Cancellation-proof automated cyberchains #57
Description
Thirty years ago a business could be destroyed because of a single bad comment that has been publicized enough. This could happen because back then there were many layers of other companies between you and your customers. These layers were generally linked by individuals or small groups of individuals inside each of those companies, so if you did something controversial those individuals would want to distance themselves from you (and therefore from your business) and thus the entire chain was destroyed.
In 2020 we have direct access to customers. If you make a bad comment there's no one between you and your customers, and while a few customers will be upset at you, 99% of them don't pay attention to what the developer is saying on twitter, reddit or whatever other social media site so it doesn't matter. The only thing you have to worry about is not getting banned by the platform, in the case of indie games on PC this would be Steam, but Valve has shown that they rarely (if ever?) ban people from their platform for their opinions online.
So knowing all this, the question then becomes: how to set yourself up as a cancellation-proof indie developer? In my opinion the answer is to favor the use of automated platforms as your chains of connections to customers. The simplest example would be one where you want to release your game to as many people as possible while interacting with the least people as possible in this process. This is possible with Steam. You can go through the entire process of releasing your game on Steam without talking to anyone at Valve, the process is mostly automated and it's the same for almost everyone. This means that if you make a bad comment, no one at Valve will care, because no one at Valve has anything to lose from your bad comment.
Contrast this with releasing your game through a publisher. What will happen is that one or two people will get assigned to handle your game, and then that person will be your only window into the publishing company. If you get into any controversy or say something that most people in the company don't agree with, there's a real chance this person might want to distance themselves from you and either the deal falls through or your game gets thrown aside and not handled properly because the person just doesn't like you. Another thing that might happen is that the publishing company might force you to delete/apologize for your controversial comments, which is another can of worms. The point is, the fact that this link between your business and their business exists in human form, all sorts of complicated dynamics start happening which limits your range of actions as a developer and as a public person.
To summarize: prefer ways of reaching your customers that involve as few links as possible between you and them, and when those links are necessary have them be automated platforms. Here's a list of good vs. bad examples:
Good:
- Steam - automated game publishing and marketing, they have a good track record of not being overly concerned by controversies surrounding the games they allow on their platform
- Social media - twitter, reddit, instagram, YouTube, etc, are all automated forms of sharing your content, you don't need anyone's permission to do anything in them, so they are good. The main problem with social media sites is that some of them are more ban happy than others, so you need to know the limits of each site properly
Bad:
- Consoles - for most consoles it seems you need a personal connection that gets you in, regardless of how the process goes after you're already in this is already a bad sign
- Indie publishers - unless the indie publisher is known to be neutral like Valve is when it comes to the opinions of the developers they publish, this is almost always a bad idea. Indie publishers (like say Devolver) have an image to uphold and they won't accept controversy, especially political controversy, from their developers
- Youtubers/streamers/"influencers" - relying on these is bad for the same reason as publishers, they're individuals who have an image to uphold and generally they don't want to tie themselves to anything controversial
- Hand curated stores - any store that curates its content manually gives an advantage to personal connections over fairness. I don't know what it's like now, but an example of this I remember is itch.io, where the devs said that part of the front page is hand curated. Anyone with controversial opinions who the devs of itch.io disagree with, for instance, is at a disadvantage, similarly for anyone that they don't know personally that can't go to live events like PAX and such where personal connections are made