.

          Well, I guess the "biggest scam of all time" is probably doubtful. 😃 But if you only consider gamedev, it's quite possible.

          It doesn't take that much money to make a game.

          If they actually did what they promise, then maybe the development cost would be justified, but… here's The Sims series — the total cost is probably close, but a lot of games in that series have been released, and SC hasn't seen much progress. So — yes, most likely a scam.

          But! They raised the money. Which means that they have practically proved that it is possible to make money quite real.

            Interesting post, thanks to Tomcat to get it up 🙂.

            I guess problem with popular platforms/websites is... people ! There is mostly two kind of people on this Earth: "builders" and "destroyers", can be seen as positive & negative, Yin & Yang, some create thing, see good things, feel good, act well, push other up, others are just bitter, lazy, have achieve nothing, have no dream or passion, they just like to destroy what others built, drag others down with them, it may probably make them feel less lame as they are. We see those two opposite forces fighting together everyday everywhere.
            It reminds me Populous series from Bullfrog. Quite an awesome game design, anyone who don't know about these games could (should ?) play Populous 2 which was released on many platforms and can be played with WinUAE & Dosbox for instance.

            To get back to the topic, making money is not that easy and sometime, some creator get lucky, but it doesn't last forever, I've read Candy Crush's author make a lot's of money for a while (about 50K$ a day), then the best game of the day become shadowed by another which is trending and so on. And the market is also very tough and players unforgiving. Anyway, whatever we could do, there will always be fans & non-fans.

            Finally, 30% as fee may not be as an excess as it look considering all the costs of making a distributing platform avail 24/7, secure, safe with payments, etc try to set up on of these and gather enough traffic to get self sustained, I bet you'll like to pay "only" 30% !

              cybereality That's gotta be the biggest scam of all time.

              We'll see, if they actually release pyro this year then there is hope for it not being a scam, just over ambitious.

              cybereality It doesn't take that much money to make a game.

              It does if you have armies of studios working on crafting custom made planets and star systems. They do make some use of pcg or procedural content generation, but it's still highly artist/manually controlled pipeline.

              yes I'm a star citizen pledge-r, only ever got the cheapest starter ship tho, even that only in 2020 once I saw some progress being made

                  JusTiCe8 I guess problem with popular platforms/websites is... people !

                  Yeah, people on Earth are a big problem, but they're being worked on right now.

                  There is mostly two kind of people on this Earth: "builders" and "destroyers", can be seen as positive & negative, Yin & Yang, some create thing, see good things, feel good, act well, push other up, others are just bitter, lazy, have achieve nothing, have no dream or passion, they just like to destroy what others built, drag others down with them, it may probably make them feel less lame as they are. We see those two opposite forces fighting together everyday everywhere.

                  There are actually three types of people. You left out the "indifferent. Evil ("destroyers") could not triumph if it were not for the "being out of politics" position that became popular. I mentioned this a bit in my scenario.

                  Finally, 30% as fee may not be as an excess as it look considering all the costs of making a distributing platform avail 24/7, secure, safe with payments, etc try to set up on of these and gather enough traffic to get self sustained, I bet you'll like to pay "only" 30% !

                  Within the framework of the created system, yep. But it is possible to try to go beyond it. The risk is great, but so is the reward.

                      Tomcat
                      🙂

                      Yeah, people on Earth are a big problem, but they're being worked on right now.

                      You think ? I won't go too far off-topic off-Godot, just that Idiocracy author(s) was/were very optimistic in their forecast ! Just need to look at the "clown world" we are in now, it's a worldwide (at least in western part of the world) catastrophy, or maybe a global pandemic of ridiculousness.

                      There are actually three types of people. You left out the "indifferent"

                      maybe, maybe not. Is there actually any of neutral people ? Someone could think I'm neutral but deep down inside, mind/soul is tipping to one side or another. Anyway, Tuco is always right:

                      You see, in this world, there is two kinds of people, my friend: those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig.
                      😛

                      But it is possible to try to go beyond it. The risk is great, but so is the reward.

                      As for wannabe gamedevs willing to create their own engine... energy doesn't last enough to get to the game itself after for those who get there.
                      Spending time recreating existing, reliable enough, working solution may not worth it most of the time.

                          JusTiCe8 You think ? I won't go too far off-topic off-Godot…

                          It's really hard to get away from the subject. There was a country called the Soviet Union... I even caught it. They used to say: "Writers are engineers of human souls". That's partly true — writers create works that influence the reader, that shape his or her worldview. Even if it's a cheap, tabloid read. That place is now occupied by game developers. Even the most primitive game takes up a person's time and affects him. But a lot of people don't seem to be very aware of that.

                          …just that Idiocracy author(s) was/were very optimistic in their forecast !
                          Just need to look at the "clown world" we are in now, it's a worldwide (at least in western part of the world) catastrophy, or maybe a global pandemic of ridiculousness.

                          There are very compelling reasons for this.

                          Someone could think I'm neutral but deep down inside, mind/soul is tipping to one side or another. Anyway, Tuco is always right:

                          You see, in this world, there is two kinds of people, my friend: those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig.

                          It's a slightly different division, on a different principle. Even a very lazy person can be made to dig at machine gunpoint. In the Russian language there was a word "otyoti" — meaning an extreme degree of laziness. It is impossible to force such people to dig — such laziness is stronger than the desire to survive. I could find no analogues in other languages.

                          As for wannabe gamedevs willing to create their own engine... energy doesn't last enough to get to the game itself after for those who get there.
                          Spending time recreating existing, reliable enough, working solution may not worth it most of the time.

                          It's not about creating your own engine. Quite rightly, there is often no energy left for the game. And talk about taking an interesting idea and creatively develop it. Many ideas stopped halfway through.

                          And with a strong and interesting idea, there's no need to try to squeeze into Valve's boundaries.

                            I'm actually trying to create my own engine. It's for a specific project I need specialized tools. I still plan to use Godot for my games for right now. This is what I have in 17 days of work, but I've also been studying for this for years.

                              cybereality This is what I have in 17 days of work, but I've also been studying for this for years.

                              Oh, the old Soviet Zenit — I used to have one of those [sobbing tears of nostalgia]. A copy of a Leica, if I remember correctly. Everything in the Soviet Union was a copy of Western stuff.

                              You need very good reasons to create your own engine. I'm currently watching a very strong programmer make games on his own engine that are quite popular, but… when he puts out the next version (usually once a month) it's not worth downloading, but you have to wait a couple of days for him to release a bug fix.