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Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

Filthy Kalinite
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Astral Rag

Arcane
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Hello ad block users: we'll probably be saying goodbye soon

Over the the past year, we’ve been showing a message to those of you who use an ad blocker. This message basically says, “Hey, could you not?”. It then offers a few options: whitelist RPS in your ad blocker, become an RPS supporter to get access to an official ad-free version of the site, or ignore the message and continue reading the site anyway.

We are starting to take this third option away.

Over the past month, we’ve been running a test in which we show a message to 10% of signed-out readers who use an ad blocker that does not feature a “continue ad blocking” button. People who receive this message either turn off their ad blocker, become a supporter to get an official ad-free version of the site, or they can’t read Rock Paper Shotgun. This week, we’re expanding that test to 35% of signed-out ad-blocking users. It’s likely that percentage is going to increase in the weeks and months ahead, too.

The reasons we’re doing this are fairly straightforward. Everything RPS does costs money, and most of the money we make comes from advertising. If readers are blocking the adverts on our site, then they’re benefiting from our work while not giving anything back. The more readers who block adverts, the harder it is for us to keep making everything you (hopefully) enjoy about RPS. And without advertising, RPS would cease to exist.

Since most ad blocking software blocks all adverts on all sites by default, most readers never think to whitelist the sites they enjoy or the sites which make the effort to have good advertising. That’s what the message we’ve run for the past year has aimed to change: it’s a friendly reminder that we need advertising to survive, and if you’d consider whitelisting us, that’d be a huge help.

Unfortunately, this message only converts so many users. The vast percentage of readers hit the “Continue ad blocking” button without thinking twice. By removing that button, we’re effectively leaving people with no choice: either they think our work has value and let advertising appear on the page, or they turn around and go somewhere else. Yes, this means that some people will go somewhere else.

Over the last ten years, I’ve had a lot of discussions with a lot of people about advertising. I always start by pointing out that we aim to make our advertising unobtrusive. We don’t allow auto-playing videos with sound (and if any ever sneaks in, email me and we’ll have it removed immediately). We don’t do pop-ups or sticky blocks which follow you around the page. You can customise how we use your information to personalise adverts. Our ads team work to make sure that what we show you is relevant and that we meet industry standards.

Sometimes the conversation ends here, but other times it continues. The response I hear most often is that there’s no such thing as “good” advertising, because advertising is inherently bad. This is normally either an anti-commercialism argument, a pro-privacy argument, or a PC-performance issue. I can respect a person attempting to live by a set of principles, but here’s the response I usually give: if you object to advertising in principle, then you shouldn’t read websites with adverts.

Ad blocking does not make websites better; ad blocking leads to advertising that’s more obtrusive, as it fights to get in front of you and get your attention by other means. It creates an adversarial relationship between us, the creators of RPS trying to make a living, and you, the reader trying to duck and dodge those efforts.

If you whitelist us however, and trust us to show you decent adverts, then now we’re in a mutually beneficial relationship. You become our customer and as such we’re beholden to you, and we have cause to make sure our adverts don’t chase you away.

The same is true if you decide to pay and become an RPS supporter. Sign up and you’ll get a version of RPS without adverts, but with bigger images and a cleaner reading experience.

It’s possible you’re reading all this and thinking: “I am seeing this message even though I don’t use an ad blocker.” It is extremely likely that if you’re seeing adverts but still getting the message, then it’s because you’re running another browser plugin or VPN which blocks some adverts or cookies, and therefore we have no way of knowing that you’re seeing the adverts. If you think that’s not the case and that we’re showing you the message in error, then please get in touch and we’ll do everything we can to fix the issue.

I am a reader of the internet and I know how bad advertising can be. I believe RPS’s adverts are some of the best in the business, and if you think they can be better still, then hit that email link and tell me. I have all the motivation in the world to make them better.

If you still don’t want to see our adverts, consider signing up to the RPS Supporter Program. We relaunched it back in July and now those most-beloved people who support RPS with hard cash get not only our undying appreciation, they also get games and gifts, three extra posts a week, and an official ad-free version of the site. No ad blocker required.

RIP
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Indiepocalypse stories: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...bombed-and-now-the-game-servers-are-exploding

An indie developer misclicked, got review bombed and now their game's servers are "exploding"
Be careful what you wishlist for.

Remember the saying "there's no such thing as bad publicity"? Following the events of the last few days, at least one indie developer may disagree.

Evolvation, a space flying shooter made by two people, was originally released in February 2017. Earlier this week, it had an average concurrent player count of one person. Fast forward to today, and there are currently 53,487 people in-game, with a new all-time peak of 172,870 set yesterday evening. Unsurprisingly, the sudden influx of new players is breaking the small indie game's servers. How on earth did this happen?

Unbelievably, it apparently all began with one misclick.

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The numbers are out of this world.

The carnage started just over a week ago when the game's developer, HyperReuts, accidentally deleted Evolvation's free Steam keys. In a Steam post, HyperReuts explained it had given out 10,000 free codes in order to expand the game's playerbase as part of its 2.0 update. Unfortunately, the developer discovered many of these were being sold illegally online. In order to stop the black market indie-key business, the developer ventured into Steam settings, clicked on "ban keys options," and accidentally deactivated many of the legitimate Steam keys.

Little did it know exactly what had been unleashed.

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Disgruntled players soon started to post damning reviews on the game's Steam page. Many assumed the key removal was financially motivated, with one player even calling the developer "money hungry apes". Others were simply confused as to why their game key had disappeared overnight without any warning. Soon, the game's recent reviews were dragged down to "very negative". Players were well and truly seeing red.

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Thanks to Pixel Boo for this screenshot.

The developer, meanwhile, was engaged in frantic talks with Valve to fix the problem. HyperReuts reports it requested new Steam keys, but was denied three times by Valve "without explanation". "I am just an indie [who] is trying hard," the exasperated developer wrote. "In the meantime my company is getting ruined by negative reviews, hateful comments, and bad publicity by pressing (non intentionally) on a single button."

Eventually, Valve responded. Although the company refused to undo the ban, it informed HyperReuts it would help them "explore other solutions". The solution, it seems, was to make the game temporarily free to play - but this brought a host of other problems.

If there's one thing the internet loves, it's free stuff, and the news Evolvation was free to play quickly spread on social media. The number of concurrent players rocketed up to nearly 180,000 overnight, leading to problems with logging in and choosing ships.



The developer was soon forced to issue yet another announcement.

"My server is not made for 180k people logging in at the same time so the servers are overloaded," HyperReuts explained earlier today. "We are upgrading the servers but we cannot act in a matter of hours. We hope this is fixed within 24 hours!"

Since the incredible player peak, the number of concurrent users has reduced significantly. It's probably for the best, as the two-person team explained it's unable to afford servers capable of handling hundreds of thousands of players.

The game may now be popular, but things aren't particularly rosy for the developer. As there are no extra monetisation features or DLC, the developer is currently not making any money from the game. This has been a problem for some time, as HyperReuts claims it's barely made $100 in revenue since the game's release.

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Talk about explosive growth.

In theory, the expanded playerbase should provide the developers with the possibility of introducing some monetisation options - but the team may have its hands full with server upgrades for some time.

Eurogamer contacted HyperReuts to ask about the developer's future plans for the game, and is waiting for a response.

From the comments the developer has made online, the team seems to be taking the episode in its stride. "I love the irony that nobody plays the game, however the moment I made a mistake I reach an audience bigger than I have ever got," one of team members explained. "This gives me the strength to develop further and make even more games, even though I make mistakes." Frankly, I'm not sure I could be that patient given the situation.

Be careful what you wish for, I guess.


https://steamcommunity.com/games/Evolvation/announcements/detail/1701689794999801989

Thank you
9 OCTOBER - HYPERREUTS

Hi there supporters,

My name is Eric Ruts. Together with a good friend I have created a game called Evolvation. During this exciting, but also exhausting two year development period, we finally launched the game out of early access. This is when we started to realize that the gaming market is undergoing an "indiepocalypse". There was sadly no way that the game would get anything near the attention and the amount of required players for a successful multiplayer game.

This was a major down set for us since our only goal was to let people enjoy themselves by playing a fun multiplayer to play with friends. Since my motivation is purely to create a game which is fun to play with friends I decided to not monetize the game by introducing game-destroying features like pay-to-win concepts. This however did not work since I am not able to reach a large audience.

The large part of our reviews are really positive and rewarding! Nearly all the negative reviews are about not having enough players online (and about how difficult the game is for noobs, haha). What a shame.

I really wanted the game to succeed so I asked my friend Jacob if he wanted to help me out with rebranding the game. So we worked hard to optimize the servers, reducing the game from 16gb to a quarter of that, testing new controls etc. We wanted to show this on the gamecon Firstlook to test out the Evolvation 2.0.

I once tried to boost the game by giving away 10.000 copies on SteamGifts. We chose to do this since we prioritize players having fun with our game instead of monetizing on it. We are just hobbyists. However, instead of playing most people used the keys for other purposes. I admit that I wanted to start our rebrand of the game with a clean slate so I made the stupid mistake to revoke the unredeemed keys and accidentally got the redeemed keys revoked to. I was spammed with hateful comments, negative reviews and accused of things like being “money hungry apes” and “scammer developers”. In minutes reddits and steamgifts forums exploded with these kind of things and I did not now what to do since it was never my intention to hurt anybody. I choked up and saw our work being destroyed in a matter of minutes… However, as soon I started to explain things and showed I wanted to do everything I possibly could I also got support of a lot of people which appreciated my honesty above all. Thank you very much for your support in this.

However, after multiple tries Steam did not provide me with new keys to resupply or help to release the pressure. So what to do? I already had chosen that I find it more important that people enjoy the game than to monetize it. So to solve the problem I made the decision to make the game completely free with the knowledge that I would not be able to monetize. So I contacted Steam to make this happen for me and they came through.

With all the negativity I encountered and have to deal with I really choked up and it made me feel very sad. However, I never expected that because of my honesty I also got a lot of positive feedback of you guys! That really made my day and am very grateful for that. And want to give you guys my deepest and heartfelt: “Thank you”. You guys make me believe again and encourage me to continue making games.

Feel free to try the game! But remember, the game is ridiculously difficult!

Spread the word and enjoy!

With the kindest regards,

Eric Ruts
Just a hobbyist

PS. I got a lot of requests to make a Patreon or another method to support us. I do not want to come over as a "money hungry ape" but to be honest all support is welcome. So I’ve created a PayPal button, it is the fastest thing I could come up with. So if you like the game, please consider supporting us. I am still paying server cost etc. With the money we would be able to improve the game, or even give us the possibility to continue in the gaming business. Thank you in advance!

Find the button here: https://www.evolvationthegame.com/thank-you/

Or try this link

https://www.paypal.com/webapps/shoppingcart?flowlogging_id=7b3a00b283950&mfid=1539110196532_7b3a00b283950#/checkout/openButton
 

Black

Arcane
Joined
May 8, 2007
Messages
1,872,592
As far as misclicks go this isn't so bad. Try moving next to your enemy instead of shooting them.
 
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