What avenues are even left for platforms?

[h3n741.g33k]

With everything being soo cancel cultured these days by ToS revision after another it's getting ridiculous. Just in 2015 to present on what's been lost for loli/shota/smols aka restricted media content allowing platforms

[in this regard I am talking strictly of only fictional works, of fictional characters, not deepfake/celeb fiasco under post #meetoo stuff (anyone remember Mr Skin or celeb porn of 90s to 00s? despite dmca they couldn't touch crap then cuz 1A rights and parody clause but now ohh boyo, anyway stealing idents is wrong dnt do it, bad stuff will happen not meant as advocate for or against just giving contrast of the times). Aka made up stories with pure fictional aka virtual pixels, which is basically as protected as drawing an obscene stick figure comic.]

So, what's been cracked down on/lost:

[> 00s to 10s we lost engine "usability" to ToS based cease n decists ie SFM, flash (due to corpy buy out+shelve] cryengine (fukkin besos) and more. To those unawares, engine ToS can include prohibition of content created by software in end user use through corpy contract law BS of "...ethical use of service in alignment to company values and mission statement..." and since most commercial wares not only serial ID your license registration+metadata watermark art produced by end user said serial license ID, they can track you down, revoke your license access, force cease/decist and tear down any distributed works. Fun stuff. IP law tyranny].

>newgrounds went "AAA for indies" sometime in the 2010s, and since has cracked down on controversial/taboo niche's to be more in line to AAA optocs standards.

>moddb faired about the same as above along with indiedb

>dev art and RB never allowed porno content but back in late 90s to early 00s they did allow artistic equiv of PG thru R rated "artistic nudes" of smols. My guess is their partner with adobe affiliation and behance is wut ended this but idk.

>itch.io--> 2015 to 2018 was promising but short lived, still some there but crackdown is real.

>pixiv, fanbox, subscribestar--> this loss is surprizing as hell. Same time they were always semi censored platforms as mainstream ish but still, you'd think outside US 1984 junk they'd have been a safer bet but guess not.

>steam has had a love/hate hosting with the stuff, one of obstacles to steam being it has to be official release stage product not alpha or beta and then since the whole

Restricted cringe

rapelay incident

it's been a war zone out there.

>Patreon's sudden but inevitable betrayal should come as no surprize but for them to all of the sudden be soo concerned when for years they just allowed whatever, its again surprizing.

>TF ever happemed with minds.com? for while looked promising as a NFT indie kickstarter style blog platform but like did it just nevrr get anywhere or what?

>with teardown of 8ch, zero net has instead of "censor free internet" become the refuge of pol tard BS and remnants of "silk road" from that things shuttering. Aka toxic AF platform for basically petite org crime so best to avoid..

file hosting has also gone to shit since megaNZ went all china-com corpy. Since that occured now it seems you need apps for every other website out there, all of whom spyware backdoor your junk through the app so it's like whats a bloke ta do?

So all this said, what if anything remains?

That aside though, and one thing I am fairly puzzled about, like, to set up a website thats a shop but not need shopping carts or tracking junk etc like you can do like the days of ole--> set up a BBS order catalogue system. With todays options of crypto wallet, invite only from 3rd party things like discord/patreon where you dnt need to actually put any content, simply list a donate/subscribe option then provide link to pass secure BBS system for contributors.

like why do people largely not do that? Setting up an e-newsletter or blog forum is vastly simpler and with so many online methods of anon payment, its far easier todo today cs back in hay day of BBS and tele-nets where you needed checks or on rare occasion, where they were able to take cred cards(though both presented significant risk as non anonymity). Like today stuffs easier and more secure so like what gives?

 

[h3n741.g33k]

yee typos, fixing them hang on. Stupid cider+phone

done & added few things too.

 

[trc450]

Problem is that platforms have all the traffic, it takes a long time to get audience for anyone to even see our game.

We are probably too used to convience things like credit card or youtube / google give. Discord and patreon content are observed all the time, you can't expect any privacy.

 

[h3n741.g33k]

Problem is that platforms have all the traffic, it takes a long time to get audience for anyone to even see our game.

We are probably too used to convience things like credit card or youtube / google give. Discord and patreon content are observed all the time, you can't expect any privacy.

True, with platforms comes access to vast user bases for with to do networking. Working outside that has it's issues. But there are ways to make it work.

First, try advertising your launch. You'll have to get creative with this but having a mailing list be it email or properly anonified snail mail, like, sounds wack in day of digital sure but seriously, try starting a mailing list. Best way to do this, is release a comic just before launch of your game. It's your comic so not only can it showcase some of the game but it's yours to advert within as you will.

Hand out links to your comic which is webhosted on a different name, do so within your personal network of close friends and "safe" online community members. Encourage them to share the comic with their close confidants and friends. Down the ladder it goes.

If you don't have the time to network a comic, you could try talking to a circle or group that publishes media in line to your own. Ask them if you can advert tge game launch in their next week/months release. Some places they will want revinue for this, others will usually be fibe with you adverting their circle in your game and future endeavors. Plus, you can always contact several circles or groups to do this.

In doing this for anon purposes, you will want a new/clean email and same for user creds for any external "public" platforms you may need.

For platforms other than discord, the chans do still exist. Then there is onion network through tor and also stuff like zero net. Haven't been on them in ages but they are still around.

On the note of discord, yes their policy junk jus went all 1984 last year but they only have so many staff and can't be everywhere at once. There are servers on cord for communities such as LC, I have been on them since discord and those servers began and never had my account barred/banned or warned once. Now of course I'm not in all the servers that there are for such community but last I was on in march there was still bout idk maybe 500 to 600 lurkers per server featuring anime hentai including restricteds, AI dev and the like. With maybe 80-100 actives per place on average for the week. Between the number of servers, puts the total somewhere near maybe 3200-5000 people. I mean yea it's not LinkedIn or steam but that amount of getting word out can make the difference.

Just have to be mindful and careful.in joining servers, and test the waters a bit before trying anything with networking your project. Get to know the mods of the place, figure out what genre's they follow and would support along with those to avoid. Also, be mindful of "flag terms" and be sure to break apart inquiry with lots of trivial conversation. The more you talk, small talk, the more data and harder it is for anything to pinpoint you down.

If sharing links on discord and your worried as to security, you can manually encrypt the message. Aka talk in code. Just ensure those you talk with have obtained your decrypt method by external means (can do this by having an alt give them the keys a day prior, then you give them the link). There are also countless other means to go about something similar. Best bet though, use a file server what supports password locked compressed files. Only give that pass to your subscribers/members.

The tricky bit though is like, forum community wise (not like here but internet in general) not having something like DOOMWorld or what not puts a kybosh on developers being able to collaborate and network. There used to be quite a bit out there but with crazy monopolization of everything, that's mostly gone now.

 

[User_109438]

With the recent Chevron decision, many U.S. agencies are going to lose power to create policies that act as laws. I think censorship will start falling off, at least for a while.