ignost

Thank you for the honest answer. It stands to reason that devolving standards will lead to increased contagiousness, but I appreciate acknowledging what we can and cannot prove at this point. I hope we can address shortage to keep doctors, nurses, and support staff safe.

On the other hand, given just how many games come out on Steam every day now, I don't think "if you build it, they will come" is a viable strategy either.

Not a game dev, but I run into people who think marketing is nonsense all the time. They're mostly developers who just don't want to do marketing and are in denial about its value. Sometimes they are critical of the fact that I do it, and sometimes they want to build something without doing any marketing.

I think the build community like Hacker News has this 'if you build it they will come' fantasy. There's also the straw man of marketing as trying to sell weak minded people stuff they don't need. Honestly marketing can inform development to make sure you build the things people actually want, which makes it easier to get in front of them when you're ready with a minimum viable products to test.

Edit: failed to mention the context that I've been very successful with marketing and development working solo. I'm definitely not the best developer, but I'm pretty good at ugly hacks that get the job done when building.

With anything that goes on the internet, there's massive global competition. There are heaps of games, videos, websites, etc. If you can get a few hundred thousand people who may be interested to even be aware of your product, that's a good start.

AMAs are almost always marketing, but Reddit likes it if the answers are genuine and thoughtful anyway. It worked for me. Never played the game, but will look into it.

That's a very open response, thank you. This was exactly my concern: your father raised your, and you give him a lot of credit despite being a partial cause in what sounds like a very difficult and lonely childhood. But if I'm to put myself in your shoes, it was probably the best outcome you could have hoped for. I'm just sorry you were dealt that hand with less than ideal options all around.

I'm curious about that loneliness. Did you have a hard time making friends after all that time alone? What do you do now to be social, and how difficult do you find social situations?

Dr Zimbardo, let me say that I respect your work immensely. I'm thrilled to be able to ask you about your latest project!

• How, in your survey data, can you show causality rather than mere correlation? For example, how do you know that video games are making men shy/risk averse, rather than shyness leading men to play more videogames?
• What is the difference between overuse vs. use? Do you have any data suggesting what a healthy amount of gaming/porn looks like?
• You seem to lump gaming and porn together in your proposal. How would the effects of gaming too much differ from the effect of watching porn too much?

Thank you so much for taking the time.

Think you responded to the wrong comment, or maybe read the entire answer as one :)

I think we are both acknowledging, though, that marketing a better product is always more effective. Simply as a matter of numbers, if it's good enjoy people start recommending it for you. You may reach two people for every one you sell, because they bring friends. Marketing can be more like the seed than some kind of persistent conversion funnel. The constant advertising can work too, but it's hard to profit on TV ads or even display ads for something with no brand recognition that doesn't cost $60.