#that's the point of being an online creator

[ihopesocomic]

I really do respect y’all’s outlook on and attitude towards your fans… You’re a little curt sometimes, but in a world where everyone feels entitled to art being a certain way, it is incredibly refreshing to find more people who are willing to firmly but gently say “no, this is OUR THING, and if you don’t like what we do with OUR THING, please find someplace else”. /gen

Thank you so much, anon!

And yeah, some of our 'curtness' (see: intolerance lol) stems from the fact that we've been at this game for a long time and we've seen many content creators kinda buckle under the weight of their own fandom and its demands because the fandom mutates and no longer sees them as a regular person but a content farm and it's sad/infuriating to see. Your favourite content creators are people and have feelings too.

It's also why - on the flip side of the coin of not tolerating bullshit - we also don't tolerate people worshipping us and putting us on a pedestal. Mainly because parasocial relationships are incredibly unhealthy but also because neither of us are perfect. We're flawed individuals and we mess up and we'll continue to mess up and we want our fandom to call us and this story out when we do.

So, we do this just for the sake of our fans as well as ourselves. We can't cultivate a healthy fandom as well as cultivate a healthy working environment for ourselves without being firm and on top of things. That may rub some off the wrong way and be seen as 'chronically online behaviour' but, like you've pointed out, anon, those folks know where the door is if they feel that way. They won't be missed. - RJ

[dkettchen]

me, procrastinating on one project with another one: it's fine they're both for content I do this for the people and the people will receive SOMETHING sooner by me working on either one 😤

[wienners]

"is gooseworx upset about digital circus becoming a cocomelon ass thing id be so angry lol" I cannot express to you how much they have achieved the DREAM for an online indie animator. they got millions of views with A PILOT ALONE! the original characters are already being cosplayed and the models are being thrown into random ass meme videos as if its a massively famous IP! all that with an indie 3D studio! AND the cg actually looks incredible!!! think they're gonna be okay if some content farms use their models for some brainrot finger family video.

[teeth-cable]

Have you seen The Amazing Digital Circus yet?

If so, what's your opinion on it?

I LOVE TADC! It’s my favorite indie show at the moment! There’s just so much I like about it but my main ones are

1. The setting and execution being unique. A horror-like project taking place in an late 90s/early 2000s digital game is not a new idea and same goes with characters being stuck in a purgatory however it’s how the artists reinvent those idea that makes it new. The digital Circus made its own aesthetic that makes it stand out from other projects with similar concepts and designs. When I first watched the pilot, one of many things that stuck out to me was how new the story ideas felt. I couldn’t think of any other pieces of media similar to TADC beside for surface-level comparisons. The TADC created its own aesthetic and knows what it wants to be and I like it!

2. Soundtrack. Speaks for itself, the soundtrack for the pilot is so good especially Your New Home. That song is very catchy and emotional too. It has such a unique melody, everytime you hear the first few notes you instantly recognize it. It does a great job highlighting the dread and existentialism crisis of Pomni’s situation. I recommend to give it a listen if you haven’t.

3. The characters dynamics. I just love how the characters interact with each other. The majority of the jokes comes from characters’ interactions and dynamics and how well everyone plays off of each other. The best example is Jax with everyone, Jax is a funny jerk who likes bullying his peers. It’s funny to see what creative ways Jax will bully the other people whether it’s being sarcastic and making quips at them, or though goofy pranks and how the characters react because of their contrast in personality. Every character beside Jax is openly stressed or worried in someway while Jax, at first seem like a chill layback dude.

4. The characters differences. I adored the differences between each character from how they talk to their poses. After watching HH and HB, I learned to have an appreciation for character differences. It’s just refreshing to see characters allowed to be different instead of the same tired reused tropes and repeating the same type of dialogue again for every character.

5. Mystery and lore. There is so much to explore in the pilot, it’s make you wanting more. When going in to watch the pilot, I made the mistake of thinking the series will be predictable. I didn’t see how they could make this premise work because by the end of it, Pomni will go insane but then I watched the pilot and was speechless. The pilot does a good job setting up questions for the audience to ask. If Caine lied about the exit, what are other things did he lied about? How long has the cast been stuck in the circus? Who are these people? Are they previous game developers? Who were they in their previous lives? What is the company’s motivation to create the headset? What are the abstractions in game? Are they viruses to the game program? Who were the former cast? What horrors has Kinger seen to be as paranoid and easily frighten as he is now? Do the abstractions still have a consciousness? You just want to find out more about the lore to solve the many mysteries in the show. I find it impressive Gooseworx was able to stir up the theorists because they have admitted in an ask, there are already theories floating around that are almost right about the show.

One problem I did have for the pilot were the scenes containing the Gloink Queen. The pacing of the pilot was fine until we got to her then it was slow. I feel it dragged longer than it needed too but beside that, my issues for the pilot ends.

I can’t speak for the fandom on other platforms but the tumblr one is great! Most of the time everyone is being respectful towards each other and I love seeing what creative theories, AU, fanfics, and art the fans created. The only people causing drama are the anti-shippers, and it’s just dumb. All of the cast are adults, if age gaps ships makes people uncomfortable, that’s valid but they shouldn’t make it into other people’s problems. Gooseworx themselves admitted they don’t care for romance and they don’t want fans in the fandom getting harassed over shipping.

Overall despite what issues I had for the pilot and fandom, they’re overshadowed by the positives and I can’t wait to see the full show and the fandom’s growth.

[kjzx]

I've been playing slitherio these past few days, and after some time messing around with nicknames and my own experience with the stuff, I've realized anger is something very easy to weaponize. On my second attempt of having "trans rights" as a nickname I killed a huge ~5k point worm as a teenie tiny 200 point worm simply because it was so desperate to kill me specifically. Anger makes your life harder, but it also makes people really unwise. I fucking bet this is in "the art of war", even though I haven't read it.

[blitz0hno]

Me pondering: kids are capable of going through and understanding complex problems and their feelings should be taken seriously when it counts.

Me practically: who are all these annoying fucking kids in the milgram fandom and why are they posting the worst takes and most irrelevant bullshit I've ever seen ever???

I think these are valid to coexist.

[3584-tropical-fish]

for the ask game, 24 and 4 perhaps??? :D

whats a compliment about your art that has always stuck with you?

Oh gosh, everything that anyone has ever said, really. But I feel like i have to just. <33333!!!!! about anything tumblr user camlannpod has said about my art for their show. I love drawing Camlann art and it makes me so happy that I can return that happiness to them!! Everyone listen to Camlann right now. It’s so good

piece you wish got more love?

I had to think for a minute but you know what? The TMA clue board I made with my friends. I don’t think that showed up in the tags, but we put. So Much effort into that and I had really wished that more people would see it. Lia especially made an absolutely STUNNING board for it, and I was really happy with all the cards I made!! It’s also just so fun to play. We get dressed up and I bake something and make tea/hot chocolate. Highly recommend. Posts about it here and here :D

[babypuffinzoe]

.

[theswedishpajas]

I’m in the works of making an undertale AU and I’m so excited to share it when I have enough art of it but I’m also so anxious cus it’s REALLY self-indulgent-

You’ve technically seen a thing for it already and people haven’t made a riot about it so far so maybe I’ll be safe to share the whole thing eventually-?

[fluffomatic]

I'm probably an idiot BUT what's the difference between a repost and a reblog? I see so many artists have that little 'dont repost but reblogs are fine' message and I never have any idea what to do so I leave a like/comment as support.

Sorry to bother but can U explain so I can support my favs as much as possible? (One of those favs being you 👀👀)

Reposting just means saving the photo and posting it directly to your own account. Reblogging just means tapping that little reblog button, that way it's still linked to my account, it's my post but your reblogging to your page. I don't exactly know how to explain it other then that? Just don't make your own post and use my artwork. Reblog are encouraged and appreciated! Especially with comments! I read literally all of them, tags too! They make my day.

[ihearasound]

Favourite artists selling their PM merch... its so joever

[ishikawayukis]

people being deliberately obtuse when it comes to understanding why people are upset about this ysl blush shit is gonna drive me insane

[genericpuff]

Oh.

To call WT's actions "antics" would be reducing the severity of what they're doing to creators. This is unacceptable behavior and it should be all the more reason for creators to start exploring other career paths outside of WT. For years they've been meticulously crafting an environment where people believe that WT is the only path to success, where WT controls the degree of success creators can achieve, from the manipulation of the promotional system to the lack of tagging and proper search functions on the app. Now that they've boiled the frog to this point, they're cashing out by flooding the platform with cheap imports, implementing AI tools, and of course, trying to use their contracts as a way to trap creators and keep them from owning their own IP's and maximizing on their own success.

I said it before and I'll say it again - Webtoons is planning to go public with their IPO this summer, so it would be a real shame if creators spoke up about the underhanded tactics used by WT to keep them from finding success in their own works. At the very least, it should serve as a reminder to all of us that companies like these can't amass billions without exploiting people along the way.

We can't even use "they're creating jobs for comic creators" as a reason to want to see WT succeed in spite of their flaws anymore because they're literally ruining people's careers, cutting them off before they've even started. That's not the platform being "flawed", that's the platform and the system it's built on being broken, full stop.

[homunculus-argument]

I may be swinging a fruit bat in a room full of hornet's nests here, but do americans know that most of the world doesn't look the way the US does? Like, specifically concerning ethnic diversity.

Coming from Europe, the fist time I went to the US, I was shocked by it, not in a negative way but in the same "wow, that's a real thing?" sort of way as western people finding out that there actually are that kind of pillar mountains in China, or americans who had never seen Fjord Horses in anything but the movie Frozen finding out that those fantastical yellow ponies are actually real.

And it wasn't some "backcountry rural hick sees Different Colour Person for the first time and dies of shock" sort of a thing. I had travelled before, and at 19 I considered myself quite worldly enough to go to a different continent I had never been on to go meet up a man from the internet, all by myself. I had been all over Europe from Iceland to St. Petersburg and from Norway to France, I have travelled. It was a slow realisation that it's turtles all the way down, that actually got me.

Being in an airport, going from one airport to another, I wasn't surprised by the sheer range of different kinds of people I saw. Airports just look like that, all over the world. Taking one flight after another, I didn't pay much attention to that, because airports just look like that. The "wait, holy shit" didn't hit me until I was already in rural Kentucky, in a fucking Wal-Mart. And if you're an american and the thought of a late teens nordic kid stepping foot into a Wal-Mart for the frist time and thinking "wow, this is actually what America looks like, all the time" makes you want to get defensive, it was by no means a negative feeling.

It was like looking into a bag of M&Ms. That's the only way I could describe it. Every single fucking person, group or family that I saw was apparently different colour and creed than the last ones who passed by. I had never seen black women with styled hair before because in Finland almost every single black woman you see is muslim and their hair is covered. I was used to the concept of large cities being more diverse, in FInland larger cities are the places where you're most likely to see people who aren't white. And I was stunned by just how colourful the population was in goddamn Beaver Dam, Kentucky.

I'm not trying to make any kind of a political point here. I'm just talking from my own experience as a Chronically Online European who has actually been abroad: City streets that look the way they do in the US are completely foreign to most people who are not american. And every time you people start complaining about why a game that's set in Poland, made by polish creators who have never been outside of Poland, only has polish people in it, they genuinely do not know what the hell you're talking about.

[treasure-mimic]

So, let me try and put everything together here, because I really do think it needs to be talked about.

Today, Unity announced that it intends to apply a fee to use its software. Then it got worse.

For those not in the know, Unity is the most popular free to use video game development tool, offering a basic version for individuals who want to learn how to create games or create independently alongside paid versions for corporations or people who want more features. It's decent enough at this job, has issues but for the price point I can't complain, and is the idea entry point into creating in this medium, it's a very important piece of software.

But speaking of tools, the CEO is a massive one. When he was the COO of EA, he advocated for using, what out and out sounds like emotional manipulation to coerce players into microtransactions.

"A consumer gets engaged in a property, they might spend 10, 20, 30, 50 hours on the game and then when they're deep into the game they're well invested in it. We're not gouging, but we're charging and at that point in time the commitment can be pretty high."

He also called game developers who don't discuss monetization early in the planning stages of development, quote, "fucking idiots".

So that sets the stage for what might be one of the most bald-faced greediest moves I've seen from a corporation in a minute. Most at least have the sense of self-preservation to hide it.

A few hours ago, Unity posted this announcement on the official blog.

Effective January 1, 2024, we will introduce a new Unity Runtime Fee that’s based on game installs. We will also add cloud-based asset storage, Unity DevOps tools, and AI at runtime at no extra cost to Unity subscription plans this November. We are introducing a Unity Runtime Fee that is based upon each time a qualifying game is downloaded by an end user. We chose this because each time a game is downloaded, the Unity Runtime is also installed. Also we believe that an initial install-based fee allows creators to keep the ongoing financial gains from player engagement, unlike a revenue share.

Now there are a few red flags to note in this pitch immediately.

Unity is planning on charging a fee on all games which use its engine.

This is a flat fee per number of installs.

They are using an always online runtime function to determine whether a game is downloaded.

There is just so many things wrong with this that it's hard to know where to start, not helped by this FAQ which doubled down on a lot of the major issues people had.

I guess let's start with what people noticed first. Because it's using a system baked into the software itself, Unity would not be differentiating between a "purchase" and a "download". If someone uninstalls and reinstalls a game, that's two downloads. If someone gets a new computer or a new console and downloads a game already purchased from their account, that's two download. If someone pirates the game, the studio will be asked to pay for that download.

Q: How are you going to collect installs? A: We leverage our own proprietary data model. We believe it gives an accurate determination of the number of times the runtime is distributed for a given project. Q: Is software made in unity going to be calling home to unity whenever it's ran, even for enterprice licenses? A: We use a composite model for counting runtime installs that collects data from numerous sources. The Unity Runtime Fee will use data in compliance with GDPR and CCPA. The data being requested is aggregated and is being used for billing purposes. Q: If a user reinstalls/redownloads a game / changes their hardware, will that count as multiple installs? A: Yes. The creator will need to pay for all future installs. The reason is that Unity doesn’t receive end-player information, just aggregate data. Q: What's going to stop us being charged for pirated copies of our games? A: We do already have fraud detection practices in our Ads technology which is solving a similar problem, so we will leverage that know-how as a starting point. We recognize that users will have concerns about this and we will make available a process for them to submit their concerns to our fraud compliance team.

This is potentially related to a new system that will require Unity Personal developers to go online at least once every three days.

Starting in November, Unity Personal users will get a new sign-in and online user experience. Users will need to be signed into the Hub with their Unity ID and connect to the internet to use Unity. If the internet connection is lost, users can continue using Unity for up to 3 days while offline. More details to come, when this change takes effect.

It's unclear whether this requirement will be attached to any and all Unity games, though it would explain how they're theoretically able to track "the number of installs", and why the methodology for tracking these installs is so shit, as we'll discuss later.

Unity claims that it will only leverage this fee to games which surpass a certain threshold of downloads and yearly revenue.

Only games that meet the following thresholds qualify for the Unity Runtime Fee: Unity Personal and Unity Plus: Those that have made $200,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 200,000 lifetime game installs. Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise: Those that have made $1,000,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 1,000,000 lifetime game installs.

They don't say how they're going to collect information on a game's revenue, likely this is just to say that they're only interested in squeezing larger products (games like Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, Fate Grand Order, Among Us, and Fall Guys) and not every 2 dollar puzzle platformer that drops on Steam. But also, these larger products have the easiest time porting off of Unity and the most incentives to, meaning realistically those heaviest impacted are going to be the ones who just barely meet this threshold, most of them indie developers.

Aggro Crab Games, one of the first to properly break this story, points out that systems like the Xbox Game Pass, which is already pretty predatory towards smaller developers, will quickly inflate their "lifetime game installs" meaning even skimming the threshold of that 200k revenue, will be asked to pay a fee per install, not a percentage on said revenue.

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Hey Gamers!

Today, Unity (the engine we use to make our games) announced that they'll soon be taking a fee from developers for every copy of the game installed over a certain threshold - regardless of how that copy was obtained.

Guess who has a somewhat highly anticipated game coming to Xbox Game Pass in 2024? That's right, it's us and a lot of other developers.

That means Another Crab's Treasure will be free to install for the 25 million Game Pass subscribers. If a fraction of those users download our game, Unity could take a fee that puts an enormous dent in our income and threatens the sustainability of our business.

And that's before we even think about sales on other platforms, or pirated installs of our game, or even multiple installs by the same user!!!

This decision puts us and countless other studios in a position where we might not be able to justify using Unity for our future titles. If these changes aren't rolled back, we'll be heavily considering abandoning our wealth of Unity expertise we've accumulated over the years and starting from scratch in a new engine. Which is really something we'd rather not do.

On behalf of the dev community, we're calling on Unity to reverse the latest in a string of shortsighted decisions that seem to prioritize shareholders over their product's actual users.

I fucking hate it here.

-Aggro Crab - END DESCRIPTION]

That fee, by the way, is a flat fee. Not a percentage, not a royalty. This means that any games made in Unity expecting any kind of success are heavily incentivized to cost as much as possible.

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A table listing the various fees by number of Installs over the Install Threshold vs. version of Unity used, ranging from $0.01 to $0.20 per install. END DESCRIPTION]

Basic elementary school math tells us that if a game comes out for $1.99, they will be paying, at maximum, 10% of their revenue to Unity, whereas jacking the price up to $59.99 lowers that percentage to something closer to 0.3%. Obviously any company, especially any company in financial desperation, which a sudden anchor on all your revenue is going to create, is going to choose the latter.

Furthermore, and following the trend of "fuck anyone who doesn't ask for money", Unity helpfully defines what an install is on their main site.

While I'm looking at this page as it exists now, it currently says

The installation and initialization of a game or app on an end user’s device as well as distribution via streaming is considered an “install.” Games or apps with substantially similar content may be counted as one project, with installs then aggregated to calculate the Unity Runtime Fee.

However, I saw a screenshot saying something different, and utilizing the Wayback Machine we can see that this phrasing was changed at some point in the few hours since this announcement went up. Instead, it reads:

The installation and initialization of a game or app on an end user’s device as well as distribution via streaming or web browser is considered an “install.” Games or apps with substantially similar content may be counted as one project, with installs then aggregated to calculate the Unity Runtime Fee.

Screenshot for posterity:

That would mean web browser games made in Unity would count towards this install threshold. You could legitimately drive the count up simply by continuously refreshing the page. The FAQ, again, doubles down.

Q: Does this affect WebGL and streamed games? A: Games on all platforms are eligible for the fee but will only incur costs if both the install and revenue thresholds are crossed. Installs - which involves initialization of the runtime on a client device - are counted on all platforms the same way (WebGL and streaming included).

And, what I personally consider to be the most suspect claim in this entire debacle, they claim that "lifetime installs" includes installs prior to this change going into effect.

Will this fee apply to games using Unity Runtime that are already on the market on January 1, 2024? Yes, the fee applies to eligible games currently in market that continue to distribute the runtime. We look at a game's lifetime installs to determine eligibility for the runtime fee. Then we bill the runtime fee based on all new installs that occur after January 1, 2024.

Again, again, doubled down in the FAQ.

Q: Are these fees going to apply to games which have been out for years already? If you met the threshold 2 years ago, you'll start owing for any installs monthly from January, no? (in theory). It says they'll use previous installs to determine threshold eligibility & then you'll start owing them for the new ones. A: Yes, assuming the game is eligible and distributing the Unity Runtime then runtime fees will apply. We look at a game's lifetime installs to determine eligibility for the runtime fee. Then we bill the runtime fee based on all new installs that occur after January 1, 2024.

That would involve billing companies for using their software before telling them of the existence of a bill. Holding their actions to a contract that they performed before the contract existed!

Okay. I think that's everything. So far.

There is one thing that I want to mention before ending this post, unfortunately it's a little conspiratorial, but it's so hard to believe that anyone genuinely thought this was a good idea that it's stuck in my brain as a significant possibility.

A few days ago it was reported that Unity's CEO sold 2,000 shares of his own company.

On September 6, 2023, John Riccitiello, President and CEO of Unity Software Inc (NYSE:U), sold 2,000 shares of the company. This move is part of a larger trend for the insider, who over the past year has sold a total of 50,610 shares and purchased none.

I would not be surprised if this decision gets reversed tomorrow, that it was literally only made for the CEO to short his own goddamn company, because I would sooner believe that this whole thing is some idiotic attempt at committing fraud than a real monetization strategy, even knowing how unfathomably greedy these people can be.

So, with all that said, what do we do now?

Well, in all likelihood you won't need to do anything. As I said, some of the biggest names in the industry would be directly affected by this change, and you can bet your bottom dollar that they're not just going to take it lying down. After all, the only way to stop a greedy CEO is with a greedier CEO, right?

(I fucking hate it here.)

And that's not mentioning the indie devs who are already talking about abandoning the engine.

[Links display tweets from the lead developer of Among Us saying it'd be less costly to hire people to move the game off of Unity and Cult of the Lamb's official twitter saying the game won't be available after January 1st in response to the news.]

That being said, I'm still shaken by all this. The fact that Unity is openly willing to go back and punish its developers for ever having used the engine in the past makes me question my relationship to it.

The news has given rise to the visibility of free, open source alternative Godot, which, if you're interested, is likely a better option than Unity at this point. Mostly, though, I just hope we can get out of this whole, fucking, environment where creatives are treated as an endless mill of free profits that's going to be continuously ratcheted up and up to drive unsustainable infinite corporate growth that our entire economy is based on for some fuckin reason.

Anyways, that's that, I find having these big posts that break everything down to be helpful.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA For Not Tagging a Work?

I, 32F, write primarily for my own enjoyment, my main platform being AO3. I currently have a multi-chaoter series that includes several major plot twists, including one that includes non-con. To avoid spoiling it, because I believe my stories deserve to be read with as little background info as possible, I only tag it as "Creator CHOSE not to Include Archive Warnings". Which is, as I hope is obvious, is not synonymous with "There Are No Warnings". The point is, I don't use the Rape/Non-con tag. Recently, I got a very upset reader in my comments complaining about how triggering that chapter of my work is, and that's where I have a problem. I believe the corporate obsession content warnings pervading even fanworks to be a major problem. I don't want to sanitize my work, but I do get that they contain pretty heavy themes. But I feel like I seriously do give my stories a disservice by adding labels on them, and maybe I am the asshole for this, but I value my pride and joy (my work) over strangers online. AITA?

What are these acronyms?