austin_walker

Spotify's aim with the unspeakable move of demonetizing songs that don't get 1,000 streams a year was to discourage spammy uploads on the platform.

What it's actually doing a month later is not stopping that spam which was always going to occur, hurting most musicians on the platform (everyone but a fortunate 14% or so) and creating this cottage industry of "playlist community/promotion" dudes who are not real promoters. They promise chances of popular playlist placement for money or putting you on their community playlist with... everyone else who paid them, I'm sure real people definitely listen to that. These people always existed, but now they have this real fear of not breaking the 1000-stream barrier to use as leverage.

If you use Spotify to listen to "smaller artists" (hell, I still have some tracks that probably don't get 1000 streams a year), forget the percentage of a cent thing--they might not be getting paid at all.

P.S. We still don't understand if that means you have to hit 1000 plays every year, or within 12 months of this change, or what. If anyone knows let me know, lol.

Randomly got almost 2k plays against my will on an unpopular, nothing score track. The takedown notice asked me to provide the name of "promo services" I used or playlists I got on, and yeah, I'm sure people would be in a great frame of mind to snitch after you rip their song down if they were actually doing bot fraud. If you took this final of an action against me, I expect YOU to know who the bots were, please!

it's so cool that the games industry is consolidating & closing studios & laying off everyone & all of games media is consolidating & laying off everyone who does the most important work & actual reporting

BUT WATCH OUT GEOFF KEIGHLEY IS STILL RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER TO BANG OUT THE TRAILERS

IT'S GAMING'S BIGGEST NIGHT

LIVE

following this up with a little anecdote but

i've seen a lot of sentiment, on here, twitter, elsewhere, that the state of the industry is making people want to not bother with games or making them anymore... and i can totally understand that from a sentimental perspective.

but i also don't think the dire state of the industry has given me cause to give up on games as a medium. the issues we're dealing with here are not because of games. it's because of a capitalist-centric world & the way that money and advertising and the constant desire for number to go up every single quarter means that it stifles EVERYTHING.

looking beyond just the game industry, there's so much shit that's absolutely fucked right now & seeing how it's all connected is extremely important. it's easy to connect 'games' to capitalism from some not-insignificant origins in gambling (i remember when i couldn't even tell the government i worked in the games industry without them thinking i worked for the 'gaming industry' aka casinos) .... but also games come from fun, socializing, sharing experiences through mechanics design, writing, etc... there is SO MUCH to gaming that isn't rooted in making a number go higher, selling big numbers, making stockholders happy.

just like there is so much to life that is enjoyable without being drowned in advertisements, suffering with software that will never be good again due to an unreasonable attraction towards hostile updates, surveillance, and chasing tech buzzwords.

if you're feeling hopeless because of how the games industry is hurting, it's a good opportunity to look at everything else and realize how much needs to change on a much greater scale than simply video games.

Don't forget to send in YOUR questions for our next Q&A to amorecivilizedage @ gmail dot com!!! 📭

We'll be covering episodes 85 and 86 so get curious about: princesses, yaoi, estranged family, space creatures, old mythic legends, etc etc etc etc ! !