FreeGameDev

Count on Google to reject updates on their app store for completely invalid reasons. Apparently one of my games collects personal information. That's news to me, and I am very curious what CSI-level tech Google uses to arrive at these findings. Time to move to greener pastures.

Got a response from the Google Play people. The gist of it is "Our bad, we tested the app and thought it contained malware because it's so broken." So I tried it myself for the first time in a couple of years, and sure enough, it has not aged well.

If you lot aren't going to be using the site, I figured I might as well monetize it as soon as I can. I've got some ads on there. Here is a representative page.

What do you think? Too much? I'm in touch with the ad network and I'll fill you in as this saga progresses.

Well, what did you expect? This forum is already not very lively and you also noticed that mobile game dev isn't much discussed...

Regarding the ads... for my taste too much and having borderline p0rn advertisement on a page is not exactly a sign of a quality page

But I don't see the point of ads on such a page anyways. Huge turn off to users, serious privacy and security concerns (loading JS from some shady ad network?) and the same time very little revenue if you are not pulling in massive amounts of visitors.

I'll have you know, sir, that Adsterra is a very reputable ad network from Greece, the birthplace of European civilization. But since you mention it, I did inquire about the relevance of the ads to the high-class content my forum has on offer:

Account: keanen
Date: 2019/08/24 18:32
Subject: Ass everywhere
Your question:

Dear Adsterra,

I'm happy with the interface, the code, and how well the native ads blend in. However, after putting the ads on my forum, I'm seeing a lot of "Would you date a girl like me?" and Kim Kardashian curves, which I was not expecting after disabling erotic ads.

Here is a page that typifies the experience:

https://mobilegamedev.org/index.php/topic,2.0.html

I know that the ads are not pornographic and are in most situations considered safe, but dating sites as low-class as these don't blend well with a forum that discusses game development.

Maybe I just have my head up my ass and maybe these types of ads are good, but they are less relevant than I would like. Can I make the ads more relevant?

Thank you.

Deleted.

Same here. I have to run Chromium to see the (((extra content))). And anyhow, you gotta be a tough mofo on the web, so I feel alright about spamming my users with ads because if they don't take measures and they don't have thick skin, they're weak idiots to be eaten by the rest of us.

Best regards to my users, of course. They're good people.

seeing no ads

TIL that SMF works surprisingly nice on a terminal browser (lynx?).

I have this obscure premonition that super-low bandwidth global wireless transfer might become relevant again in a not so far future, and this is what would probably work well over such a ham-radio

Low-bandwidth means something like VHF, which is longer-range, meaning not a lot of relay towers. What happens to the relay towers, Julius?

Also yes, that is Lynx. I am pleasantly surprised, though also nervously anticipating the apocalypse now.

Adsterra is doing everything they can, but I get the impression that the Greek definition of "game" is different from mine.

After I complained about the quality of their ads, I think they disabled some of my functionality just to spite me. I'm still seeing sketchy ads, but now they're not showing up everywhere.

Just look at what is happening to the impressions per day:



I realize this does partially correlate with page views, but with Adsterra the situation is more nuanced than that. I think I'll have to use an alternative ad network for MGD.

At current rates if the ads are working correctly I should get 100 impressions/day and 0.001 clicks/impression. If an ad network pays $0.10 per click, that is 1 cent per day, or 30 cents per month.

Hosting costs 10x that, so I either need at least 10x as much traffic or a different monetization method. Considering the lack of traffic also means I have no one to talk to, I think traffic volume should be my priority regarding MGD. I'm removing the ads for now to try and make the best impression possible for new users.

Well duh

Edit: maybe open a Patreon or make monetized how-to YouTube videos...

How-to vids would be a thing to try. What on? Mobile game dev? I need some guidance there myself.

You see, I started MGD for a dual purpose:

1. e-power
2. a source of information for my own endeavors on the subject.

I met a cool gal who can definitely help with 2, but there are nuances with development methodologies related to why I'm primarily talking about MGD on FGD. I have nothing against proprietary software per se, but it's soul-crushing to develop software using proprietary tools.

So, if I were to make how-to vids on mobile development they would be along the lines of "Download Android Studio, install everything, refactor this template" etc. That's as far as my current knowledge can take me, but on PC I can do so much, and so much of what I can do on PC ports seamlessly to the web, but then open that same webpage on a mobile browser and it completely breaks.

There is React Native with Expo as a free workflow independent of terrible IDEs, but the executables for Android and iOS are 15 and 20 MB respectively. Hot damn. People won't even install my 5 MB apps, so triple that and it's like gamer repellant.

I don't think download size is the main blocker, if it isn't something like 500mb+

What do you mean with e-power?

I don't think download size is the main blocker, if it isn't something like 500mb+

Good to know. In that case, I think I'll do a video tutorial on React Native, learning as I go along.

What do you mean with e-power?

I mean generating electricity from keystrokes like an old telex machine.

Part 1 and Part 2 are online. The requirements to monetize are higher than the last time I was invited, but it will probably happen again within the month.

Seems cool, although it is a bit rambly

Maybe add some time-stamps in the decription so that people can easily fast forward to the interesting parts.

No. I'm always interesting. However, I will snackify the following videos (make them < 10 minutes).

I need constructive criticism in order to continue this video series.

The YouTube comments are not helpful? /s

Maybe use a recording software that allows highlighting or enlarging parts of the screen when explaining stuff happening in the terminal? I hear OBS works nicely on Linux: https://obsproject.com/

I'm not seeing any comments on YT.

I'll have to play around with OBS. I have seen videos where that zooming is done; I don't know what to think of it. I'll try to give it a try.

You actually lost me early on in the first part while you were wondering what a slug was and the time investment became too big for me. The fact that you didn't know at that point in time is irrelevant information for me when I want to learn something. I guess this kind of thing is what Julius meant with "it's a bit rambly".

I usually use shotcut to cut my recordings. I use OBS for the recording itself.