itch.io

"However I like to expose my ideas. Sometimes praised. Sometimes hated but there it is."

I feel like that statement implies that what you want is validation and acknowledgement in either a positive or negative direction. Anger is an energy, and positivity is encouraging. Most people think that when they release a project anywhere they'll either get hate or positive feedback, so they brace themselves to accept both.

What people don't think about is, well, nothing happening at all, not getting any comments at all on the project, and if they do think about that, they think "Well, how can nothing affect me mentally?"

I mean, that kinda hurts more than anything else. It's not that people 'hate' my stuff or like them, so "you can't expect that by developing a product everyone will like it, it is possible that some of them will leave, but that can also attract more people," isn't the reality. The 'hate' that I get is mostly just passive-aggressiveness that all developers have to deal with unless they're in positions of actual influence, which is similar to what you likely see at work, where everyone has an idea on how to do their jobs and are at least somewhat judgmental of how the people they work with do their jobs, but likely won't outright say it, like "Oh, that's how you write your code, huh? I do it differently because I think it's easier and better, but, you do what works for you, buddy," and not "Your code sucks, and you smell bad. Get the f*ck out of this building right now and shower."

I mean, you read my concerns and you haven't said anything about the actual project it's attached to. You don't even know if it's good or bad, and the advice you're giving is very generic "Believe in yourself, and live your best life," which is, honestly, completely useless. It's just empty platitudes that you're likely just saying to make yourself feel good if you're not going to back it up with something that actually applies to the project. Like, if you said something about how I could improve the presentation to make it more appealing to people, or gave me a name of someone that enjoys signal-boosting small-time p*rn games, that would be infinitely more meaningful, validating, and beneficial than a platitude. I'm not a 19-year-old publishing for the first time here, I've been publishing consistently here for 4 years and I'm feeling very burnt-out because it doesn't feel like it has resulted in any appreciation from the site, which Itch demonstrated by screwing me over for months and not even apologizing for doing so.

That's what bothers me, and the point of this post. It's all just pointless if I'm getting nothing meaningful from this site and the userbase except watching my follower count go up. No meaningful discussions, no possibility of turning this into a career, I get nothing from it, and it feels like when people say "Dude, don't worry about what people say, just do what you want to do," what they actually mean is "Hey, uh, you should do all the work to make yourself feel like what you're doing is meaningful, and also do the work to make yourself feel validated, because I don't want to, unless it benefits me in some way."