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Hey #GameDev, what are everybody's thoughts on ads in the game dev feed? I'm looking for ways to support my work, so lemme explain about what this would look like. 🧵

Are the ads controllable enough that you'd be able to enforce a submission format that could self-identify as an ad? Or does graze already have a large enough of a games/gamedev-ad pool that you'd be pulling from whatever offers they already have?

Definitely more direct involvement/work on your part but it might be cool to let people already in/engaging in the bsky gamedev community publish ads for their release announcements or whatnot. I agree though that no visible identification on ads in feed feels a bit icky.

First thing: Graze doesn’t have an ad pool since it’s not an ad network. Advertisers need to pick feeds and submit their campaigns. At that point it’s in the feed owner’s hands. I’d likely need to do some soliciting to get people to come advertise. 😅 But I can totally enforce the #ad convention!

One of my concerns is that there's no indicator that something is an ad. You may be able to recognize it because it shows up more regularly than other skeets or seems out of place, but you're technically seeing ads that don't look like ads, and that feels weird.

Couldn't you just autoreject ads that don't disclose themselves (i.e. ad skeets must start with "Advertisement:")

That's a hard line. I would make them be required to put #ad in the thing

I've been sorting through this concern. I created a Bluesky labeler as a result. Nice & clean tags on your sponsored posts, and your audience can control which types of sponsored content they see. Happy to hear your thoughts re. Graze integration. bsky.app/profile/adco...

I considered doing this with @ozone.birb.house since it already has wide adoption across my community, but I decided it was probs a waste because it has to be opt-in. I like the idea of making ads more obvious, I just don’t like that the visibility has to be discovered to be useful.

maybe throw a advertiser/supporter label up for the accounts that are advertising?

That's not a bad idea! It'd require people be subscribed to @ozone.birb.house, but that could deffo work!

You're right to feel weird. Folk are sensitive about what is content vs what is sponsored. If the ad service doesn't have a way of identifying its content, consider solving the issue with a CSS style. Make the distinction obvious.

non disclosure of ads is quite fucked

this specifically is an absolute deal breaker for me. as much as I'd rather not have ads at all, I'd be fine with them if they were obvious. if they look like normal posts, that's not cool, that's deceptive, and I'm very much not a fan although my top choice is no ads, if that's feasible

Yeah, does having the #ad hashtag do the trick for you? I've gotten that suggestion from several folx, and I can guarantee that all accepted ads have the requisite hashtag.

The plus side is that even a small number of ads (think 10 or fewer being shown once every ~100 skeets) would help support all of my feeds immensely.

Not opposed as long as it is disclosed clearly that some posts are paid promotions. Can you require those posts being labeled by a labeler listed in the feed description, for instance? I will say, 10 per 100 is a lot of ads to me, that's US Twitter level of ads, which is not 'normal' to me.

I also think I'll _mostly_ keep it limited to ads that are relevant to game dev. Game jams, game engines, conferences, etc. So... what are y'all's thoughts? Is it a bad idea? Are there other options for monetizing that I'm not thinking of? Are there other issues I haven't considered?

I thought it was required to label ads as ads? is it not?

United States law certainly appears to require it. Platform support for the disclosures would certainly make it easier. Perhaps BlueSky could add a "sponsored" label and augment the labeling system with a way to give the reason for a label. www.ftc.gov/business-gui...

I’m not opposed to ads, but not having proper disclosure it’s a deal away for me. I believe it may also not be legal in some markets. If you found a way to disclose that they were ads, I personally would be okay with them.