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hellomynameisbisexual · 3 years

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Here's a shortlist of those who realized that I — a cis woman who'd identified as heterosexual for decades of life — was in fact actually bi, long before I realized it myself recently: my sister, all my friends, my boyfriend, and the TikTok algorithm.

On TikTok, the relationship between user and algorithm is uniquely (even sometimes uncannily) intimate. An app which seemingly contains as many multitudes of life experiences and niche communities as there are people in the world, we all start in the lowest common denominator of TikTok. Straight TikTok (as it's popularly dubbed) initially bombards your For You Page with the silly pet videos and viral teen dances that folks who don't use TikTok like to condescendingly reduce it to.

Quickly, though, TikTok begins reading your soul like some sort of divine digital oracle, prying open layers of your being never before known to your own conscious mind. The more you use it, the more tailored its content becomes to your deepest specificities, to the point where you get stuff that's so relatable that it can feel like a personal attack (in the best way) or (more dangerously) even a harmful trigger from lifelong traumas.

For example: I don't know what dark magic (read: privacy violations) immediately clued TikTok into the fact that I was half-Brazilian, but within days of first using it, Straight TikTok gave way to at first Portuguese-speaking then broader Latin TikTok. Feeling oddly seen (being white-passing and mostly American-raised, my Brazilian identity isn't often validated), I was liberal with the likes, knowing that engagement was the surefire way to go deeper down this identity-affirming corner of the social app.

TikTok made lots of assumptions from there, throwing me right down the boundless, beautiful, and oddest multiplicities of Alt TikTok, a counter to Straight TikTok's milquetoast mainstreamness.

Home to a wide spectrum of marginalized groups, I was giving out likes on my FYP like Oprah, smashing that heart button on every type of video: from TikTokers with disabilities, Black and Indigenous creators, political activists, body-stigma-busting fat women, and every glittering shade of the LGBTQ cornucopia. The faves were genuine, but also a way to support and help offset what I knew about the discriminatory biases in TikTok's algorithm.

My diverse range of likes started to get more specific by the minute, though. I wasn't just on general Black TikTok anymore, but Alt Cottagecore Middle-Class Black Girl TikTok (an actual label one creator gave her page's vibes). Then it was Queer Latina Roller Skating Girl TikTok, Women With Non-Hyperactive ADHD TikTok, and then a double whammy of Women Loving Women (WLW) TikTok alternating between beautiful lesbian couples and baby bisexuals.

Looking back at my history of likes, the transition from queer “ally” to “salivating simp” is almost imperceptible.

There was no one precise "aha" moment. I started getting "put a finger down" challenges that wouldn't reveal what you were putting a finger down for until the end. Then, 9-fingers deep (winkwink), I'd be congratulated for being 100% bisexual. Somewhere along the path of getting served multiple WLW Disney cosplays in a single day and even dom lesbian KinkTok roleplay — or whatever the fuck Bisexual Pirate TikTok is — deductive reasoning kind of spoke for itself.

But I will never forget the one video that was such a heat-seeking missile of a targeted attack that I was moved to finally text it to my group chat of WLW friends with a, "Wait, am I bi?" To which the overwhelming consensus was, "Magic 8 Ball says, 'Highly Likely.'"

Serendipitously posted during Pride Month, the video shows a girl shaking her head at the caption above her head, calling out confused and/or closeted queers who say shit like, "I think everyone is a LITTLE bisexual," to the tune of "Closer" by The Chainsmokers. When the lyrics land on the word "you," she points straight at the screen — at me — her finger and inquisitive look piercing my hopelessly bisexual soul like Cupid's goddamn arrow.

Oh no, the voice inside my head said, I have just been mercilessly perceived.

As someone who had, in fact, done feminist studies at a tiny liberal arts college with a gender gap of about 70 percent women, I'd of course dabbled. I've always been quick to bring up the Kinsey scale, to champion a true spectrum of sexuality, and to even declare (on multiple occasions) that I was, "straight, but would totally fuck that girl!"

Oh no, the voice inside my head returned, I've literally just been using extra words to say I was bi.

After consulting the expertise of my WLW friend group (whose mere existence, in retrospect, also should've clued me in on the flashing neon pink, purple, and blue flag of my raging bisexuality), I ran to my boyfriend to inform him of the "news."

"Yeah, baby, I know. We all know," he said kindly.

"How?!" I demanded.

Well for one, he pointed out, every time we came across a video of a hot girl while scrolling TikTok together, I'd without fail watch the whole way through, often more than once, regardless of content. (Apparently, straight girls do not tend to do this?) For another, I always breathlessly pointed out when we'd pass by a woman I found beautiful, often finding a way to send a compliment her way. ("I'm just a flirt!" I used to rationalize with a hand wave, "Obvs, I'm not actually sexually attracted to them!") Then, I guess, there were the TED Talk-like rants I'd subject him to about the thinly veiled queer relationship in Adventure Time between Princess Bubblegum and Marcelyne the Vampire Queen — which the cowards at Cartoon Network forced creators to keep as subtext!

And, well, when you lay it all out like that...

But my TikTok-fueled bisexual awakening might actually speak less to the omnipotence of the app's algorithm, and more to how heteronormativity is truly one helluva drug.

Sure, TikTok bombarded me with the thirst traps of my exact type of domineering masc lady queers, who reduced me to a puddle of drool I could no longer deny. But I also recalled a pivotal moment in college when I briefly questioned my heterosexuality, only to have a lesbian friend roll her eyes and chastise me for being one of those straight girls who leads Actual Queer Women on. I figured she must know better. So I never pursued any of my lady crushes in college, which meant I never experimented much sexually, which made me conclude that I couldn't call myself bisexual if I'd never had actual sex with a woman. I also didn't really enjoy lesbian porn much, though the fact that I'd often find myself fixating on the woman during heterosexual porn should've clued me into that probably coming more from how mainstream lesbian porn is designed for straight men.

The ubiquity of heterormativity, even when unwittingly perpetrated by members of the queer community, is such an effective self-sustaining cycle. Aside from being met with queer-gating (something I've since learned bi folks often experience), I had a hard time identifying my attraction to women as genuine attraction, simply because it felt different to how I was attracted to men.

Heteronormativity is truly one helluva drug.

So much of women's sexuality — of my sexuality — can feel defined by that carnivorous kind of validation you get from men. I met no societal resistance in fully embodying and exploring my desire for men, either (which, to be clear, was and is insatiable slut levels of wanting that peen.) But in retrospect, I wonder how many men I slept with not because I was truly attracted to them, but because I got off on how much they wanted me.

My attraction to women comes with a different texture of eroticism. With women (and bare with a baby bi, here), the attraction feels more shared, more mutual, more tender rather than possessive. It's no less raw or hot or all-consuming, don't get me wrong. But for me at least, it comes more from a place of equality rather than just power play. I love the way women seem to see right through me, to know me, without us really needing to say a word.

I am still, as it turns out, a sexual submissive through-and-through, regardless of what gender my would-be partner is. But, ignorantly and unknowingly, I'd been limiting my concept of who could embody dominant sexual personas to cis men. But when TikTok sent me down that glorious rabbit hole of masc women (who know exactly what they're doing, btw), I realized my attraction was not to men, but a certain type of masculinity. It didn't matter which body or genitalia that presentation came with.

There is something about TikTok that feels particularly suited to these journeys of sexual self-discovery and, in the case of women loving women, I don't think it's just the prescient algorithm. The short-form video format lends itself to lightning bolt-like jolts of soul-bearing nakedness, with the POV camera angles bucking conventions of the male gaze, which entrenches the language of film and TV in heterosexual male desire.

In fairness to me, I'm far from the only one who missed their inner gay for a long time — only to have her pop out like a queer jack-in-the-box throughout a near year-long quarantine that led many of us to join TikTok. There was the baby bi mom, and scores of others who no longer had to publicly perform their heterosexuality during lockdown — only to realize that, hey, maybe I'm not heterosexual at all?

Flooded with video after video affirming my suspicions, reflecting my exact experiences as they happened to others, the change in my sexual identity was so normalized on TikTok that I didn't even feel like I needed to formally "come out." I thought this safe home I'd found to foster my baby bisexuality online would extend into the real world.

But I was in for a rude awakening.

Testing out my bisexuality on other platforms, casually referring to it on Twitter, posting pictures of myself decked out in a rainbow skate outfit (which I bought before realizing I was queer), I received nothing but unquestioning support and validation. Eventually, I realized I should probably let some members of my family know before they learned through one of these posts, though.

Daunted by the idea of trying to tell my Latina Catholic mother and Swiss Army veteran father (who's had a crass running joke about me being a "lesbian" ever since I first declared myself a feminist at age 12), I chose the sibling closest to me. Seeing as how gender studies was one of her majors in college too, I thought it was a shoo-in. I sent an off-handed, joke-y but serious, "btw I'm bi now!" text, believing that's all that would be needed to receive the same nonchalant acceptance I found online.

It was not.

I didn't receive a response for two days. Hurt and panicked by what was potentially my first mild experience of homophobia, I called them out. They responded by insisting we need to have a phone call for such "serious" conversations. As I calmly tried to express my hurt on said call, I was told my text had been enough to make this sibling worry about my mental wellbeing. They said I should be more understanding of why it'd be hard for them to (and I'm paraphrasing) "think you were one way for twenty-eight years" before having to contend with me deciding I was now "something else."

But I wasn't "something else," I tried to explain, voice shaking. I hadn't knowingly been deceiving or hiding this part of me. I'd simply discovered a more appropriate label. But it was like we were speaking different languages. Other family members were more accepting, thankfully. There are many ways I'm exceptionally lucky, my IRL environment as supportive as Baby Bi TikTok. Namely, I'm in a loving relationship with a man who never once mistook any of it as a threat, instead giving me all the space in the world to understand this new facet of my sexuality.

I don't have it all figured out yet. But at least when someone asks if I listen to Girl in Red on social media, I know to answer with a resounding, "Yes," even though I've never listened to a single one of her songs. And for now, that's enough.

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madfantasy · 3 years

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Dear blogging

How are you today? Sending all the good vibes towards you. I feel much at ease as I had payed for Internet last minute just now (its thanks to you🙏💛) and happy to say Mani will be with you for another month🌟

(Just a small reminder I'm open for commissions to save up for the next one🍀)

Im just going to blab bout life and me art as usual, if you graciously don't mind c':

☆ I'm much at ease, it's the raining seasons in the bare deserts and I'm loving it(Actually, just came in from losing it a bit under the rain, heh) Not the part where it leaked into my carpeted room whilst getting fiercer :' I'm not particularly fond of cold weather, either. I almost enter dull stage of hibernation, being tightly wrapped with blankets and constantly breathing in cold air. I like to muse being born on December does a cold blooded creature make, hehe. But the quiet is much appreciated. They are almost drowsy all the time and I've got the chance to listened to lots of Hercule Poirot. Ironically my last random chapter was him having an old fashioned English Christmas, and it gave me a crave for puddings I haven't got the slightest idea how they taste lo'

I've missed the sun for almost a month and a half now, in much arguments over restricting the yard at first, but now it was a sleep issue. I finally woken up today to see the sun and felt very much.. "yes, I'm in my element " brighter feel

Speaking of which; I dedicate this song for you dears 💛💛🔥

youtube

And also this bug i found if ur interested

☆ I've also, naturally, been sketch-storming with my new tablet! I was simply tittering over all the new discoveries I've been making, while also being gobsmacked at how much painfully sore some side are lacking, and some I had no clue what I'm supposed to do with it, like confused grumpy grand-er

For example;

I love how crystal clear it is, but I guess I can now see the brush's repeating circle pixel and pattern which makes it too artificial for my taste and hender my trust in making strokes. I suppose its nice to zoom out just to be sure my process is fine or whatever idk :'

The softwares DO NOT lag when the canvas is big! Ugh, means I can fatten up the size of my pictures easily. But that's surely eats up the storage, and I found out last minute that ipad doesn't have sd slots, unless you have to buy an adapter. Which is the main lack in this stuff. Everything costs. You want to sneeze while holding the tablet? You can't till u buy a permit.

So yeah, my favourite drawing program there, Clip Studio Paint, is can only used by annual/ monthly subscription licence, while its one-time licences is only for windows, means having to by different licences for different systems. So I'm using the free month trail to get by for now, so be sure to read carefully which on is which before purchasing. ProCreate is a one time purchase, tho. And it has TIME LAPS VIDS idk why I go crazy but I love the fact that I can record my art with no effort or pause (cuz I can never sit 1 hr continuously, honestly), and you can see my horribly-edited vid practices on tiktok or insta as @MadFantasy_ . But as we were saying, they even more double storage intake hehe. Love how ridiculously fancy the lines smoothing on it, I can act up as a calligrapher easy and I'm a joke at it! Also I'm thinking of trying Craft Pro as well, is a one time purchase too. Will go through it in details when I cover all the corners cx

"Are you with me or are we together "

Sharing files between my pc and ipad is too much work, found an easy way I'm loving already, go to SnapeDrop dot net on both pc and ipad and basically all the devices on your network can share stuff! Instead of me pluging it and turning the app or sending by mail, ugh

If you're used to shortcuts, good luck being fast on it unless you get a keyboard, or in my case, screen on keyboard im looking an app for, and by mentioning apps

Regional restrictions, I couldn't download tumblr cause its not available in my region 8L

And alot of other things to be expected, really with more to share if its not much of an annoyance cx

I hope days brings you more ease and what much you desire my dears, happy everything you celebrate 🌋🔥🔥💛🙌

Always sending my love

Mani

3.12.2020 8 pm

#text #drawing journal #personal #Youtube

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silver-wield · 3 years

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Are you learning Japanese or would like to? I've been feeling inspired to myself after my friend surprised me with the Kiki's Delivery Service artbook (so thoughtful ❤), but am electing to use a translation app for now.

I'm actually really bad with languages, but I love learning about different cultures, so it sucks being me sometimes lol

I don't mind relying on machine translations or reliable people explaining things cause it's better to acknowledge a weakness than act like I know better than native speakers cause I happened to pick up a few words.

I've used several apps on the AC reunion files and compared them to the official translations and they're pretty decent. I also wouldn't post those machine translations without the original so other people can double check if they like. I think translators who only post their translation without the original are very suspect. It's like they're trying to hoard the info and prevent other people verifying what they've said.

Very sus...

I bet the art book is pretty! Studio Ghibli always makes everything so pretty, it's like watching a moving painting. So wholesome and cute ❤️

#For me?

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hudders-and-hiddles · 6 years

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Hi, I just wanted to ask you about the MoviePass thing? Apparently I've been living under a rock or something because its the first I've heard of it. I've read a few articles on it, but I was hoping to get some insight from just a customer. Do you think its worth it? Have you had any issues with it? Because it all seems really convenient and that seems too good to be true. Thanks in advance!

Hi! Yes, I’m more than happy to give you some insight into my MoviePass experience. There are definite benefits and drawbacks, but for me personally, I do think it’s been worth it overall, though that could certainly change in the future. Most of the drawbacks for me are potential future issues rather than current ones: I’ve read a lot about where they want to go with all of this, and I could definitely foresee a point at which I might cancel my subscription, but for now I have largely been satisfied with using it in the way that it is currently set up.

I want to give you a really thorough response to your questions here, and in addition to talking about the practicalities of the subscription, it’s going to involve telling you probably more about MoviePass’s business model than you really wanted to know. But you wanted to know if it’s too good to be true or not, and I think that model is largely where the answer lies. I apologize about the length in advance…

Cost and frequency of use

I absolutely love going to the movies, and I typically go alone, which is basically the ideal situation for someone to benefit from a MoviePass subscription. The card can only be used by one person, so if you typically go to the movies with a friend or partner, they would also need their own subscription. At this point, I am going to the movies about once a week, so in an average month I’m going to probably see around 4 movies with my subscription at a total cost of $9.95, which is what the subscription price was when I signed up. (Currently, they’re running a promotion where it’s only $6.95 a month if you pay it as an annual lump sum–it’s $7.95 if you pay per month instead.) As a comparison, during the three months before I got my card in the mail, I saw ten movies at a total cost of $105. Two of those were IMAX showings, which wouldn’t have been eligible for MoviePass, so my total cost if I’d had my subscription then would have been $60.63 (3 months x $9.95, plus $15.39 each for the IMAX showings). Saving 45-ish dollars over the course of those three months wouldn’t have made a huge difference in my wallet obviously, but it’s not nothing either–who wouldn’t take an extra $15 a month if someone handed it to them?

Most people don’t go to the movies that frequently, however, so the savings may not be that great. MoviePass has actually been around since 2011, at various pricing structures, and they’ve found that frequency of attendance seems to be related to the subscription price, which makes sense. The more you pay, the more you’re going to use it to make sure you’re getting your money’s worth. They believe that most subscribers will only see about one movie a month at the current price point, and if that’s true, most people aren’t really losing any money from a subscription, but they aren’t really saving anything either. This also really makes me the kind of subscriber MoviePass doesn’t want–someone paying them less than $10 a month to see 4 or 5 movies–but I’m perfectly happy to take advantage of their pricing structure for my own benefit. The benefit you see is definitely going to relate to how often you go and how sustainable that is, too. Even if you go four times the first month you have it, will that eventually taper off?

Some of the cost benefit also depends on when and where you go to the movies, too, though. Back when I was fresh out of undergrad, I decided I wanted to see a movie a week in theaters for an entire year, and so I did, typically going to Sunday morning matinees each week at a cost of $5 a ticket. If MoviePass had been a thing back then, it probably still would have been worth it (that’s still about 10 bucks a month saved), but if you only go once a month and you typically go to matinees, it may work out to cost you more. With my subscription now, however, I’ve been going to Friday night showings, when tickets are $10.99 at my preferred theater, so even one ticket would cost me more than I’m paying per month. If you live in a bigger city, those tickets may cost even more. You just have to look at the costs for yourself and see how much, if any, you’ll actually save there.

Putting your [MoviePass’s] money to work

Another benefit for me is that I’m also seeing more movies now than I probably would have otherwise. Late winter/early spring is usually a bit slower for me, with less out that I want to see, but since almost everything I see after the first movie each month is essentially free, I can take a chance on things I might have waited to try to catch on Netflix or elsewhere (I’m going to come back around to talk more about how this fits into their business model later). MoviePass has referred to this as essentially being “bad movie insurance.” You can take a chance on something, and if you don’t like it, it’s not a big deal because you didn’t really pay for it. So far I haven’t gone to see anything that I would really have considered a risk as to whether or not I would at least somewhat like it, but I have used it to see things I probably wouldn’t have spent my own money to see in theaters. For instance, I went to see a well-reviewed French film at my local art cinema one night earlier this week that I probably would have just waited to watch at home at some point if I could find it, but since it was free to me, hey why not go check it out? Out of the five movies I’ve seen in the last month, I probably would have only gone to two or three of them without the subscription, so getting to see more movies has definitely been a nice bonus.

As a diversity-related sidenote here, I think one of the biggest benefits to seeing more movies than I might otherwise is that I can help generate revenue for the kind of films that I want to see more of. Sometimes in the past a film premise didn’t interest me quite enough to spend my own money on it, but I wished I could support the people making it somehow anyway. Now I can use my MoviePass to do that. The five movies I’ve seen so far this month were a big budget Disney film directed by a black woman, a big studio romcom about a gay teenager, a foreign film about gay men, a foreign film about a trans woman, and a sci-fi film where the five main cast members were women, two of whom were women of color, and one of their characters was a lesbian. It was a really nice mix of films. Now obviously every month probably isn’t going to look like that [unfortunately], but I am happy to have the chance to throw MoviePass’s dollars at films created by, starring, and/or about non-white, non-male, non-cis, and non-straight people whenever possible. We need more of that, and the only way to convince the studios to make more of it is to buy tickets.

Speaking of tickets, let me also note here that the theaters are still getting paid the full price of these tickets [right now], so they’re not losing out on that revenue, which is particularly important for supporting your local mom and pop or arthouse theater. Now if you know anything about the way theaters work, you’ll know that little revenue is actually made on ticket sales–most of it is made on concessions which is why those typically cost so much–so your local theater isn’t making a bunch extra off of you using your subscription. But it’s also very much not hurting your local theater if you choose to use your card there. MoviePass isn’t paying them some discounted price for your ticket, so the theater is making the same off of you that they would make off of anyone else. This means you can help to support local business with your subscription the same way you would with your own money, and if you see even more movies there now, in the long run small, local theaters could definitely see a boost from this.

Customer service

Ok, so, cost and frequency and the ability to more generously support some causes I care about make the subscription a win for me personally, but obviously there are also drawbacks. Let’s start with my experience in getting my card, which nearly made me cancel my subscription before I even saw my first movie.

When you sign up, they tell you it typically takes about two weeks for you to receive your card. Two weeks come and go, and I have no card. I look in the app, and I notice that my address on file is missing my apartment number (which I remember double-checking when I signed up, so I know I entered it). I try updating it in the app, and every time I add my apartment number to it, it deletes it again and leaves just the rest of my street address. Ok, so clearly there’s some kind of glitch in their system and, putting two and two together, I decide this is probably why I haven’t received my card. Not a huge deal–I’ll just reach out to customer service and get another one sent. There’s a chat feature in the app for contacting customer service. I send them a message, 24 hours come and go, and no response. I send them an email through their website instead. 48 hours come and go, and no response. Now I’m really irritated, so I take to publicly shaming them for their poor customer service on Twitter, and within probably 20 minutes, I get a reply telling me to DM them with my issue. Finally got their attention, though it’s sad I had to resort to that tactic, but ok, here we go, I tell them the problem, they update my address manually and say they’ll send me a new card.

Two more weeks come and go, and of course, I still have no card. I have to DM them twice more on Twitter to get them to respond, at which point I get a different customer service agent who is basically like, sorry, that person didn’t send it when they should have and we’re sending it for real now. Major eye roll.

At this point I definitely had to stop and consider whether or not the subscription was actually worth it because their customer service was not giving me great confidence. (One saving grace of their subscription model here is that your first month doesn’t actually start until you activate your card, so I wasn’t paying extra subscription fees while I waited for the card to arrive, which is a large part of the reason I decided to stick it out.) Finally, now that it’s been six weeks since I signed up, I get my card in the mail. But of course, the card number showing in the app doesn’t match (it’s probably the first card they sent), so I have to contact customer service yet again to have them update the card number. I email them through the website again just to give that another go, and this time I get a response in just a couple hours, thankfully, and then everything is good to go.

So my initial experience with their customer service team was a bit hairy, but I have had no problems at all using the card and haven’t had to contact them since then. Another part of the reason that I held on instead of cancelling is that all the other people I know who also have a subscription have said that in the rare instances that they’ve had an issue using their card somewhere, they’ve been able to contact customer service and get it taken care of in time to still make the showing they were trying to go to. I haven’t had any problems with the card yet, so I don’t have experience with that part myself, but everyone else I’ve talked to about it only had good things to say about their customer service experiences. My impression from reading around about it is that their customer base has grown more quickly than their customer service capabilities, and it looks like most of their employees and resources must be going toward dealing with pressing issues, like people who are standing at the theater and unable to use their card, rather than things that can wait a little longer, like shipping a new customer their card. That’s my impression at least–I don’t have any solid source to really back that up–but it does seem from anecdotal data that their customer service has been getting better in recent months compared to what it once was (or maybe that’s wishful thinking). I can only hope they keep improving.

Quirks of the service

There are a few other things that could potentially be drawbacks for others, though I find them to be minor inconveniences at worst. Unless you live somewhere that offers e-ticketing through the MoviePass app (there are only three or four theater chains that offer it so far, none of which operate where I live), you cannot buy tickets online in advance. At most, you could go to the theater in the morning and purchase a ticket for a showing that evening, but you would still have to physically go to the theater to do that. And I believe that even if you have an e-ticketing theater, you can still only buy same-day tickets; the difference is just that you can buy them from home before you leave.

The way it works when you want to go to a movie [at a regular, non e-ticketing theater] is that you pull up the app on your phone, find your theater, and check in for the showtime you want to attend. Then MoviePass will load the cost of the ticket onto your card, which is essentially just a regular MasterCard debit card, and you go to the box office and purchase your ticket with it. The finer details of how that works though are that you have to be within 100 yards of the theater before you check in, and you have 30 minutes from the time you check in to purchase your ticket. Therefore, you can’t check in from home and go to the theater whenever–you have to already be there. Checking in also doesn’t reserve you a ticket in any way; it essentially just lets MoviePass know how much money they need to load onto your card, so in theory you could decide to go to a showing and then when you go to buy a ticket, it’s sold out. If that happens, you can easily switch your check-in in the app to a different film or showtime, but it could certainly be annoying to get there and not be able to attend the showing you were planning to go to.

None of this has been a problem at all for me, but I know from reading things online that some people have found it to be inconvenient. Typically, I drive to the theater and check in from my car in the parking lot, and by the time I walk to the box office, the card is loaded and ready to go. I haven’t seen anything yet that I thought might sell out, and I also always get to the theater really early, which cuts down on those kinds of issues. Before I got my subscription, I did usually buy my tickets online in advance, but for most showings it doesn’t really make a difference if I have to wait and buy it the day of. If there’s something that I still feel the need to buy in advance, it’s probably a big event movie like Black Panther, which I saw in IMAX and wouldn’t have been able to use my subscription for anyway. And I personally wouldn’t have a problem paying for that occasional ticket separately even for a showing that would have been covered for my subscription, just for the benefit of knowing that I would for sure have a ticket.

Related to that, you can’t use your card to see any movies that have an upcharge of any sort–no 3D, no IMAX, no Fathom Events, etc. The amount that loads onto your card is just the typical price of a standard ticket for that time of day, so you won’t be able to use it on anything that costs more than that. I do really like to go to Fathom Events showings, so that is sort of a drawback, but I also get why they wouldn’t cover those things in their current model. Case in point: I was thinking about going to go see the Fathom Events screening of Julius Caesar on Thursday, and it was $24 for a ticket. If I were them, I wouldn’t pay for you to go to that either, lol.

The future of MoviePass

All of this brings me around to my last set of points. In terms of doing what it says it does–allowing you to see one standard, 2D movie a day, every single day, for a low monthly cost–I think MoviePass is great. You said in your question that it seems too good to be true, and at the moment I would say that it really and absolutely is that good.

But that’s going to change.

If everything stayed exactly the way that it is now, this business model would be completely untenable. From all indications, MoviePass is basically bleeding money. They have around 2 million subscribers (projected to grow to 5 million by the end of 2018), and if the majority of them are seeing even just one movie a month with the company paying the theaters the full ticket price on each of those transactions, with some customers like me seeing several more, they’re clearly operating at a loss. They even fully admit that they’re not making money right now. So what is their goal? How do they plan to make money off of this?

First of all, there’s your data. Since everything is done through the app, they’re collecting all kinds of data about when you go to the movies and where and what you see. They know your address, so they know how far you’re willing to drive to see a movie. They know what theaters are closer to you that you pass up in favor of going to the one you prefer. They know how early you arrive before the showing. They know if you’re more likely to see an action movie or a drama or a comedy when you go to a movie on a Tuesday night. They know how long the average subscriber waits after a movie comes out before they go to see it. I’ve seen conflicting reports about their GPS tracking, but they may know where you go directly after you leave the theater, whether that’s back home or to dinner or wherever. They’re getting all kinds of insight into the moviegoing experiences of their subscribers, and you and I both know they’re absolutely selling that data to theater chains, to studios and distributors, to whoever wants to know about putting butts into movie theater seats. Clearly I don’t consider this enough of a drawback for me not to subscribe–basically who isn’t collecting and selling your data at this point?–but if you’re someone much more concerned about that kind of thing, obviously this may be a make or break point for you.

They’re also going to use that data for their own purposes to promote particular theaters or particular showings or particular movies over others, giving them a couple ways of using that data themselves to make money. First, they have started to co-purchase films. They know what their subscribers like to watch, so they can buy films they know you would want to see, and then they have the means already in place to promote those films directly to you. Earlier I said I’d come back to the idea of seeing movies you otherwise might not see in theaters. This is where that comes in to play for MoviePass’s bottom line. Even if it’s not a movie that you would typically make the effort to see in theaters, they promote it enough that you think, eh why not, it’s basically free. When you check it out, now a portion of the ticket revenue is going right back to MoviePass, which helps to balance out the money they’re losing on other ticket sales. Then if the movie is any good, that improves word of mouth, more non-subscribers go to see it, and even more money goes into MoviePass’s pockets. On top of that, they get a part of the dvd/digital sales, too.

I think that this is something to keep an eye on–the kinds of things that they purchase and how they go about promoting them, particularly in terms of what’s happened recently with social media, where political influences have been made to extents that we’re really just beginning to comprehend. Now I’m not overly worried about it, and I’m not saying that MoviePass is going to turn into the propaganda arm of a foreign entity–I think it’s ultimately not going to be any more insidious than Netflix or Hulu in terms of promoting its own content over others–but it is obviously still important to look at the types of films they’re buying and/or promoting as they get further involved in that part of their business. As their subscriptions grow, they will have a lot of power to influence what we see and when we see it, both for films they have purchased and films that distributors have paid them to promote, and as consumers, we always need to be critical of the hows and the whys of what anyone is promoting.

The other way they want to make money is from the theaters, and what they want is a discount on tickets and, ideally, a cut of concession sales. As I mentioned earlier, concessions are where theaters make their money, and MoviePass wants a portion of it in return for driving more traffic to their doors. Their subscribers as a whole go to the movies more often and tend to spend more money on concessions as well (if you didn’t really pay for a ticket, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal to then drop $5 on a coke or popcorn), so as their customer base grows, they will have more power to bargain with the big theater chains over it. If AMC, for instance, isn’t interested in cutting MoviePass a deal, maybe some of their busier showtimes disappear from the app. Maybe some of their more popular theaters no longer appear. Maybe the card is no longer valid at AMC at all. MoviePass already knows from all that data they’re collecting that there’s a Regal or a Cinemark across town that their subscribers are willing to drive to if they can use their card there instead, so they can choose to withhold their customers’ business from AMC in whatever ways they want. Right now, their customer base is still small enough that this isn’t going to have a huge effect, but if the numbers continue to grow, they’re going to reach a tipping point where they can begin to put that kind of pressure on the theater chains. It’s really just a matter of when that’s going to happen, not if.

Final thoughts

At the end of the day, I think that if you typically see more than one movie a month, it’s probably worth giving it a go. You can cancel at any time if you decide it’s no longer worth it (you’re barred from signing up again for 9 months after cancelling, btw, in case that’s a concern). For me, signing up was really a question of why not? Why not give it a try? At the moment, it’s still a free-for-all in terms of where and when you can use your card. That means there are 16 theaters within 15 miles of my flat where I can use the card for any showtime of any standard film, as frequently as once a day.

I have one theater that I choose to go to on a regular basis, even though it’s not the closest one to where I live, because I like the theater itself–it’s always decently clean, the seats are in good shape, the screens are a nice size even in the smaller theaters, and there’s a bar so I can buy a drink and take it in with me, lol. The only reason I would go to a different theater right now is if there’s something they’re not showing. That’s pretty rare–typically it’s either that something is playing at the art cinema and nowhere else, or on occasion there’s a Fathom Events screening they don’t get but a different theater does.

But if MoviePass suddenly offered only half the showings I wanted to see there and I couldn’t go at the times I wanted, or perhaps I could no longer use my card there at all, the question becomes, would I switch theaters to keep using my subscription? It’s almost a guarantee that at some point in the not-too-distant future MoviePass is going to ask me to make that choice. They’re going to test the waters with the theaters (and by extension, their subscribers), and some will get on board and some won’t. And the truth is that I don’t yet know my answer. I don’t know yet where I would draw the line between saving money and having a greater choice.

But until that time comes–and it may be coming sooner rather than later–I am more than happy to use their willingness to hemorrhage money to save some of my own.

Sources

I’ve read a ton about the service both before and since I signed up, so I may have referenced something not linked below. I think these cover most of the businessy points though:

https://www.moviepass.com/

https://www.wired.com/story/moviepass-second-act/

https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/how-does-moviepass-make-money

https://www.cinemablend.com/news/1704512/how-moviepass-plans-to-make-money-despite-cheap-rates

One final note: there is a competitor to MoviePass called Sinemia. If you typically see a lot of 3D or IMAX showings, or if you typically go with someone else, you might want to check them out. I don’t know a ton about them, but I do know that they allow you to see [at least some] films with upcharges, they offer a couples plan, and I think they allow you to buy tickets in advance. They do, however, limit you to a set number of movies each month depending on how much you pay (I think you can choose between 2 and 3, iirc). It could be something to check out if that suits your viewing habits.

Edited to add: Check to see if your theater of choice has a rewards program and whether or not you can still use it with MoviePass. Some have disallowed it, but not all. Currently, I’m earning rewards points for every movie that I go to with my subscription, which I can then put toward concessions or tickets to the kinds of screenings MoviePass doesn’t cover.

#natsinsanity #replies #wow that got stupid long and i'm sorry about that #i had a lot of thoughts lol #anyway i hope that helps somehow #feel free to ask more questions if there's something i didn't cover or you want to know more about #moviepass #not sherlock

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hollowedskin · 7 years

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hollow, my OT wants me to go into private hospital inpatient for PTSD. i've previously suffered psychiatric abuse in the public system and hospitals really scare me. i think i remember you go through private, so can you tell me any encouraging things about private hospital? or warnings i guess if there aren't encouraging things to say. can you take your phone with you and still have the internet? being isolated was terrible. sorry if this is an invasive question i'm just scared.

hey no, its fine psych hospital review website here if you wanted to check out patient feedback for where you’re looking to go. just keep in mind that it’s new so i dont think it has a very comprehensive list yet.

ive (thankfully) never been in a public mental health hospital but a lot of the ppl in my ward have been and from what they say there is an enormous difference between the two, at least in Australia.

it also makes a difference if you’re involuntary or not. if you go into a private hospital voluntarily, you’re not being kept there against ur will and you have access to a lot more freedoms like day leave. They have to put procedures in place to take those away and make you involuntary and thats in the event of a crisis. But if you’re a voluntary patient you can choose the duration of your stay (they will have reccomendations but thats different) and they cant keep you if you dont want to be there any more.

I can only tell you about my experiences with the hospital I go to, since im fortunate enough to not have to had moved around a lot. My psychiatrist at the time referred me to a really good one first off.

Wifi depends on hospital to hospital. The first few times I was in there was no ward wifi, but they didn’t take your phone or your laptop or any internet dongle things you brought in. You could use data and the rooms had landline phones and you could make free local calls whenever you wanted. The hospital I am in has wifi now and I’ve noticed most of the private hospitals I’ve been to for surgery in the last two years now have patient wifi where they didn’t before.they may take your charging cables since they’re a hanging risk, (mine bases it on your case) but some places i’ve visited friends in also let you coil them up and zip tie them so they’re no longer a big string.

Being isolated is going to be bad for your mental health so they tend to encourage visitors, day leave on the weekends and for you to interact with other patients, where I go there are art groups, music groups, gym, walking and some other stuff as well as the mental health workshops we do as part of group therapy.

As for advice, first i would reccomend trying to get a single room if you have PTSD. You don’t want to share with a stranger. Where I go they don’t make our ward share bc its a disaster, but they do have double rooms so i think its an option or was an option in the general wards.

Second would be bring everything and anything you think of as a comfort. soft things, pillows, plush toys, terrariums, fairy lights if you’re allowed cords or LED candles if u aren’t, colourful bedspreads, art supplies, books, a variety of nice soaps and body washes to make showering a bit more bearable.Call them up before u go with a list of things ur planning on bringing and ask if ur allowed, or get a visitor to drop things like plants and decorations off after u have arrived.It’s really distressing for me to return to my room after a heavy session with my psychiatrist and it doesn’t look like home. I can’t feel safe or wind down when its a stark white hospital room. And i’ve found that decorating my space helps claim it as mine and kind of carve out a little area of calm when u might not have too much privacy.

You might want to get noise cancelling headphones so u can sleep, or check out this white noise app because the nurses will have to check on you anywhere from every 15 mins to every 2 hours, and hearing them come in can stress a lot of people out even tho they try to be quiet in the night.

the other thing i would do is bring a journal and record everything that happens. Most of my experiences have been good, but sometimes u get fuckery just like in every other place. I’m particularly succeptible to gaslighting, and my dissociation makes it hard to keep track of memories, so every time something goes wrong or I have an altercation with anyone I record it in case it turns into a pattern and I need my notes.

I also write daily diary entries because i’ve found i tend to forget what has happened in hospital when i’m out, and what happens from visit to visit, since we do a lot of trauma work and it freaks my brain out. It’s important to be able to remember what we have worked on and what revelations i’ve made and what advice i’ve been given so I write it all down in a book every time i go.

good luck

#long post #psych ward advice #mental health hospitals #tw suicide #Anonymous #tw hospitalization #tw medical #tw institutionalization #psychiatric ward #psych ward #answered asks

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symbianosgames · 7 years

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The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

Welcome to the Meganoid(2017) post-mortem. This post-mortem goes into the details on the Meganoid figures and stats. Without context the stats are pretty much silly numbers, so please make sure to read all of this because there is more to the numbers than you might think.

So I'll keep this short, if you want to learn more about who I am, please check out my techblog and website. I've been a full-time (indie) developer since 2004. Mostly known for mobile games, but since 2015 also branching to PC games and even some consoles releases here and there (PS Vita and 3DS). I've never had hit games that made me millions, but I have been doing very decent for many years releasing games that have found a growing fan-base in a niche area. My biggest titles include the Gunslugs and Heroes of Loot series of games and Space Grunts.

The original Meganoid was released in 2010 on Android and iOS and was a very hard platformer with short levels that sometimes had you screaming if you didn't manage to reach the finish. For me it was a turning point in my games as I finally decided to just build games like that since those are the games I love the most. Luckily I found a niche that works for me and an audience that has been growing alongside me and my games. It also managed to reach close to a million downloads since.

Meganoid(2017) is a reboot of the franchise lifts a lot on the designs behind Spelunky, while still maintaining the difficulty of the original Meganoid game. I named it a "love child of Spelunky and Meat-boy in space", which is a very clear description of what the game is. It's not extremely original, but I'll get to that later on!

Oh, the game was also created in "just" two months, but I'll also get back to that if you keep reading..

So before Meganoid I was working on a game called Ashworld, which is a huge project for a one-man development team (which I am) and it's also an open-world game, a genre that I personally have no experience with because I often quit those games within a few hours of play-time. Simply put: Ashworld is a huge challenge for me, and I have been working on it since June 2016.

Seeing as my games are actually my livelihood, money needs to come in on a semi-frequent basis. My business is still running fairly well, I have a huge back-log of games and they are all still bringing in money on a monthly base, but to keep it all running I do have some rules on how long game-projects can take. Ashworld is breaking those rules due to a challenging development phase where I've been learning open-world design and also searching where the actual fun in the game-design is. So the game isn't done, and still needs a few months of work.

Enter the stage: Meganoid.

In January I decided to just do some prototyping with the hopes that I would end up with something playable that could be extended into a game. For this to work, I needed a clear design idea and direction. A game that I could almost create on automatic-mode.

This "automatic-mode" does need some nuance here, I wrote a blog about it a few weeks ago and I think it painted a wrong picture. Some comments and replies I got thrown at me were along the line of "a quick money grab". My bad on writing the article and not being clear about things, so here's to rectifying it:

The game was made in "just 2 months; and 13 years of experience".

The key part being those 13 years experience, factual there are a lot more years of experience, but the 13 years is how long I've been doing this commercially. Meganoid at it's core is a platformer with rogue-like mechanics. I've created close to 60 commercial platform games, and I've been doing rogue-like elements in my last 5-6 games. I know what to expect code-wise, and I know how to program those things without having to think about it.

To put it in some more perspective, my game Heroes of Loot 2 is a huge RPG-adventure/twin-stick shooter, and it was made in little over 4 months. So I normally work really fast and very effective.

Now think what you like about the short-development cycle, I don't plan to change your mind about it, but from a business point of view: this made sense and still delivers a quality game.

To have this game make some profit I needed it to take just a couple of months work so it would be easier to recoup on the costs AND make money on the game.

The development-cycle was pretty short, but since I had some interesting stuff pretty early on I actually showed some screenshots and gifs in the first week of development on twitter,facebook,instagram and a couple of forums. Some of this got picked up pretty early by mobile-game sites, and Toucharcade showed the first couple of video's I released in the weeks after.

I started using reddit a bit more, and finally managed to post something there without it being taken down (actually on second try, the first did get taken down because I didn't disclose that the "pre-order discounts" was on a game I made, which obviously makes a big difference../sarcasm).

The two or so weeks before the launch I already had various mobile sites mailing me for some promocodes, which is the up-side of being "known" in a market. In contrast to that there is the PC scene, where I'm basically unknown and nobody talks about my games.

The launch week I started looking at youtube streamers for the PC version, so I basically searched for big youtubers that covered games like: Spelunky, Meat boy, and a few other more recent pixel-art indie games that fit the same category as Meganoid.

I mailed all of them, close to a 100, which at least one steam-key included (for some group-youtubers I included up to 5 keys) and this all resulted in an awesome 0 streams. I did a follow up email to a large portion of them a week later, and this resulted in 1 Streamer playing it, yay results!

It's still possible some streamers will pick up the game later, having full inboxes, managers that handle emails slowly, or just large backlogs of video's. But I don't hold my breath for any of it. Same goes for PC game-site reviews, so even tho I did everything "right" it basically ended up with fairly little returns on it. The emails were short, to the point, showed a GIF of the game, bullet points, youtube trailer, quick-links and a steam-key included with a link to the website/presskit for more info. All according to the average marketing-advise.

Basically, in my opinion and experience, you need to know people to get things done. But reaching out never hurts and is also the way to get to know more people, so yeah.

Okay, okay! that's what you guys came for, I get it!

Google Play's "Best new seller" list charting

Let me first start with this, Meganoid was so far:

Featured on App-store under "New games we loved" - worldwide

Featured on Google Play "Early Access"

Featured on Google Play "New and Updated"

Top-charted (top 25) in Google Play "Best new sellers" list

Game of the Week - on TouchArcade

"Best games of the week for iOS and Android" - Pocketgamer

Now, back to reality, for those who don't know, making money on games is HARD, on any given day there are 100-500 games released on various platforms. That's EVERY DAY! Standing out from those games is extremely hard, most games you will never see and they get like 5-10 downloads (depending on how many friends the developer has).

With my experience of doing this business for a long time, I set a fairly low but do-able goal for Meganoid: $6500 during the launch-period. I know it's a not a huge game, and it had fairly short marketing-visibility before release due to the fast development cycle.

For me a launch-period is the first month or so after releasing it. My goals is usually to make 80%-100% of the development costs back in this first period. I calculate development costs fairly rough by multiplying each development-month with $2000 and then add any outsourced work costs. Since I do code+design+game graphics that often leaves out-source costs to music and high-res marketing art.

The $2000 is very low-end of what my cost-of-living is each month (in the Netherlands, with mortgage, girlfriend and pets). It doesn't take into account taxes and extra cash-flow for "the future". But we're talking about launch-period here, so a game will live on for a few more years and with future sales and discounts you can often double the money a game made on launch.

So for this game I had 2 months of work, that's $4000 and since there was such a short dev-cycle and I used ambient sounds from my sound-libraries, there was no music cost and just a few hundred dollars for the awesome marketing art. So let's round it to $4500.

Now the point is to get extra cashflow to cover the longer development-cycle of Ashworld and we get to a $6500 minimum revenue that I was aiming for with Meganoid. Again this is all launch-period revenue, because obviously it's a low amount especially if Ashworld development still needs 2 or 3 months time. So I'll get to that in a few paragraphs below.

I released Meganoid on March 30 on iOS, Android and PC (steam/humble/itch, windows/osx/linux) and we're now at three weeks into the release and currently the revenue is just a little shy of the target at $6200. Which is not bad at all!

So let's dig into this $6200 launch-period amount. Where did most of it come from, and why! The biggest bulk of this comes from the iOS version, actually close to 50% of it: $3580. On iOS the game was priced $4.99 with a launch-discount the first week making the game $3.99. Meganoid was made Game of the week at Toucharcade which most certainly helped, one of the weeks best games for iOS and Android on Pocketgamer, but sadly it had no "games we play" feature for the first weekend.

For some reason the game only showed up in the "Games we play" on Monday/Tuesday for the USA App-store, at which point it spiked to slightly below the launch spike so effectively doubling the sales in the 3/4 days it had that front page feature. I'm pretty sure it would have done better if it did have that feature in the first-weekend (during the sale) but those things are pretty much out of my control and I'm glad it eventually did get a feature after-all (something I kind had planned for in setting my revenue targets).

Apple loved it - all over the world!

Second biggest seller was Android, now this was done a little different. I tried some beta stages on Android and this put my game into "Early Access" on Google Play a week before the launch at a $2.99 price. This price was mostly because I believe that the brave people who try out a beta shouldn't pay full price. The game got a nice Google feature in their "Early Access" list, which only has about 20 games listed, so that's a pretty good list to be in.

The possible down-side of this is that a lot of people don't seem to be clear of understanding what "Early access" means on Google Play, so there was a lot more buying going on than I had planned for, and that means I was pushing updates daily to work out some "obviously-beta" features. Early-access users can't leave reviews during that phase, so that might have been a positive thing, the down-side of that is that many people forget to leave a review once the game was released.. so not as many reviews as I normally have during the launch-period. Not sure if I would do that again on Android, but it's been an interesting experiment.

Finally we come to the PC revenue, in total that's $900 which is split over Steam, Itch and Humble. This is also my biggest pain-in-the-butt, obviously my games still don't make much waves amongst PC gamers. Especially since about 50% of that money comes through Itch.io where I ran a pre-order with 20% discount in the two weeks leading up to the launch. So these buyers are mostly people from my own social-circles and mailing-lists, people who in many cases also buy the mobile version and in a lot of cases people who tipped up to $10 (even tho the pre-order price was $3.99!) (THANKS!).

The humble-store sales were about 10% of that, so the rest is up to you to calculate :p

Side note: Besides this launch-period revenue, there is also the added advantage of extra money made on back-log sales. New gamers that see Meganoid will check out my other games and in some cases end up buying a few more of my games. On top of that a lot of subscriptions to my social-circles and mailing list have happened during and after the development of Meganoid, which are all potentially future fans of my next games.

Another important thing to read about, how are the ratings? Because let's face it, making a game in two months isn't interesting if it's a crappy game. On iOS the game has a strong 4/5 star rating from gamers, and on Android it's at 4.8/5 star rating. I'd say those are pretty good ratings (most of my games are around the 4.0 - 4.5 ratings)

On Steam there are only about 4 ratings of which only 2 ratings count since they bought the game on Steam and not through my website/Itch.io or Humble. But I think "all of them" are fairly positive!

Game-site wise, well that's a mixed bag of thingies. As mentioned before, the game was made "game of the week" on Toucharcade, and it was part of the "best games for iOS and Android" that week on Pocketgamer. On the other side Toucharcade's review gave it just a 3.5/5 rating, and Pocketgamer managed to give it a 7/10. So that's the same two websites already making for mixed-reviews. Not sure what to think about it, and it's mostly the reason I focus on the average user-rating on app-stores since those people play the game even after a review.

PC game sites pretty much ignored the game completely, except for a few news-posts on one or two sites. But the whole game-review-site business is something for another topic. In short, those sites only talk about your game if people are already talking about your game, or if there's something controversial to be found, because that brings in readers and thus advertising-money.

Now there's always a part in a post mortem where people go say things that went right or wrong and how things could have gone different. BUT! Meganoid was just as much an experiment as it was a way to earn some extra cash.

For one, the price: $4.99. For a PC game that's a fairly cheap price-point, and it was something I wanted to try out. Normally my newly released PC games go between $7-$10 in the launch period because I honestly think that's what my games are worth for the amount of playtime and enjoyment you get. However, a game like Meganoid is perfect to try out new stuff and I've been wondering if maybe my games would sell better at $4.99. Haven't really compared it yet with my previous games, but my gut-feeling says I sell about as much copies at this price as I do at a more normal price of $7.99.

On mobile the $4.99 is actually on the high-end of things! More experimenting, normally I'm at max at $3.99 and often in the launch week it's at $2.99. I do believe this game could have done better at a $3.99 or $2.99. Possibly sold much more copies with the result being more revenue. Some people hinted I should have lowered the price when I got the iOS feature, but my golden rule is to not punish the instant-buying fans, which I would have done had I suddenly lowered the price within a week of it's release.

In general the gamers liked the game, which is the most important thing. One guy complained that he couldn't get past the first level so it was way to hard, another guy complained that the sound-effects sounded generic (he was a sound-designer offering to do sound effects.. that's business!). One mobile-game reviewer had a lot of problems with the touch-controls, which is ironic for a mobile-game reviewer in my opinion.

I've been pushing regular updates to Meganoid since the release, and I still have one bigger update planned. After that it will mostly complete the work on this game minus any required fixes or OS-updates.

I never create games as a service, all my games receive two or three bigger updates and then I move on. That's my business-model and that's how I stay in business.

As for the game itself, it now becomes a "back-log game". This means I'll be able to do sales and discounts with the game in the next few years. It's also possible to perhaps get it ported and released on consoles or other gadgets, and there are alternate sales-routes the game can take on platforms like Android or PC (different markets, bundles, etc).

On top of that the game engine is fairly straight-forward and easy to repurpose. So it could be possible to re-use the game, create a new game-world and content for it and release like a $1.99 game with it (in fact I already have a funny viking-style game running on the same engine, so who knows).

All those back-log options should be able to at-least double the game's revenue within a year, so let's say the game does $10.000 in total by March 2018. Set against the 2 month development cycle (and 13 years experience!) that's not a bad deal.

For now I got some breathing room again for working on Ashworld, so follow me on Twitter or Facebook if you want to stay updated on that one!

(Grab Meganoid here for Windows,MacOS, Linux, iOS or Android)

#IFTTT #Blogger

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symbianosgames · 7 years

Link

Oh, the game was also created in "just" two months, but I'll also get back to that if you keep reading..

Enter the stage: Meganoid.

The game was made in "just 2 months; and 13 years of experience".

To put it in some more perspective, my game Heroes of Loot 2 is a huge RPG-adventure/twin-stick shooter, and it was made in little over 4 months. So I normally work really fast and very effective.

Now think what you like about the short-development cycle, I don't plan to change your mind about it, but from a business point of view: this made sense and still delivers a quality game.

To have this game make some profit I needed it to take just a couple of months work so it would be easier to recoup on the costs AND make money on the game.

Basically, in my opinion and experience, you need to know people to get things done. But reaching out never hurts and is also the way to get to know more people, so yeah.

Okay, okay! that's what you guys came for, I get it!

Google Play's "Best new seller" list charting

Let me first start with this, Meganoid was so far:

Featured on App-store under "New games we loved" - worldwide

Featured on Google Play "Early Access"

Featured on Google Play "New and Updated"

Top-charted (top 25) in Google Play "Best new sellers" list

Game of the Week - on TouchArcade

"Best games of the week for iOS and Android" - Pocketgamer

Apple loved it - all over the world!

The humble-store sales were about 10% of that, so the rest is up to you to calculate :p

On Steam there are only about 4 ratings of which only 2 ratings count since they bought the game on Steam and not through my website/Itch.io or Humble. But I think "all of them" are fairly positive!

I never create games as a service, all my games receive two or three bigger updates and then I move on. That's my business-model and that's how I stay in business.

For now I got some breathing room again for working on Ashworld, so follow me on Twitter or Facebook if you want to stay updated on that one!

(Grab Meganoid here for Windows,MacOS, Linux, iOS or Android)

#IFTTT #Blogger

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