How to Actually Move Gamedev Off Twitter
Twitter is going downhill fast. First they banned Mastodon promotion (and then reversed it), and now it’s Substack in it’s entirety. We all want to move off, and yet.. here we are. I’ve been doing some thinking and I see two fairly obvious problems that have been keeping everyone on Twitter:
The Chicken/Egg: Nobody wants to leave Twitter for a place that has no community, but there can’t be another gamedev community unless we all leave Twitter! It might work if we all leave at once, but that’s proven difficult. We have to break this cycle.
The Algorithm: I think the algorithmic feed is more important than we give it credit. Seeing what your direct followers post is nice, but it doesn’t really feel like being a part of the broader community. For better or worse, people are on Twitter to hear about current events, news, and other.. well.. gossip. Any alternative needs to provide that.
But we are game designers! If nothing else we’re great at working around gnarly systemic problems!
So! I want to present two concrete actions you can personally take to begin to fix these problems.
Action 1. Mirror your Twitter posts to Mastodon with moa.party.
We can’t leave Twitter because all the good content is still on Twitter. It’s classic FOMO. Theoretically, we could all leave Twitter at the same time, but I think we should accept the fact that’s not going to happen. It’s kind of like the Prisoner’s Dilemma — nobody wants to make the first move and be left out.Okay… technically it’s a <a href=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_hunt>Stag Hunt</a>. Which is the opposite of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Sorry Mr. Nash, I’ll turn in my game designer card now.
But, if everyone mirrors their tweets, it could be possible to move between the two freely without missing out. All the discourse, all the hot takes will be on Mastodon, too, just with a different UI!
This won’t fix the problem overnight, but it does remove Twitter’s main draw. With enough people mirroring, it wouldn’t matter much which platform you’re on. This means that people can leave Twitter at their own pace, and we’ll never need to have a single large exodus.
This breaks the chicken/egg problem, and even you stay on Twitter.. worst case you’re getting more engagement for your Tweets? There’s kind of no argument against mirroring.Instead… eventually we’ll have two chickens… which are clones?
Luckily it’s trivial to setup using moa.party. It takes literal seconds! Then you can leave it running and forget about it.
Every single person who mirrors their tweets is taking a concrete step to erode the wall Twitter has around it. Destroy FOMO! Mirror your tweets!
Action 2. Install Elk.zone, a Mastodon interface that’s actually good.
Elk.zone is by far the best UI for using Mastodon. It works on all platforms, and they basically copied the Twitter UI, so you don’t have to learn anything new. I know: the normal Mastodon UI is nice in it’s own way, but in the interest of getting more people onto the platform, I think it’s better to focus on something expected. We’re trying to make it easy to switch! We can dazzle folks with features later.You can access it with the #Explore tab in the menu.
Importantly, it also has an algorithmic feed! As much as a raw timeline is nice, Twitter gamedev thrives because you can keep a pulse on what’s happening in the broader community. In my opinion, without some sort of algorithmic ranking, we’ll never be able to recreate the value of Twitter.
Elk’s algorithmic feed isn’t perfect, but it’s the first time I’ve felt connected with the community when using Mastodon. And because it’s open-source, we can improve it ourselves.
Elk is a web-app, but it can be installed into Android and iPhones like any other normal app. It’s well built and feels like a native app. Consider installing it to your phone’s home screen, and try to build it into your Twitter habit!
An example of Elk’s algorithmic “#Explore” tab. I don’t follow any of these people!
Will This Work?
Neither of these suggestions is a silver bullet, but I think there’s good reasons to believe that we can actually make a difference. I’m sure there are other small things we can do, too. So let’s put our brains together and figure this out!
It might take longer than we hope, but: baby steps.
Footnote A: Why Mastodon?
I should probably write a longer article on why I think Mastodon is the best option. For one, Mastodon is where most people have moved to — it seems to have won the battle. But, to be pragmatic, we just need to pick something, and Mastodon is good!
It’s literally Twitter, except it’s open-source, developed by a non-profit, and it operates like emailNo single company controls the application. It’s shared communication, like email. Importantly, Mastodon has the least likely chance of becoming another Twitter in 10 years. It’s late-stage capitalism resistant.. Most people are on gamedev.place or peoplemaking.games, and both are owned by upstanding community members. It doesn’t matter which one you choose: they all go to the same place. It’s like choosing a Gmail or Yahoo email address.
Footnote B: The “Fediverse”
Since I have your attention: can we stop calling it the “Fediverse”? Nobody knows what that is, and it just gives off the vibes of “Metaverse” or “Federated Blockchain”. Just call it Mastodon! It’s a cute elephant website! People understand that kind of thing.