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Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

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Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#271

Post by TomMarius »

tedajax wrote: post #217
1000units wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think my conscience would be more satisfied working in porn than mobile gaming.

I worked in mobile gaming at one point and the real "beyond the pale" moment was when I came in to work and one of our designers was reading a book titled something along the lines of "The Science of Addiction". Noped out of that and started getting a lot more critical when it comes to where I work with regard to ethics.

There are similar books catered towards social apps. Btw is there an ethical corporation? Not even LOB apps are fully ethical today.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#272

Post by TomMarius »

zkomp wrote: post #270
crankylinuxuser wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To counteract your bullshit... If someone has ADHD, adderall slows them down so they can concentrate. It reduces mind-fog from too much stimulus. If you don't have ADHD, its like a super cup of coffee, but in pill form. My doctor was trying to figure out my cognitive issue. And for a time, I was on adderall. It was pretty easy to tell that I didn't have ADHD, since I started getting upper'd. Felt nice, don't get me w…

More interesting question: How do we know regular drug users are not self medicating.

They in fact frequently are. There are huge communities dedicated to that on the Internet. BTW a lot of the previously illegal and unthinkable treatments these people used have just been legalised in the EU, using MDMA etc.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#273

Post by Haga »

Groxx wrote: post #258
throwaway9780 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless the games you play are realtime, you can VPN out. When you have an IP of a country not interesting for ad networks, you'll essentially have ad-free internet. Very few ads in a language you don't understand anyway.

I've been running NetGuard with default-block on apps.... and I've been loving it. Most games don't need internet access, and no internet means no ads. It boggles my mind that internet is not a revokable permission. Anywhere. I'd be happy to give X access to e.g. contacts, as long as it cannot upload that info , but until I ran a local VPN that hasn't been an option at all. Why are (stock) mobile permissions so user-…

The butcher owns the cattle farm? Android has googly eyes.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#274

Post by Haga »

jacobsenscott wrote: post #213
TeMPOraL wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's similar to how prostitution seems more ethical than telemarketing - one involves voluntary exchange of value between two willing consenting parties, the other involves harassing people and, frequently, trying to scam them.

Organized crime has been really successful in spreading the "two willing consenting parties" myth. Trust me - there is only ever one willing consenting party. No woman on earth wants to @%$! a constant parade of scumbags.

Also consent can now be retro actively withdrawn, so if you don't keep your books, your hooks will bleed you.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#275

Post by Alterlife »

Waterluvian wrote: post #121
lupire wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parents today have to train kids early. Mine learned by age 3 that any non-animated video content on YouTube was an ad that needed to be skipped. Not perfect, but a great start. Constantly drill into them that these are ads, and ads are bad people trying to trick them, and that ads should be avoided, in apps, websites, billboards, etc. I'm not any advertising, but the only good ad is an ad I asked to see, as when I'm…

My toddler learned at about 20 months how to skip YouTube ads. It's unbelievable. I watched him evolve as he would mash the "skip ad in 5..." Countdown to waiting until it was done to skip. He also learned through trial and error not to accidentally tap on the ads.

Youtube has a YT-Kids app which doesn't have ads.

It's handicapped in a lot of other ways. To name a few, you can't disable auto-play, if you want to disable recommendations the only way to do so is by selecting some channels that you would like your kid to have access to, and that will disable search AND casting. There's an un-skippable startup animation, and a whole lot of other animations that make the app feel slow. And the android tv version of it won't allow you to type in search queries with a keyboard (which the other youtube does allow).

In other words, it's better than the standard YT app in a lot of ways but it's an extremely frustrating UI for both the kids and adults.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#277

Post by Ruthalas »

copperx wrote: post #119
jermaustin1 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I miss this model for games. Demo disks were my favorite thing in the world. I'd play a demo a dozen times or so before I decided that it was worth begging a parent to buy the game for me.

It has been a long time since I played games, but I thought games still had demos. In Steam, do you have to buy a game before playing it?

To summarize the other comments:

Yes.

-Very few games provide demos.

-Steam allows refunds under certain conditions, but also reserves the right to ban accounts that abuse that system, and declines to define abuse. Therefore it's generally advisable to avoid using refunds to try games, and save them for when there is a issue.

So there is definitely a gap where demos would serve well.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#278

Post by thaumasiotes »

zrobotics wrote: post #256
drngdds wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your best option by far for mobile gaming (if you're on Android) is to install an emulator for an old console/handheld and download/rip some games. It's unfortunate how bad the state of mobile gaming is, considering how powerful today's phones are.

So much this... I had paid for an ad-free version of risk (which was great, could play a few turns at a time and no messing with all the setup and pieces) that started adding ads in. Well, mobile gaming isn't much use to me if it isn't something I can do a few minutes at a time, and I'll be damned if 1/2 of that time is wasted on ads. Ive just taken to replaying old JRPGs from my childhood, they're very compatible wi…

> I'm just so disappointed that I'm carrying around a far more powerful device than even a PC from my childhood, and some of the best gaming experiences are old console games.

My theory of the awfulness of phone games is that it's more about the fact that phones don't have any input devices. So you see things like endless runners where the only possible command is "jump", which works well with the hardware where the only input you can provide is "I touched the screen". If the game had two commands, it wouldn't work on a phone.

I put ScummVM on my phones. It works fine; the only input an adventure game needs is mouse clicks with no time pressure. Interestingly, the current version is a huge step backwards in usability from the much older version available through f-droid -- the older version takes a screen tap to mean "click in the location of the cursor", and you move the cursor by dragging your finger around the screen. But the current version takes a screen tap to mean "click under where I tapped the screen", making clicking almost impossible.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#279

Post by dragonwriter »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #278
zrobotics wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much this... I had paid for an ad-free version of risk (which was great, could play a few turns at a time and no messing with all the setup and pieces) that started adding ads in. Well, mobile gaming isn't much use to me if it isn't something I can do a few minutes at a time, and I'll be damned if 1/2 of that time is wasted on ads. Ive just taken to replaying old JRPGs from my childhood, they're very compatible wi…

> I'm just so disappointed that I'm carrying around a far more powerful device than even a PC from my childhood, and some of the best gaming experiences are old console games. My theory of the awfulness of phone games is that it's more about the fact that phones don't have any input devices. So you see things like endless runners where the only possible command is "jump", which works well with the hardware where the…

> My theory of the awfulness of phone games is that it's more about the fact that phones don't have any input devices.

My theory of the awfulness of phone games is that awful, cookie cutter games on phones can make lots of money, so lots of firms are happy to churn them out on an assembly line, knowing that a certain percentage will succeed.

There's enough not-awful phone games to establish that the platform doesn't inherently mandate awfulness, so it's about the market not the inherent platform features.

> If the game had two commands, it wouldn't work on a phone.

There's plenty of games with multiple commands on phones (one or two virtual directional sticks plus a handful, often contextually switched so the total number is greater than is onscreen at any one time, virtual buttons is not uncommon.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#280

Post by thaumasiotes »

dragonwriter wrote: post #279
thaumasiotes wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm just so disappointed that I'm carrying around a far more powerful device than even a PC from my childhood, and some of the best gaming experiences are old console games. My theory of the awfulness of phone games is that it's more about the fact that phones don't have any input devices. So you see things like endless runners where the only possible command is "jump", which works well with the hardware where the…

> My theory of the awfulness of phone games is that it's more about the fact that phones don't have any input devices. My theory of the awfulness of phone games is that awful, cookie cutter games on phones can make lots of money, so lots of firms are happy to churn them out on an assembly line, knowing that a certain percentage will succeed. There's enough not-awful phone games to establish that the platform doesn't…

> My theory of the awfulness of phone games is that awful, cookie cutter games on phones can make lots of money, so lots of firms are happy to churn them out on an assembly line, knowing that a certain percentage will succeed.

They can only do this in the absence of competition from non-awful games. You claim that those games exist, but you don't support that claim in any way. Why do you think they haven't displaced the awful games?

There's an infinite number of terrible games being constantly turned out for the PC too; the difference is that the PC also has good games.

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