Admonition Against Ads

I abhor ads in and around my games. The thought disgusts me. I find it to be nearly unethnical and to be bad practice, in fact. Or at least, I am against counting on ads as a primary, sought-after source of revenue.

So let's begin.

Low Return
Comparative to a typical sold game, the exposure:return ratio is very low. I hear typical ad rates are 0.02 to 0.05 cents per click(0.0005 USD) or something to that effect. And what is the cost? Your site is now littered with ugly, disgusting ads. With the accessibility and freedom(of the user to not pay money) of this model comes a cost, and that cost is the aforementioned ugliness joined with the fact you are now stealing your user's time and attention, trying to obscure and distract them from what they came to you for.

Incentives
I believe that ads bring with them anti-consumer incentives, which is why I abhor them so sodding much. How do you get more ad money? More clicks! More ads! More site visits! Volume! I, as a game developer, am incentivized to produce a mass marketable, manipulative, disgustingly addicting games in order to quite honestly milk my playerbase for profit. I am incentivized to litter my site with more and more ads, and even go to such drastic measures as to include ad videos. That's absurd! That is so anti-consumer, so so so terribly anti-consumer.

I'd rather provide a quality service at a price point. Sacrificing the quality, the sanctity, of an experience and the user's time is disgusting. It's nothing but manipulating and milking them across the board. There is no respect there.

That is why I will avoid supporting the ad market with my games however possible.
Ethics, for the damn sodding win.

Conquest: Herb Garden

I finished it! I'm fairly satisfied with my completed project. It was very fun, and most evocatively tiring. I'll do a postmortem later once I've had more time to collect my thoughts

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=5175

Ludum Dare 48.. 23...10

I'm going to be participating in the Ludum Dare 48 Hour Rapid Game Prototyping Competition For Sexy Independent(nonexclusive) Game Developers #23 for the 10th anniversary of the event.

This is my first time participating in LD.
I might do a few "devlog" posts during development. Game will be posted upon completion.

The intention of this post is totally to obligate me to produce something.

More Beautifying

(click for full, as usual)

Yet more visual work. Fear not, lots more core game work goes on in the background, I'm just being a bit more discreet on that for now, mostly because a lot is still up in the air. But some pleasant surprises are in store as well.

Lizard Warrior Video

Please Join In!

I've made a little web app(or whatever you want to call it) to collect some statistics:

http://www.maninbluesweatshirt.com/lizardpoll/


It's a total data whoring experiment, but it should be fun and I should be able to make some pretty neat conclusions off of it.

Please participate, and thank you!

Why I've Loved Designing Lizard Warrior and Kyoto

(By the way, if you haven't heard, I'm working on Kyoto with Eddie Lee)

The other day I was sitting there, sipping some ginger ale(an indie developer not drinking coffee or tea? blasphemy!), and I thought to myself "damn, I love making these games." It was a really amazing feeling, of elation and excitement and joy.

And I wondered why.
I realized it was because I wasn't basing my game on genres, conventions, or tropes. I was just going for it. Doing what felt right. As a whole it's a liberating experience. I feel very free. My creative juices are gushing right now, dood.

I'm not aiming to innovate, or go "further" than other games--I'm just going my own thing, going in my own direction, designing my games with my own vision for what they could be in the end. Some elements are inspired by games before it, some inspired by any other manner of the things which have influences me in my life, and some simply a product of my ingenuity.

I feel like I'm building something unique and special. And it's great.