I won’t mention which game and creator this is (a game on itchio), as I don’t want witch hunt here. It’s an indie dev after all. If you saw the post "I watched an artist evolve from producing rough art to delivering elite, top-tier artwork” with NSFW content (the one with oversized boobies), then you know what I mean.
What makes me sad and angry is, that I pointed out it looks like Ai was involved in the art creation. The author of the post replied that only background and 10% of the art was created with Ai, and that the game is 50 hours long. Feels very much like it was the developer himself? After I replied with this is problematic, because this was explained only after I mentioned it. There was no Ai mentioned in the itchio page or the post.
What followed was, the post got deleted. I reached out to the Lemmy user and asked in a private message why it was deleted. Shortly after then the Lemmy account are got deleted too.
What to make out of this? I was not toxic in anyway and didn’t saw any toxic comments from others. I didn’t want an indie developer to disappear, if the work is honest and the game is fun. Just don’t hide things. How should a situation like these be handled in the future?
For the context, the post in question did not have any link. Links to games look always suspicious. I wonder why there was no link, if the sole purpose was a honest recommendation. My explanation for this is, it wasn’t honest (as you describe it), so their posts do not get flagged for spamming. Post explained in the middle somewhere the name of the game and on what platform to find.
On a different platform, Imgur, I have seen a different approach. They collect popular (old and new) memes and put them in a collection out. These are almost guaranteed to get upvotes and make it to the frontpage. Then with the popularity they edit link to the game page (or other links where they sell something). It’s frustrating.
There is probably a bias here, because you are a Lemmy user too. So people might have a personal interest into checking your blog.
As to deal with self-promotion, maybe have them a weekly thread dedicated to it? Because I’m getting nervous about the many advertisement posts made. But on the other hand, I personally like games too and want to recommend others. Which could be seen or misunderstood as advertisement, which in turn applies to other users too off course.
Tough choice. And tagging things like [Self-Promo] or [Recommendation] will get annoying.
I’d hate to say it like this, and I have an incredible amount of bias as someone who dabbles in indie game development, but allowing self-promotion posts tends to bring out some of the most hustle-culture indies there are. Even when contained to a weekly thread, it can get funky.
Plus I like the general not-advertisement-heavy atmosphere so far.