Indie games don't make money - <AUTHOR> http://positech.co.uk/cliffsblog/2017/06/23/your-indie-game-will-flop-and-you-will-lose-money/ <comment><USER2> The way I get around this as an indie dev working on a VR game is that

0) I kept my day job. Coming home to work on the game isn't as hard as it sounds because (see 1)

1) I am making my game for me first. I've always had this world I want to drop myself into so I'm building it for me. If other people want to come along on this journey, that's fantastic. If not, that's okay too.

2) It's a means for me to escape daily life, thus it is relaxing and "time off" in my mind, not work. If I ever feel like it's work, I take a few minutes to analyze why and usually come to the conclusion that I'm focusing on the wrong thing: making the game for someone else, not myself.

3) I have no intentions of striking it rich, playing the indie lottery, or any of those things. I fully understand (after first-hand experience working as a professional game developer) that most games take years to make and when they finally come out, no one plays them. I cry a little inside when I see people quitting their job to become an indie developer and spend more than 90 days working on a single project without getting it released.

4) I set the price of my game based on its value not compared to similar games in the industry. I've had customers complain about this before, but the reality is that I only want players who are truly into the idea to be a part of it. If not, then don't buy it. I'm totally willing to walk away from any sale.

If this all sounds selfish, you're right. It's completely selfish. But I think it's the only realistic way to look at developing a game in today's world. Just like this blog post says, you will lose money, time, and sleep if your intentions are to burn the ships and strike it rich.

Instead, why not work on something for yourself and keep your day job?

<comment><USER3> are you single? people with families don't typically have enough time to do what you're doing.

<comment><USER2> I have a fiancee and two cats. I have a clear dilineation between "working on my game" time and "hanging out" time. I have a separate room I go into and when I close my door, I am no longer available. Conversely, when I am hanging out, I am not at all working. To do this requires clear communication and self control.

<comment><USER4> Started that way, too (though one cat instead of two). Now married with a toddler. If I get an hour or two to myself to code, it's a great day :)

<comment><USER5> Yup. With young kids and a spouse you're lucky if you get 15 hours of actual solo free time a week, unless you're cutting into sleep. And they'll be scattered throughout the week, then further broken into smaller parts by various interruptions, some probably claimed by various family & friend events more weeks than not unless you don't... you know, do stuff with people.

If you want to have side projects under those circumstances, I hope you like working in chunks of a few minutes at a time, days-long gaps in between sessions, with the constant threat of interruption looming and an ever-growing pile of things-you-should-probably-be-doing-instead stressing you out.

<comment><USER6> How do you manage to eke out 15 :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is the sad reality behind much of content creation nowadays. Now that everyone's a blogging streaming indie-gamemaking content-spewing machine, the marginal expected value of new content - in a _lot_ of areas - is close to zero. Once you factor in the cost of marketing to get noticed above the noise, the financial value you personally realize is often negative.

Of course, people will keep trying, because a) it is fundamentally rewarding in some non-monetary sense to make Real Things, and b) there are enough "I quit my job and now I'm a bazillionaire!" stories out there to entice (largely young, less established) people to play the lottery.

The real money is in owning the content markets (where you get your cut in developer account subscriptions, transaction fees, 30% of sales, marketing costs, etc.) or in providing tools, just as in the Gold Rush of yore.

<comment><USER8> I don't think things have really changed. The games market is saturated, but the IoT is only just beginning, and the next "minecraft" (sorry I don't know a lot of indie games) will probably be something AR or VR.

AR is posing to really take off. I mean, I work for the government and I'm not very creative, so these upcoming things might seem lame to a lot of people, but we can basically cover a 15 km radius with slow "internet" (LoraWAN) for around $1000.

In this you can build all sorts of small devices. You can monitor street temperatures and giving the data to the public via open data. You can monitor if elderly people are alive by tracking whether or not an IoT lightbuilb turns on. You can build tourism apps that emit small stories via Bluetooth.

I mean, the options are endless, and it's basically shaping up to be the Wild West that indie games were 10 years ago.

<comment><USER9> AR isn't really going to become a thing. Not with current technology, anyway. The problem is twofold: There's no way to get enough power to the device to do anything interesting, and there's no way to make things darker. You can only add light, not subtract it. That means your AR interface will be basically unreadable in sunlight.

The power problem is the real killer, though. Oculus is only successful because it's tethered to a high-end rig. When you don't have that, you're basically tethering a mobile phone to your eyes. Not only do mobile phones die within a few hours if you play 3D games on them continuously, but their graphics aren't very impressive.

There's a third problem worth mentioning: When you're using AR, you're making an overlay on the real world. The real world is instant. Your overlay has to be at least 90fps to look seamless. That means you have to recognize a target + render the overlay within 11 milliseconds. That recognition step is a long way from being that performant.

I predict Magic Leap will be shown to be an elaborate ruse, and they were able to raise money mostly by tricking investors with tech demos that can't possibly advance any further. It's easy to make this claim, but the fundamental problems with the technology seem insurmountable on our current tech tree. It's not quite the same thing as being negative toward a new startup -- most startups have a chance of succeeding if they get users. But you can't get users with AR without wishing for new advances in technology that seem beyond startups' capabilities for the moment.

<comment><USER10> > there's no way to make things darker

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid- crystal_display#Twisted...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid- crystal_display#Twisted_nematic_.28TN.29)

<comment><USER9> I thought so too, but unfortunately this doesn't work either.

The reason it won't work is the same reason scratches on your eyeglasses don't appear sharp. Your focus is in the distance, so you won't see whatever dimming has been applied Not unless you use it to darken e.g. an entire quadrant of your lenses.

Interestingly, this problem applies to text rendering too. It seems unlikely that you'll be able to project clearly readable text over anything when it's an inch away from your eye.

<comment><USER11> Can you elaborate? Isn't the basis behind VR that you can show different images to each eye to trick people into thinking they are looking at something far away? Is there something about the cornea/lens shape that prevents this from working with AR?

<comment><USER9> Yeah, so the reason VR works is that it controls the entire scene. The light being projected towards your eyes is from a consistent focal plane -- the light comes from a flat surface located exactly N inches away from your eyes. That means you can focus sharply on it.

AR is a very different beast. In the real world, your focus is usually several feet away, or sometimes across the room. Your focus also changes almost instantly. Yet AR still needs to project light toward your eye from exactly N inches away.

You can simulate this: Find some glasses and put some black tape over part of the lens. You'll notice the tape doesn't appear sharp and crisp. It's a blur.

(Or just close one eye and put a finger close to your other, and look out in the distance.)

I'm not sure AR has any hope of rendering text in a readable way. It'd be like writing some letters on your finger, then putting it up to your eye while looking out in the distance. Even if the letters glow, so that they're a light source, you still can't read it at all.

<comment><USER11> I didn't think your explanation could be right, since VR headsets are _very_ close to your eyes. Try closing one eye and putting a finger close to the other. You can't see it in focus even if you don't look out in the distance.

The bit I was missing is that VR headsets use lenses to adjust the angle of the incoming image to simulate the image being farther away (this is completely different from the depth perception created by sending different images to each eye). This video is a great explanation: [https://vr-lens- lab.com/lenses-for-virtual-reality-headsets/](https://vr-lens-lab.com/lenses- for-virtual-reality-headsets/)

This does make AR much more difficult, since a lens that adjusts the simulated image would also adjust the real image behind it, but I don't think it makes it impossible. There may be a way to simulate a Fresnel lens just for the simulated image or use miniature one-way mirrors to do so.

Edit: I think hololens actually accomplishes this, but its very complicated: [http://www.imaginativeuniversal.com/blog/2015/10/18/how- holo...](http://www.imaginativeuniversal.com/blog/2015/10/18/how-hololens- displays-work/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I always find it sad, and kind of ridiculous, when indie game developers quit everything and live on no money for years trying to make the next big thing.

Making indie games should be about doing something because you love it. Keep a day job (even part time), then design and build something cool in your spare time. Don't worry about making money, worry about making something people want to play, and it will be much more fulfilling.

The game industry, just like any industry, is all about making money. It's not fun. It's not about self-expression... but doing it as a hobby is often both! Sometimes people who do it as a hobby end up making money, and that's great, but don't go in expecting that, because as the article states, it's very unlikely to happen.

<comment><USER13> I did this - kept a day job as a systems administrator while building a video game using Unreal Engine 4 (as a solo dev - no team). It took almost three years to "complete"... and I shipped it on Steam back in Feb. 2017. (it's 75% off right now during the summer sale!)

Making the game was a brutal experience. Little to no money because I was taking so much time off work to make the game (I'd work maybe 4-6 hours at my job, then go home to work on the game). Deteriorated health because I sat for 16+ hours PER DAY in front of the computer. Morale was extremely low because few people wanted to help me (building a team is super hard) and more often than not, people I talked to about it just assumed I wasn't even capable of making a video game, much less a video game business.

I basically just trudged through it. Forced myself to complete it and ship it publicly. I was rather happy with the end result - the game wasn't perfect, but it was mine. Player reviews tell a slightly different story for a countless number of reasons.

The day I the game went live I was so excited... but that emotion quickly faded as I realized I wasn't going to even come close to my sales goals. To date, I've sold less than 200 copies. Thousands less than I expected, and not nearly enough sales to make another game. Literally can't even pay rent on my tiny apartment for one month using those funds.

About 4 days after launch, I realized my traffic and sales had flat-lined at zero. I came to the painful realization that I had just spent three years of my life making huge sacrifices of my time and money to build a product that no one knew existed and only I really cared about. All of my efforts merely in vain. Despite numerous post-release product updates, it stayed that way for months, until yesterday with the summer sale. I've sold a few more copies over the last 24 hours, but again, I can totally forget about becoming a full-time gamedev. I literally don't even have the funding or even strength to make another game - as a solo developer who isn't a unicorn, it simply requires too much investment for too little return.

Building my game was one of the most influential and exciting experiences of my life. Trying to make a paying job of it was easily the most depressing path I've ever walked. I even thought my experience shipping a game in a modern engine would help me find employment as a gamedev... NOPE! I literally can't even get a rejection email from most of the hundreds of places I've applied to. Needless to say, I went back to SysAdmin full time because it's a stable, paying career. Which is also depressing because it's not really what I'm passionate about... I'm just good at it.

All the dreams of making a living building video games? Crushed. Forget about it. If you're able to do this and you're still passionate about it, consider yourself extremely lucky.

edit - the game is here: [https://store.steampowered.com/app/428980/Ethereal_Legends/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/428980/Ethereal_Legends/)

<comment><USER14> Everyone wants to make games. The game dev shops are flooded daily with young starry-eyed kids chasing a totally awesome career in game development!

The pay is garbage and the hours are beyond excessive. Unless you pick a winning studio, stay for 10 years, and that studio has several blockbuster hits your royalties are worthless.

Take your experience doing games and go for a career in regular software development. Plenty of people need to integrate 3D engines into their products and know nothing about it (eg: adding the ability to view a 3d model) and you'll actually get paid for your work.

As others have pointed out, today's content-rich world only rewards the top 1% and that incentivizes repeatedly trying with quick projects. Don't spend years on one thing, slap something together and get it out there. If it isn't an immediate hit move on to the next thing.

<comment><USER13> Yeah I'm definitely looking for other ways to leverage my 3D skills so that my gamedev/UE4 knowledge doesn't all go to waste. I currently work as a sysadmin for an advertising agency, and while I'm doing a lot of Azure and Active Directory stuff for them right now, I'm thinking I might be able to branch them into VR/AR advertisements in the future.

I definitely made the mistake and learned my lesson with building Ethereal Legends - scope and speed are key elements. You have to keep it small and ship quickly. Allowing the project to grow beyond my ability made for poor results and long development cycles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's not too difficulty to make money as an indie. I do seven figures a year year (profit) following a pretty regular plan, making games you've never heard of. The market is huge and there are many like me.

In the end, many indies are bad at making games (coding, design) partly because they're inexperienced, but almost all of them are bad at business (marketing, advertising, hiring, finance, strategy).

It's probably important to separate indie studios from "indie games" the genre, which is more about artistic or retro style games that target a more traditional gaming audience. Common themes involve getting featured in the app stores and in traditional gaming media outlets, 'superstar' developers, and very specific genres and art styles. If you want to reliably succeed in this genre you probably want to have a very public social media presence and try to make friends who are on the app review boards or are editors of various publications.

I've never had an app featured in any sort of major store and I don't do tons of UA, I just build solid games and focus on organic growth and exposure. For instance, the first decision I make when it comes to a new game is picking a visual/marketing theme, naming, pre-positioning for keywords, etc. Then I build a solid game that monetizes. Of course, I take into account how long the game will take to build, how difficult it will be to maintain, cost of assets, etc etc too. It helps to reuse game engines to reduce build time and complexity. You know, the kinds of absolutely regular business decisions you make in the course of running any business. It's actually a lot more boring than you'd think making games would be!

Many "indie game" developers have extremely anti-business attitudes when you talk to them so it's not a big surprise to see many fail. The ones who are passionate about the business side of things tend to fare a lot better on average.

<comment><USER16> Hi, would you be willing to give some feedback and advice about a little game I'm working on? I could really learn a lot from a seasoned game developer like yourself.

<comment><USER17> If he isn't willing, I'd be happy to help too. I've been in the industry for around eight years and have had some pretty big successes (and failures).

<comment><USER16> Awesome, thankyou! This is the game: [https://sudoblock.com](https://sudoblock.com). It's just a very simple puzzle game (Sudoku variation), but I've had some good feedback and people seem to enjoy playing it:

I'm interested in finding a good return-on-investment for a very small marketing budget. I've thrown some money at FB ads, but I was paying $1 per click. Most people won't install the game after clicking the ad, and an even smaller fraction are going to actually pay for it.

I really need to fix the beta web version, all the animations and UI are still pretty bad. The android version also has some bugs and crashes I need to fix.

The other problem is my app store listings, because they were very rushed. I don't think my screenshots are very good, and I need to make a trailer video.

My last big marketing idea is to write up a blog post about the things I learned with React Native, and post that on Reddit and Hacker News. I'm not sure what I can do after that. I might create a boilerplate project, or even open source the whole game, but that would be a last resort.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

<comment><USER17> I downloaded the iOS version and gave it a shot. I've never really enjoyed Sudoku that much so from that point of view I am not a great tester. I did grok the concept of the game pretty quickly, though in the tutorial I was initially confused why it was telling me to drag the block to the puzzle but I am not allowed to and must hit 'Next' instead.

Anyways, here's some of my thoughts/questions:

How many people have you had play and test the game? Of those people, how many would fit your target market of Sudoku or Tetris players? What kind of feedback have you been given? When you say people "seem to enjoy playing it", how are you judging that? My warning sirens go off if I hear someone say "It's cool" or something equivalently generic or brief.

What kind of analytics do you have in your game (e.g. Flurry)? Even though you may not have a lot of users, what do your retention numbers look like? My last company (Backflip Studios) put out a few puzzle games and what we found was that the players that stick around are very dedicated and hardcore (and typically skew older). If you aren't retaining even a few users like this, you need to consider that your game is simply not appealing or you do not yet have enough users to draw conclusions.

Your only monetization method besides ads is to remove them. We tried that strategy as far back as the original Paper Toss, and even with millions of daily active users we barely had income from it. That trend never changed over the years or with new games. Ads can make you decent money, but only when you have a lot of users.

Given your monetization strategy, you will absolutely hemorrhage money if you try and buy users, especially from Facebook. There are other ad networks that are more mobile focused that you might try buying users from if you are willing to buy their crappier inventory.

I would also not rely on a blog post generating any meaningful traffic or sales, though it certainly can't hurt to try -- it's also fun just to share knowledge.

All that said, I will not bullshit you: The odds of this game generating you any meaningful amount of income are very low. Mobile in general is a brutal market and your game does not really stand out visually when viewed in the app store. If your analytics for retention are in the double digits, by all means keep trying to improve the game and market it. At some point however you may need to consider it a learning experience and move on the next project.

<comment><USER16> Thanks very much, that's incredibly helpful!

I will be redoing the tutorial to make it. That's a good idea about asking the player to drag the first piece, instead of just showing an animation.

I've had around 1,000 people play the game. My favorite feedback so far from was a guy who really enjoyed the game, so he shared it with his father and sister, and now his whole family are playing. But yeah, I also got a lot of "it's cool", which I don't pay too much attention to.

For analytics, I'm using Fabric Answers and Firebase Analytics. Here are some of the stats from iOS: [https://imgur.com/a/8zz15](https://imgur.com/a/8zz15)

Those retention numbers look really bad, but I can't say I'm surprised. I'm also pretty happy that I made $50 from IAPs, because I've never got this far before.

Maybe my next project should be an RPG or "farming" game that you keep coming back to every day.

I agree that my monetization strategy is not great, but I don't want to advantage of people with purchases for "bags of coins" and stuff like that. But maybe that's the only way to get ahead?

I can understand that your game with millions of DAU might not be able to support a game studio with salaried employees, but if I extrapolate my own numbers then millions of users would be bringing in tons of money for a solo developer. That would be something like $60k USD, which I wouldn't complain about!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is pretty misleading. He takes the median indie game and shows it doesn't make money. So what? There are a lot of shit indie games on steam. They have a serious problem with people just uploading asset flips and other garbage that isn't intended to be played by anyone. If you eliminate the complete trash from the list, this game might be in the bottom 20% instead of 50%. And the actual median indie developer probably makes quite a bit more than that.

In general the world is governed according to power laws. The top 20% of anything gets 80% of the reward. So you should look at the top 20% of indie developers at the very least. Its a lot easier to get into the top 20% than it is to get into the top 1%.

The other consequence of power laws, is that it incentives taking more shots. If you only ever produce one game, then statistically it will probably fail. But if you make 5 games, the chance of one of them ending up in the top 20% is much higher. Just like famous directors will get most of the attention they get from one film they made out of dozens, or famous writers get most attention from one book, etc. Even here on HN, most of my upvotes will come from a handful of comments out of all the ones I've ever written.

<comment><USER19> > _median indie game_

No, he takes the median of the _top selling_ indie games. That's a valid measure.

<comment><USER20> That's Steam's "Indie Games" category, sorted by "top selling". It's not a list of top sellers.

The difference is that if you click to the bottom, you get games with 20 reviews all reading "crashes on load, money back". If your game doesn't crash on 50% of startups, you're already not at the same 'median' as this article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The point about how many people are making games now rings true to me. The market must be utterly saturated. 25 years ago, I made a PC-only game with QuickBasic, and uploaded it to AOL. It made $20K.

Now, with a vastly bigger market, unprecedented reach via Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook, numerous crowdfunding options, numerous gigantic, low-friction game stores, tools whose power I never could have imagined in the 90's, and 25 years of experience, I literally can't make one single dollar.

But I never feel as actualized as when I'm totally immersed in game dev. It's immensely rewarding, just definitely not in money.

</comment><comment><USER22> I would argue that a sure fire way to make sure your game is more likely to succeed is actually making sure that your game is something that people genuinely want to play.

Which kinda goes against the indie mantra of "make what you want to play", but that mantra only holds 100% if you're doing this as a hobby. Otherwise, it's "make games that you're interested in and have a solid chance of being bought by asking potential customers what they think and see how they react to a simple demo you put together".

Kickstarter is kinda nice in this regard, but most games from there fail because the game mechanics aren't conveyed very well to potential buyers, hence why you should really put together a demo for them to play before you start to really seriously consider the idea.

I would also go even further and say that a solid formula is a game that uses familiar and fun game mechanics, but then builds on top of that to make something interesting. Stardew Valley is a great example. It's a Harvest Moon clone but with some pretty interesting characters with unique personalities. That's why it made an estimated revenue under $25 million on Steam ([http://www.pcgamer.com/stardew-valley-made-way-more-money- th...](http://www.pcgamer.com/stardew-valley-made-way-more-money-than-call-of- duty-on-steam-and-other-2016-sales-insights/))

At the risk of sounding harsh, Positech's games are pretty damn niche in terms of ideas and in some cases mechanics (look at Democracy 3). They're very original, it's just that being very original in indie game development doesn't pay nearly as well as being fairly original.

<comment><USER23> The problem is that nobody has really come up with a reliable way to figure out in advance what people want to play. Even the professional game development companies with perhaps the best track record of delivering consistent hits like Blizzard haven't hit on a reliable formula to figure out what's going to be successful before they invest a ton of resources into building it.

Not saying you shouldn't bother with market research but when some of the biggest hits have resulted from people just building what they want to play and when big companies with a string of previous successes had done their market research and still released something that bombs I think it's fair to say there's no simple formula to producing a hit.

<comment><USER24> Most large companies have and have been in business for decades. The key very much is driven by making what you can sell and understanding that well. Every bet is not necessarily a success but there are enough that are not only to sustain these companies but grow them.

Building what you want in the hope it's a crazy viral success is not a very good or sustainable business model. Pretending that these behemoths that employ well paid staff don't know what they are doing is just myopic. It's a long standing myth that you cannot know reasonably well what sort of game will succeed or work in such a way as to find it. But it's "selling out" to many, me included and I wish more people could find success on their own terms. That's just not the commercial reality though.

<comment><USER23> I worked at EA for years and have worked at other AAA studios, I've seen the big companies from the inside and know pretty well how they work, what they do well and what they don't.

Sure, EA continues to exist because it has more hits than misses (and is helped in that regard by huge, reliable annual franchises like FIFA) but I've seen plenty of projects with relatively low expectations become huge hits (like the original need for speed underground) as well as titles with high expectations crash and burn (I won't name names). The big companies do a good enough job to be fairly consistently profitable but they by no means have a foolproof formula for success. Show me a famous studio without titles that didn't meet expectations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I feel like people who work on startups and indie games have a slightly more sensible form of a gambling addiction.

Even if you don't make any money, you still get a lot of joy from your first few players and sales, and just creating something useful or fun. You also get a lot of experience and knowledge that you can put to use on other projects, or even employment opportunities.

Sure, your game might flop (and mine probably will), but I learned a lot and had a lot of fun. I think it was worthwhile. I just spent the last 3 months developing a mobile game [1]. I tell people that I did it to learn React Native, but it's actually because I wanted it to be successful and make some money. So far I've earned ~$20 from ads, and ~$50 from the in-app purchase to remove ads. It's not much, but I think it could be a promising start.

I do agree with the article though; my next app is not going to be a game.

[1] [https://sudoblock.com](https://sudoblock.com)

</comment><comment><USER25> "An indie game is a lottery ticket that takes a year or two to scratch off." \-- my brother, who is currently around month 20 of scratching

</comment><comment><USER26> So, basically like every other artform.

Be it indie music, indie movies, or various physical artforms, unless you win the lottery by hitting it big (of which a significant factor is pure luck), you ain't gettin' rich.

Is this surprising to anyone?

<comment><USER27> Game development is likely much more meritocratic than painting. Quality is objective, and varies greatly from game to game.

<comment><USER28> Quality is objective? I don't think so, not unless you mean something different by "quality" than most people.

<comment><USER29> Quality in video games is certainly more objective than in painting. There are a lot of aspects of a video game that are not fully subjective: does it have a control scheme that feels good and generally works, does it run well, does it have a reasonable difficulty level or on-ramp for learning to play it, etc.

In judging painting, you don't end up with a lot of complaints about things like "I like the way it looked but it kept falling off of my wall", whereas if you have an unstable game...

<comment><USER24> If you find your self using the words "feels good" in a sentence you are very much on the subjective side of things. Likewise terms like "generally works", "runs well" and "reasonable difficulty" will all mean different things to different people. Objective items might be things like uses 4xMSAA, is presented in the first person and uses 'X' to jump. Even still once you consider how these choices effect the game quality you are straight back to subjectivity.

Painting can equally be criticised on technical merit, and as with games that can still be very subjective even though many would like to pretend otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The games market is indeed an interesting one, in that sense that we have in close memory the success of the first true mobile games, and the stories behind those, but at the same time, the whole market and technology side and everything else has developed in such a fast pace compared to what we remember in our collective memory of the success stories, so many people still believe they can repeat that success.

When in reality, companies like Supercell who are huge have been making games for 10+ years before their first hit, pushing out hundreds of games as a collective before finding a recipe that works in a way that let's you suck money out of the market. It all can create this illusion that making successful games can be possible from your home garage, when in reality it's hugely likely in any short time span, maybe if you stick with for 10-15 years you will find your niche and specialize in that enough to stand out.

I've worked at a mobile game company, where they did like 50 games a year, which was crazy, and maybe like 2-3 of those made it even relatively succesful. It's indeed a very risky market. Wouldn't jump it, unless I was part of some team of super game makers who have the potential to really make something beautiful people want to play.

Wouldn't recommend anyone to make games either, I mean, do you really have a super unique idea nobody else has thought of or implemented already ? If you do, go ahead, but yeah. Luckily most people do it for the passion of just creating something, and not expecting money out of it, that I can understand and even is something to celebrate.

</comment><comment><USER31> _" This is a WINNER TAKES ALL market. You are either in the top 0.1% of indie game developers, or you are unemployed, with an expensive hobby where you make effectively free games."_

Game development is a fast moving business, and the goal posts are constantly moving if you are trying to make money in it. Remember when the only games phones had was 2d snake? Remember when the GameBoy was in black and white? Remember when you had to write your own Game Engine to get anything done? If you don't keep up with the change, you get left behind.

 _" This is nobodies 'fault'. Steam didn't cause it, Unity didn't cause it. games got easier to make, and more people got access to PCs, development kits, computer skills and broadband."_

With the rise of general game engines, game dev truly has never been easier. Thesedays I can pay roughly ~$70 and get a basic FPS game which I can then add to. That is outrageous. But here Cliffski talks as if there is some upper limit to games - but there isn't. If everyone is saving the same amount of time by using more efficient tools, then your only option is to spend that extra time on adding more content to your game than your competitors.

 _" almost NOBODY covered my latest game (in terms of gaming websites). Its extremely, extremely tough right now."_

Cliffski creates very niche games, and it looks like his latest game is a car- themed Factorio, without any of the enemies and just pure stats. In fact, all of his games seem very political or manufacturing based. One trailer even talked about taxes. This stuff just isn't going appeal to a mass market of gamers who want to escape reality for a few hours.

I do agree that if anyone is thinking of becoming an indie dev though, then they need to understand the market they are entering into. For example the VR market at the moment is small, so creating games for that space will result in a bigger splash and potentially more money.

The Linux gaming space is also expanding. Steam stats [1] say about roughly 1% of all users are on Linux, doesn't sound like a lot until you see that in the past 48 hours, Steam had about 13 million concurrent active users, which gives you a potential market of 130, 000 linux users.

There is also the Switch, another new gaming platform which is open for business to indies. Again you just have to keep up with where the market is going.

[1] [http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/](http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Basing your entire argument off the middle point of the top sellers list is pretty silly. It's a long tail even for "top sellers" where the top 50 sell more than the rest combined.

Yes it's a tough market, but averages lie and if your game is actually quality your odds of making at least a decent return (or break even) are much better than most of the shovelware that inhabits the lesser traveled areas of Steam.

</comment><comment><USER32> Most things don't make money. That doesn't mean you won't. Why would anyone play a frustrating game where you die every 2 seconds? With crappy graphics? Or should I say flappy graphics. Of course for every one of those there are 1000 that earn nothing (most I ever made was $20). But building games is still a worth task, just don't assume 50K a day income.

</comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash Same lesson can apply to most mobile apps now that all the ones that matter have already been made.

Indie development is somewhere between a crapshoot and a sucker's market. The costs are too high and the rewards are at best uncertain and at worst paltry to nonexistent.

I think it's a good time to point out that the most successful people during the California Gold Rush weren't prospectors - they were the ones who sold food, lodgings, supplies, and other needs to the prospectors, who worked their asses off just to make ends meet.

<comment><USER33> Who made money on oil drilling rush?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> _You are reading the thoughts of a guy who was coding since age 11, has 36 years coding experience, has shipped over a dozen games, several of which made millions of dollars, got into indie dev VERY early, knows a lot of industry people, and has a relatively high public profile. And still almost NOBODY covered my latest game (in terms of gaming websites). Its extremely, extremely tough right now._

I am a content producer and I hope to eventually make games, someday. Yes, it's tough to monetize. But this sounds more like sour grapes than a substantive piece about the realities of making indie games. The earlier numbers are, at best, incredibly hand-wavy and he essentially admits to making them up whole cloth:

 _I'd guess 90% of that belongs to maybe a handful, at best 4 people? (I have ZERO idea, this is my guesswork)_

It is one thing to infer and have soft figures. It is another to make strong assertions about the entire industry and back them up with numbers pulled out of thin air that don't even qualify as "soft."

<comment><USER35> > incredibly hand-wavy and he essentially admits to making them up whole cloth

I get what you are saying, and I agree to some extent. But I think the key in this post was that the 'average' game (from the very middle of indie top sellers list) makes next to no money. Checking it did not require making many assumptions. And this point is valid.

<comment><USER34> Well, I am trying to fact check this article with more knowledgeable people than myself from a perspective of "so, can you actually make meaningful money making indie games" and the answers I am getting suggest yes, you can.

I am looking at this information as someone who wants to actually make a living doing things online. I don't need to become a millionaire. I just want a middle class income. I used to make $100/day at my corporate job (not $100/hour like a lot of programmers) and I started at above minimum wage. Plus, having that corporate job was incredibly expensive for me. So, I need less than $100/day to compete with my old corporate job.

I am actually looking for hard numbers of "can you reasonably support yourself doing things like this?" Maybe not with making games being the only thing, but as part of the picture.

This article is a little bit like saying "Actors are not capable of supporting themselves at all unless they are big Hollywood stars." Maybe that is true of acting, I don't know, but it isn't actually true of indie games. It can be done, though it no doubt is a tougher market than the one he entered however many years ago.

<comment><USER36> This isn't specifically targeted at indie apps but [https://medium.com/@sm_app_intel/a-bunch-of-average-app- reve...](https://medium.com/@sm_app_intel/a-bunch-of-average-app-revenue-data- and-why-you-should-ignore-it-2bea283d37fc) gives a good overview. The main message is that there's such an immense skew to the top earning apps that the average earning can be above the 90th percentile earning; so if you want to earn average app income you have to be in the top 10% of apps.

I was surprised when the article was written they were estimating $2M a day income for the top earning game app (Clash Of Clans).

<comment><USER34> Thanks. Upon skim, this looks sort of like an app-specific re-hash of "How to lie with statistics" (an excellent book, btw).

Personally, I am more interested in finding some sort of meaningful info on how to make money on games or apps at all. Yes, I know it _can_ be done. I am interested in figuring out _how_ it is done.

<comment><USER37> Check out indiehackers.com there's a ton of case stories you might find interesting.

<comment><USER34> thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> If you are making a game and it is good but doesn't sell, at a minimum you have something in your resume/project list that you can control that helps your own personal product. Then you can use that project to get contracts, clients or other funding/income to help fund games or products.

Finishing and publishing a good game that you enjoy is never a waste of time. Finishing anything, making products, and launching them on your own is a great skill to have, very desired in the market, shipping many games is even better.

But I agree, go in with the assumption that the game may actually lose money in terms of time put in to revenues. Direct revenues of the current title is short-term thinking on something that can help long-term in other ways.

</comment><comment><USER27> But they do. The question isn't whether _every_ indie game makes money, but rather if the long tail of indie games is similar to the long tail of AAA titles.

It might be. Even if it isn't, indie games have a lot going for them. The teams are generally far smaller, the games are more unencumbered creatively, and the community is generally very grateful.

You could probably make a similar article called "MMO games don't make money" and make the same comparison against World of Warcraft vs the standard MMO.

</comment><comment><USER39> For an alternative view, here's a talk by Folmer Kelly. In the talk he discusses the idea that mobile games either sink without trace or are huge efforts that makes millions. He says there is a 'quiet middle' and that it is possible to quietly make a living from games without aiming to be a superstar. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rrWp- BxcNs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rrWp-BxcNs)

</comment><comment><USER40> The truth today, is that the internet makes it very easy for anyone to compare things against all others. Add to that the fact that certain games are clearly better, and that most games of a similar genre and quality are pretty much interchangeable.

This means that you'd need to make a game which is unique against all others, but also clearly better and of higher quality. If you can't do that, you'll be lost at sea.

</comment><comment><USER41> I only want to make a game because I think the idea and the technical challenges makes it interesting, and also because I don't see such kind of game around, and because I would like to play such game.

I would not dare trying to make a game that just look like other games, or if it doesn't have features that makes it unique. What would be the point?

</comment><comment><USER42> >This is a WINNER TAKES ALL market

No, this is good games win market. PUBG is actually a very FUN game to play, and appeals to broad market unlike tax return filing emulators author of this article likes to make.

</comment><comment><USER43> You're definitely not going to get rich making a "me too" game, which is what you find on Steam, mostly. Take the example he worked out - an RPG with zombies. No matter how technically competent you are there's no way to rise above the crowd starting with that kind of concept.

</comment><comment><USER44> Monument Valley netted a few million [1].

[1] [https://www.polygon.com/2015/1/15/7552899/monument-valley- sa...](https://www.polygon.com/2015/1/15/7552899/monument-valley-sales-costs)

<comment><USER45> That's pretty much the point. There are a handful of indie games that made their creators a lot of money. You can probably name most of them. But they are no longer representative outcomes from making an indie game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> 's/games/anything/g'

</comment><comment><USER47> I don't understand the right axis of the chart. The price of the game increased linearly with the number of owners?

<comment><USER48> It's graphing two data sets on different scales. One is the cumulative number of units sold over time, as a bar chart in blue, and as per the legend the scale for that is on the left axis. The other is the price of the game over time as a line graph, in orange, with the scale being on the right axis.

<comment><USER47> Wow, that's awful. The orange line is completely constant. Why is the right axis labeled with 16 different values?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Read the comments of that post. They're a painful confirmation of what the author is saying.

</comment><comment><USER50> I imagine an indie game is way more work than building a B2B web app?

<comment><USER51> I don't think they're really comparable. With a B2B web app, you generally then also have to run a business which is a whole other set of complexity that indie games developers don't really have to worry about since once the game is launched, your active work on the game drops considerably.

<comment><USER45> Except now you launch the game halfway through its development.

This results in a lot of bad deals for consumers, but it's true that the fact that people will buy games in an unfinished state makes a lot more games possible, and makes taking risks with games possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I shall become a model. I shall become a moviestar. I shall become a gamedesigner.

I became a hostess. I became a pornstar. I became a regular programmer. Best worst industry ever.

</comment><comment><USER53> I believe games in general don't make money. Hype and 'interactions' (streamers, youtubers, water-cooler talk) really make the cash, the game is just a conduit for them. Of course it takes a decent game to recruit those two concepts, but you can polish a turd enough to make it work ie: AAA games

<comment><USER54> AAA games are making vastly more money than people streaming AAA games. Blizzard did 6.5+ billion and EA did 4+ billion last year</comment></comment>


Ask YC: How do we announce the alpha launch? - <AUTHOR> http://onista.wordpress.com/2008/08/03/how-do-we-announce-the-alpha-launch/

<comment><USER2> How about starting by getting some target users using it and seeing whether they spread the word and recommend it to their friends?

The rest is all very nice, but a bit OTT for an alpha launch. Not putting down your work at all, but anything that hasn't got real users yet is probably still a _long_ way from being worthy of being officially "launched".

If you media-blitz and overhype it and it's not ready, you'll end up pulling a Cuil and losing most of your target audience on day 1.

Once you have a few hundred normal users who are telling you your product kicks ass, then think about marketing. Until then, focus on getting your product right.

<comment><USER3> I sometimes read things like this and wonder if I should honestly take them seriously or not.

Cuil did great on the PR front. Sure, their product wasn't all that wonderful, but getting that much attention even if lackluster is something most startups can only dream of.

We're in a similar situation to the poster, but since we're B2B our "testing" basically means working with two customers. We're planning on launching with as much hooplah as we can raise when our demo site goes live in the near future.

There's a lot of power in a launch; it's your chance to get it right and get some attention. At no other point early in the startup will you have as much momentum to getting PR attention. If you can pull it off reasonably it's a great chance to catapult your startup a good ways down the road.

<comment><USER2> I totally agree. There _is_ a lot of power in the launch. That's why you should only use it once you have something that can actually impress then tens of thousands of people who'll come and have a look.

You say Cuil did a great job on the marketing. Yes, they did. However, most people who went and tried Cuil had a bad experience. That compares very unfavourably with Google, which is unflinchingly brilliant. Result? Sure, Cuil did great by getting (say) a million people to try them on the first day. But of that million, maybe a thousand will actually use them more than once.

It's not really worth going through all that PR work if your stick rate is only 0.1%. Unless, of course, the whole thing was about investors / buyers, not about users (which I believe is the case).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd do the early phases like this:

1.) Release to family members, trusted friends & people that have a stake in the project. Get their feedback.

2.) Release on news.YC. Get their feedback.

3.) Find some influential bloggers in your field. Don't release to them; instead, send them a personal e-mail asking for their feedback.

4.) Go to forums in your field, pick out some dedicated early users that are really into the space. Send them personal e-mails and get their feedback.

5.) Release to the blogs and forums you identified in 3.) and 4.) Pay close attention to feedback and iterate.

6.) Release on Reddit/Digg/the rest of your list.

I've been a part of a startup that tried the PR blitz thing and it failed miserably, because we didn't serve any useful purpose. Gotta make it basically good before people will pay attention.

There've also been several times when I've released on news.YC to a very ho- hum reception and then killed the project, or otherwise took it in very different directions. That's probably not the response you want to hear, but it's much better to kill a product without a market early than to keep improving it speculatively.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds like a good plan and yes this is what we shall do. Iterating is the best approach as we get some time to fix the issues before more users know about it.

Any idea on how to find influential bloggers? (Besides Googling) Like is there any blog searching place that shows me ranks of blogs (based on traffic) and and have those distributed in categories like (Technology, Business, E-commerce, blah...)

<comment><USER4> I'm not really one to ask, since it's not like I've had great luck finding influential bloggers, and I usually leave the marketing to others anyway. I'd check out your competitors, see who's commenting or writing about them, and then see if they have blogs or homepages though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you do announce something, don't call it a 'launch' call it an 'alpha.' When you do a beta, call it a beta. Don't use the word launch until you're ready, b/c any news is going to say "But you launched in August! What's new?" and all you can say is "We're out of beta" or something like that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very good advice. You are absolutely right. I did not think of that.

Thank you very much.

<comment><USER6> That actually happened to use with PriceAdvance. We "launched" our beta and then officially launched a few months later and a number of write ups mentioned we had already previously launched.

Also if your going to submit to techcrunch, make sure they are the first. They like to break news. You have a better chance of being covered if they get dibs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > 8\. Create Wikipedia page for Onista.

Wikipedia is not a promotion vehicle and using it as such is one of the most blatant and despised violations of WP editing policies (which you should familiarize yourselves with). Your article _will_ be speedy-deleted; moreover, it will be very hard to restore the article later on even if your project does become notable. Keep this in mind.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot. I was not aware of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hey, I Googled 'Onista' and found your recent Vimeo video: <http://www.vimeo.com/1376104> as well as some introductions in various forums. Looks like you're building up the hype well.

My 2c after watching the video: I don't understand the instant negotiation. Is there a limit on the number of times I can submit a bid? If not, can't I just start really low and then increment by $1 or $2 until I meet the minimum? If there is a limit, what's stopping me from setting up multiple accounts so that I can discover the minimum, then bid that amount on my legit account? Since this seems to be a major differentiation point, I hope you've ensured there is no easy way to cheat the system ;)

Also, how do people pay each other? If you're relying on people to exchange money privately, how are you going to handle disputes?

One more thing about the video: your accent. I'd try to get someone without an accent, probably a woman. I think this would appeal more to your target audience.

How many people do you have working on this besides you?

As far as the Onista site goes, you've done a fantastic job with it. There seems to do and explore and the interface is intuitive and clean.

Wish you the best of luck in the coming weeks!

Matt

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Matt,

Yeah, that video will be linked from our index page to show demo. Regarding accent, yes that is one thing we need to fix. I and my partners all are Indians (moved to US almost years back) and hence have heavy accent. I am trying to find somebody who does not have accent and willing to help us do the narration.

About negotiation process, buyer can attempt as many times as he wants to negotiate the price, but if it is accepted then it will be locked for that particular product for that particular buyer. We have written pretty smart algorithm for negotiation and it will be impossible for buyer to know the minimum because it keeps on changing based on demand, requests, popularity, and lot of other factors.

So far we are 3 working on this parttime. We all have fulltime jobs and are developing onista on weekends and evenings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just release already.

This from 28 February 08 (and blog posts dating back about 9 to 10 months as well):

 _We have been working on our Social Marketplace "Onista" for quite sometime and every week (and every month) we think we are almost ready for launch "only if we fix these remaining little issues". To be honest, there is no such thing called "little issues". There are bugs in product (tons of bugs) and we must fix those before launching._

</comment><comment><USER10> First, fix your subscription news form.

"There has been an error submitting your email address. Please contact us at firstname.lastname@example.com."

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing it out. Fixed. Moved to new server and missed recreating this table. This table was not part of the other schema.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> You list "Create Wikipedia page for Onista". I wouldn't advise it - you'll just get the page deleted immediately for not being notable.

</comment><comment><USER12> You don't. Alpha tests are, by definition, internal-only.

<comment><USER13> _Alpha tests are, by definition, internal-only._

There are several different definitions. One definition I like is that alpha testing is when you know there are still missing features, while beta testing is when the planned features exist and you're just trying to make sure that they all work properly -- in which case you could very easily have public alpha testing.

<comment><AUTHOR> We have done lot of testing on our application using some external users as well and fixed close to 2k bugs to make it more stable. As you are suggesting, we are planning public Alpha.

<comment><USER13> _fixed close to 2k bugs_

* blink *

How much code do you have? I've been writing code for my own startup for about 20 months, and after 25k lines of code I'd say I've fixed maybe 50 bugs in total.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is lot of code. Onista is amalgam of eBay, Priceline, LendingTree, Alibaba and LinkedIn. When I say that, what I'm trying to say is that site has lots and lots of features. We have done testing using different data set and lots of scenarios to find bugs. We also redesigned lot of features. It did take us to fix close to 2k bugs to get to stable state.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How I Tested 2500 Free Wordpress Themes for Speed - <AUTHOR> http://www.wpspeedster.com/

<comment><USER2> Great job. This is something I've wanted to do (test speed of themes). 2500 is more than I'd ever be able to handle, but this is great.</comment>


SoftBanks next big crisis may be brewing in India - <AUTHOR> https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Cover-Story/Fallout-SoftBank-s-next-big-crisis-may-be-brewing-in-India <comment><USER2> That's a little disconcerting, given the massive size of India and its existing problems with wealth inequality.

Can anybody from HN with first-hand experience in the startup ecosystem in India shed some light on this article?</comment>


Sentry is now sentry.io - <AUTHOR> https://blog.getsentry.com/2016/08/30/sentry-io.html <comment><USER2> Maybe I'm alone on this...but I'm failing to see why Sentry's move to the Indian Ocean ccTLD is notable. I suppose it's fewer keystrokes...

<comment><USER3> I also fail to understand what people find as compelling news on HN :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Somewhat interestingly before you'd go from getsentry.com --> app.getsentry.com during authentication, whereas now the domain is the same (i.e. sentry.io/welcome --> sentry.io).

I wonder if this simplifies tooling around analytics, since now their logged- out domain matches their logged-in domain.

<comment><USER5> If anything that makes everything more complicated. However the upside is that it's less to type now and a bit less confusing for users.</comment></comment>


Books I bought in 2019 but didn't read - <AUTHOR> https://taimur.me/posts/books-i-bought-in-2019-but-didn-t-read/ <comment><USER2> I would be quite wealthier if my unread list were this short :-)</comment>


Show HN: BotEngine – Easy tool for creating chatbots - <AUTHOR> https://botengine.ai/ <comment><USER3> I have lots of text about a particular topic (50K Articles crawled from internet about travel experiences). Now I want to create a chat bot whose chats/answers are from this given text. Basically I want to feed my text to this bot service and creates a chat bot for this given text. Is anyone aware of how do I do this.. Not sure If I made it clear..

<comment><USER4> I saw a demo recently where someone used Microsoft Bot Framework for what you described. Can't find the video at the moment, but might be worth looking into. [[https://dev.botframework.com/](https://dev.botframework.com/)]

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Imho the most intuitive user interface for bot creation software: [http://wstaw.org/m/2017/07/11/Screen_Shot_2017-07-11_at_16.2...](http://wstaw.org/m/2017/07/11/Screen_Shot_2017-07-11_at_16.22.25.png)

<comment><USER6> That UI looks much more usable than the chatbot itself. As a user I would probably prefer to traverse the tree and see multiple options at the same time than to pretend I'm having a chat.

<comment><USER5> Sounds like a normal FAQ list with nested items, I think bots will achieve better customer service ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A bit off-topic, but I want custom bots per person via facebook or mail for something like:

››You still owe me back book XY. Type "snooze" to be reminded again in 7 days. Or be reminded again tomorrow. Type "done" if you got this reminder despite having done it (same as "snooze", but I'll manually review if I should remove the reminder)‹‹

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice idea! We'll think about it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Props for a fresh, clean design. The docs are fantastic, easy to read, and doesn't contain verbose technical bloat. Overall excellent design and UX execution.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot!

<comment><USER9> I second that. Who did your design? I'm looking for a great designer, can I get a referral for yours? isa at flutesystems.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually our developers who created also the whole tool ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> how does it different than other (seemingly similar) offerings? e.g. api.ai, wit.ai, chatfuel, manychat. i've used wit.ai, it's buggy (randomly missing stuff after you save them) and api.ai (so far ok).

<comment><AUTHOR> The first thing - it's very intuitive and simple, second - BotEngine will be the only tool integrated with LiveChat and third - we'll focus on machine learning.

<comment><USER11> > BotEngine will be the only tool integrated with LiveChat

How come?

<comment><AUTHOR> We're building the integration and it will be available soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Honest question: Are chatbots really used or is just a nice-thing to have? When I visit website and the chatbot pops up it really feels like it disrupts MY browsing, I immediately turn it off. I really wanted to if chatbots can translate into new sales.

<comment><USER13> I'm happy that I'm not the only one who closes tab when something uninvited pops up. At the same time I wouldn't agree it's a chatbot-related issue. It's rather poor UX design.

I'm realist and IMO chatbots are not ready for handling pre-sales or sophisticated support cases. However I see a huge potential in dealing with conversations that follow known scheme. Let it be cinema reservation or flight change - they look very similar in most cases. That's where chatbots might come in.

For example in my company (LiveChat) we're experimenting with handling app onboarding by chatbot. Results are very promising :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> You guys _desperately_ (I'd like to type that 37 times in a row for emphasis) need a serious, one-click to start, interactive product demonstration (without requiring my email first). I should be able to instantly step into serious business use examples catering to multiple industries (eg whatever industries you guys might choose to target first), so you can show me what it can actually do.

I clicked on product tour, entered a name, and then got this ridiculousness:

Me: Johnny Cash

Bot: That's interesting

Bot: Ready for an adventure?

Me: No

Bot: Oh no, why? It will be fun!

Bot: Are you sure? :(

Me: (pre-scripted) ok, I can try

Bot: Great, so let's try again.

Bot: Do you want to do something relaxing or should we go crazy?

\---

That's where I quit. Unintentionally creepy bot is slightly creepy. Am I talking to a serious product bot, or is this get trashed and sleep on my couch party bot? Wild and crazy times ahead.

Potential customers should be able to dive right into a conversation with your bot tech. You should be extremely eager to show me what it can do in a live conversation and you should have stellar pre-built examples for that purpose all available from one click on the home page. My take away from my experience, is your bot tech can't do much so you're not immediately getting into showing off its capabilities (I don't know if that's the case or not, but if this were any other site, that _would_ be my take away from it, and I'd never return).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot for your valuable feedback! This is the early beta version of our product and we really appreciate our users' opinion. We'll work on that product demonstration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> >BotEngine allows you to create a chatbot for any service.

except for the ones that are not implemented. would be interested to try this out once it has telegram support.

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll have integrations with LiveChat and Slack very soon. I'm adding telegrams and post pigeons to our to-do.

<comment><USER16> You should probably add Discord, as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is it free 100%? Or has it some premium paid features?

<comment><USER5> > For now it's free ;) > [https://www.producthunt.com/posts/botengine#comment-490613](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/botengine#comment-490613)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is anyone using Inform (or some other interactive fiction programming language) for bot programming? This project reminds me of some of the old tools for adventure games, so I'm wonder if anyone went to one of the interactive fiction tools.

</comment><comment><USER19> OT but I really like the website - do you mind if I ask who created it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Actually our dev team created also a website

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> No pricing? imo you lose users /w pricing page

<comment><USER21> Off-topic: is /w short for without? I've never seen that before.

<comment><USER22> /w - with, /wo - <USER2>

<comment><USER23> isn't it w/ and wo/ ?

I read /w as short for /whisper

<comment><USER24> Isn't it w/ and w/o?

<comment><USER23> yeah actually

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is there a way to just get the user response and forward it to a webhook ? (and of course send a reply received from the webservice)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup -> [https://docs.botengine.ai/key- concepts/interactions?id=webho...](https://docs.botengine.ai/key- concepts/interactions?id=webhook)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> As a user, why would I want a chatbot instead of up-to-date documentation with a search engine that works?

<comment><USER5> Many users prefer LiveChat, rather than browsing the documentation or using the search engine. Additionally, documentation and search engine don't provide private information, e.g. the status of your order.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Really cool. Is it possible to publish the bot to a website as a JS widget?

<comment><USER28> On page "product tour": [https://botengine.ai/product- tour/](https://botengine.ai/product-tour/) there is an example how you can use it as javascript widget.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> nice! any integration with Intercom in plans? Also, found a small typo here [http://prntscr.com/fuckqw](http://prntscr.com/fuckqw)

<comment><USER30> Hey Everula, I'm going to be launching something similar with Intercom support soon, and would love to talk to you about your use case and how I can help you. You can email me at email@example.com! [https://www.responseautomator.com/](https://www.responseautomator.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Why SaaS?

<comment><AUTHOR> Why not?

<comment><USER31> Let me rephrase. Why not on-prem?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's because in SaaS it is easier to test it, to develop it, to gain new users etc. + we know this model very well :)

<comment><USER32> Not to mention on-prem means support becomes much more difficult</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


After 6 days patients treated with HCQ and Azithromycin virologically cured - <AUTHOR> UPDATE:
Full peer reviewed study has been released by Didier Raoult MD, PhD drive.google.com/file/d/186Bel9….
After 6 days 100% of patients treated with HCQ + Azithromycin  were virologically cured
p-value <.0001
https://www.covidtrial.io/ <comment><USER2> 100% excluding the 6 patients that had problems. From the article:

> _Six hydroxychloroquine-treated patients were lost in follow-up during the > survey because of early cessation of treatment. Reasons are as follows: > three patients were transferred to intensive care unit, including one > transferred on day2 post-inclusion who was PCR-positive on day1, one > transferred on day3 post-inclusion who was PCR-positive on days1-2 and one > transferred on day4 post-inclusion who was PCR positive on day1 and day3; > one patient died on day3 post inclusion and was PCR-negative on day2; one > patient decided to leave the hospital on day3 post-inclusion and was PCR- > negative on days1-2; finally, one patient stopped the treatment on day3 > post-inclusion because of nausea and was PCR-positive on days1-2-3._

They lost 6 patients in the treatment group, but none in the control group.

> _None of the control patients was lost in follow-up._

And it is not a randomized control group

> _Untreated patients from another center and cases refusing the protocol were > included as negative controls_

</comment><comment><USER3> Isn't Azithromycin an antibiotic? Why would you administer that to cure a viral infection?

<comment><USER2> It's a good question. This got a little more traction in other submission [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22624955](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22624955) and some people asked something similar.</comment></comment>


Skype with care – Microsoft is reading everything you write - <AUTHOR> http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Skype-with-care-Microsoft-is-reading-everything-you-write-1862870.html# <comment><USER2> "Spam and phishing sites are not usually found on HTTPS pages"

That's actually a lie, making people think a website is safe just because they see <https://> in the address bar.

In fact, automated link visits is a common practice used by many email spam filters, and it makes sense to implement it in other messaging systems such as Skype.

</comment><comment><USER3> Previous discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5704574> Also, no it isn't: [http://www.zdnet.com/is-microsoft-reading-your-skype- instant...](http://www.zdnet.com/is-microsoft-reading-your-skype-instant- messages-7000015388/)

<comment><USER4> Ed Bott just doesn't get it, does he?

Skype was originally marketed as having end-to-end encryption. Now, we know that since Microsoft bought Skype they've added wiretapping support, which works by making themselves a man-in-the-middle. They claim they only do this temporarily for people they are actively wiretapping.

This, however, shows that Microsoft regularly MITMs you, for the purpose of evaluating whether links are dangerous. This means that basically all of Skype's former privacy claims are no longer true. They simply regularly look at your unencrypted traffic, which means that they are a target for attackers, governments, and pretty much anyone who wants to eavesdrop or read your messages.

<comment><USER5> How do you know if Microsoft is actually eavesdropping the entire conversation, or it's just the Skype client filtering out URLs in the conversation for additional screening? Sorry if I missed something in the article.

<comment><USER6> The URLs are being pinged by computers within Microsoft, so even if the filtering was only occurring on the client side (which I doubt) it still makes its way back to MS servers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So, as a linux user wishing to have some communication with _other_ people in the world, what is the correct alternative to skype?

<comment><USER8> The best recommendation I have at the current time is OTR <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-the-Record_Messaging>, authenticate your key fingerprints, ensure that neither party's chat program is logging, and that both computers are free of malware.

Pidgin supports OTR, but it crashes enough to raise concerns about that last point.

<comment><USER9> I'm confused. The above poster asked what a good chat program is for communicating with other people (namely non-technical users) where the user can't get spied upon.

This isn't so much a "how can I be secure" question, but a "what alternatives to Skype do I have that work on Linux" question.

Which is one I'm also interested in, since I also want something thats (1)linux compatible, (2) easy and accessible for "average users" of any OS, (3) and secure. And I'm hoping for those things in that order.

<comment><USER10> If you are talking to an average user (implied by #2), then there are short odds that at some point their machine will be compromised, at which point it doesn't matter how secure the communications channel is.

<comment><USER9> I should clarify, I don't mean secure from all angles. In terms of security I don't want a company looking through my chat logs, and I don't want someone who be able to see what I'm saying via a wifi sniffer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you're looking for alternatives, I recommend anything with off-the-record (OTR) messaging. <http://privasectech.com/2013/05/who-can-read-your-chat/>

</comment><comment><USER12> As an ex-Microsoftie, I'm really happy Skype is doing this. Instant messages are one of the best ways to spread bad things to other people's computers by getting them to click on things. This is going to protect a lot of people.

<comment><USER13> I've recently discovered that MSN censors IMs with some urls. From reports, it seems that the censor rules are really random too: e.g. everything with the .io tld. It also gave zero feedback that it was doing this, other than "error sending message".

That is not acceptable. If you think there is a virus in a URL, attach a warning as web browsers do with domains that have had reports of distributing malware. And beyond that, actually make sure that you only do this for sites that are really a danger, rather than making up arbitrary rules with exceedingly low precision.

<comment><USER14> I've had actually trouble sending any links _at all_ over MSN. Oddly, removing <http://> sidesteps it completely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is just microsoft running chat logs through automation scripts. I'm would assume these links also coordinate content of the conversation with the link and are correlated into bing search results.

Side Note: I wouldn't be surprised if google chrome submits url and page content to googlebot (for crawling).</comment>


The 2017 Hugo Award Winners Are Here - <AUTHOR> https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-2017-hugo-award-winners-are-here-1797762970 <comment><USER2> I am really enjoying _Death 's End_ so I was glad to see it nominated. Will have to check out the winner's work.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've read Death's End and am currently reading All the Birds in the Sky.

Has anybody read any of the others?</comment>


Redis University opens with free online courses - <AUTHOR> https://redislabs.com/blog/redis-university-1st-course-live-june-5/ <comment><AUTHOR> Data structures is open for enrollment right now, and in the fall there will be two new courses: Redis for Java Developers and RediSearch.</comment>


Palm's Pre smarthpone vs. Apple's iPhone 3G - <AUTHOR> http://technologizer.com/2009/01/09/palm-pre-vs-apple-iphone-3g/

<comment><USER2> as a consumer, this looks good. As a mobile developer: f@ck, yet another platform to support!!!

I hope supports the android platform (Dalvik and all, on top of their OS), in the future for native apps, in addition to the current web app framework it has. It would be very competitive to iPhone.

<comment><USER3> I would have to disagree. If this thing supports Flash, which is likely, it is Apple's greatest fear; there are far, far more people who can develop compelling Flash games, than people who can develop stuff for the iPhone. Also, as a Palm device, they are likely to create many different versions, so penetration into other markets / user segments is likely.

This is game-changing. Jobs was betting that nobody would produce another elegant device, but guess what? One of his own (Rubenstein) showed him it can be done. That's another thing, you know - behind all of this is a great ego- war that is likely to fuel a lot of great innovation from both sides. As both a consumer and a developer, you should be excited.

Google's offering will go nowhere. Mark my words. They're already trying to save face by looking at putting the OS into other things, like set-top boxes, but that doesn't replace the fact that it kinda sucks. I bet Google (and Cisco, and Motorola, and a couple other companies) are thinking about buying Palm right now (have fun trying to do that, guys - Rubenstein's not going to want to let you ruin his game with Jobs).

<comment><USER2> i think android has a much brighter future. Speaking from some inside knowledge, there are two large carriers that will introduce android devices this year.

Plus, all the Asian manufacturers (Samsung, LG, Kyocera, and some smaller Chinese ones ) don't have any good OSs in the plate. So they are already working on android devices.

Here is a rundown of the mobile world:

iPhone -- we all know it. Developing for it is not easy, and the process is not friendly at all. Good for games, but very restrictive APIs, and what you can do. There is so much more this device can do, but Steve Jobs doesn't want you to. So, some good competition is always welcome, as it will force Apple to open up.

Blackberry OS (semi-niche. Popular, but an OS with only one manufacture. Plus J2ME is going to be phased out, the BB Api is not that great (UI wise).

..

Symbian - Will be open source in a year. It is old, (based on work from Psion two decades ago), and development for it is not great (plus the UI is horrible).

..

Winmo - Has been around since 2002. Hasn't chagned much in years. Development for it is ok (not that hard), but overall it is Microsoft yucky interface. It was good for coorporates that didn't want to pay the Blackberry extra costs, but right now it is way behind.

..

Android -- The new kid on the block. Programing for it is easier, (performance is ok, not that great for games), it is open, and it runs on top of Linux, but it can run everything.

..

Palm -- Used to be hot 5 years ago. And now trying to come back. I really don't know any companies trying to work on anything on palm. They need to get a good app dev environment going, but they are not big enough to create yet another platform to develop for. Android/Dalvik, (or maybe Flash), will be great choices.

..

Linmo -- DOA. I have seen a couple of Motorola Linmo handsets, and they are crap. Just give up. The OS doesn't really matter anymore, the APP Environment is the one that matters now. Users really don't care if the underpinning of the OS is Linux, OS X/BSD, Symbian, or whatever. They just care for shiny things (flashy and animation), and running apps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A good point by point comparison.

Other sources indicate that this phone could be very attractive to developers. At the right price it should go down very well with consumers.

Now what is Google going to do with Android to respond to this?

</comment><comment><USER5> Looking at the sound formats it plays, why does it not include OGG? I mean, aside from "not knowing about it" I can see no reason to not put it in your feature set.

<comment><USER2> Sorry but 99% of the user don't even know what OGG is.

<comment><USER5> I realize that. How do you educate people if you never expose them to it? How did people learn what MP3 was?

I guess the short answer is that people only know MP3 as, "it's what my MP3 player plays. sound files."

But the kicker here is that there is a huge tech crowd, with blogs, who influence people to buy products, that would write rave reviews about the product if it played OGG. It'd be absolutely free publicity seen by millions of eyeballs!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really like the look of this, great comparison...only thing I would like to see is what they are going to make of the battery.

In the past I have always had palms, but now I'm sticking with Apple (its just where I would prefer to settle really). This is bringing some much needed competition into the fold. The UI looks amazing too.

</comment><comment><USER7> They forgot the most important line item.

Billion Dollar Marketing Budget: No || Yes

<comment><USER8> I've started to see a lot of iPhones around campus where I'm at and asked a lot of people why they got theirs. It's word of mouth about the easy upgrade from an iPod. At least 50% had their iPod die for some reason or another and decided to spend the $200 on an iPhone instead of a similarly priced Nano. Especially people who always carry both an iPod and their cell phone around all the time. It's not the direct marketing but more of a coattailish the "I have to go to the Apple Store to buy a new Nan... oooohhh! shiny iPhone" factor. It's just my conversations, your mileage may vary. (Also 'daddy' pays the $30/mo, so it's a non-issue.)

All the extra features like games from the App Store, Google Maps, GPS, and other junk this list goes through just sweeten the deal.

<comment><USER9> I wish the iPhone plan was $30/month. It's actually $70/month minimum.

<comment><USER8> I hate it when people quote the $70/mo. Do you not pay for a regular cell service? If you actually look at the numbers, the pricing is exactly the standard AT&T plans + $30/mo unlimited data plan. (If you can get regular AT&T at a discounted rate, even better!)

<comment><USER9> I currently have T-Mobile prepaid and average about $10/month. I really want the iPhone, and can easily justify spending $200 for the device, but I don't want to be locked into a 2-year contract paying $70/month (totaling $1680) when my needs are met with a much more modest price.

<comment><USER7> Could you go prepaid if you got an unlocked one? I have no idea how that works.

Unfortunately the only reason that device is $200 is that they upped the plan price to cover the hardware cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm glad to see the micro USB connector. I know it is a minor complaint but I hate traveling with two charging/Docking connectors Ipod for the phone and USB for everything else.

</comment><comment><USER11> Very interesting. It just might be my next smartphone.

I also like the idea of a new AppStore to compete with Apple.

How does app development work for PalmOS? Anybody have experience? Is there a windows-based emulator and SDK? Anybody have a link(s)?

<comment><USER12> In the current and former version of PalmOS, they've always had Windows based hardware (em|sim)ulators and a decent SDK (I used to develop software for old PalmOS 3.5 and 4.0). Natively, the languages they were written in were C and C++, though, there've been some scripting platforms written for PalmOS in the past.

With the new Palm WebOS, supposedly it's supposed to be Javascript, CSS, and HTML (though not sure how that translates into certain things like opening sockets and whatnot).

I've always been pretty impressed with Palm's Developer Network.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, they have been always been generally responsive with help.

I'm curious to see if their app store model is any more amendable to enterprise applications.</comment></comment></comment>


Artificial Intelligence Hits the Barrier of Meaning - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/05/opinion/artificial-intelligence-machine-learning.html <comment><USER2> As if humans haven't also hit the barrier of meaning? And yet we've still made unimaginable discoveries. I almost added the word "progress" but I guess that depends on what you find meaningful.

The article states: "But ultimately, the goal of developing _trustworthy_ A.I. will require a deeper investigation into our own remarkable abilities and new insights into the cognitive mechanisms we ourselves use to reliably and robustly understand the world."

Why limit the field to the capacity of humans? What the author calls "remarkable abilities" and "robustly understand[ing] the world" can also be seen as just reproducing our own innate and learned collective human biases. Our theories from observation, and their unprecedented ability to predict future events, is more about describing the world vs understanding it. Is there any topic in the world that doesn't have contrary _interpretations_?

What quantifiable metric would we even use to gauge artificial intelligence's grasp of "meaning"? We don't even have one for our own.</comment>


Soros calls Facebook and Google a  menace to society and obstacles to innovation - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/george-soros-calls-facebook-google-menace-society-obstacles-innovation-2018-1 <comment><USER2> Soros is the ideological enemy of the Bannon wing on the political spectrum and yet they both agree on regulating Big Tech. It's an exciting, and bipartisan, time for the antitrust movement.

<comment><USER3> This is surprising considering that Google and Facebook tend to support a lot of the Soros ideological agenda. Crazy and interesting times for sure...... but we definitely do need an anti-trust action to balance things out.

<comment><USER4> To balance what out, exactly?

<comment><USER5> Read the class action lawsuit recently filed against Google by James Damore. That at least in part answers this question. Also check out Project Veritas.

edit: made more specific.

<comment><USER6> > Read the class action lawsuit recently filed against Google.

Depending on your definition of "recently", I can think of at least three, none of which seem on point (though the UK one about data collection _might_ be arguably connectable to an argument about a need for anti-trust action.)

<comment><USER5> Thanks for pointing that out. Updated the post to be more specific.

<comment><USER6> Well, you sepcified which lawsuit (and it was one of the three recent ones I had in mind), but not how it is in any way germane to a need for anti-trust action.

<comment><USER5> I actually wouldn't advocate for anti-trust action, I'm just pointing where there is perceived imbalance caused by the dominance these tech companies have.

<comment><USER6> > I actually wouldn't advocate for anti-trust action

You literally just did by using the case to answer a question about the need for anti-trust action.

> I'm just pointing where there is perceived imbalance caused by the dominance > these tech companies have.

But the case doesn't support that; it supports (taking its allegations—many of which are diametrically opposed to those in the _other_ recent employment discrimination class-action against Google—as true for the sake of argument) a claim of an imbalance _within_ Google, but not the existence of an imbalance in society _caused by_ Google (whether through its dominance in some areas or otherwise.)

<comment><USER5> The law isn't the only way to solve this problem. Just because I agree there is a problem doesn't mean I must support the blunt force of legislation to fix it.

It stands to reason that outward imbalance begins with inward imbalance and pointing to bias within the company culture is relevant when it comes to validating why there might be an outward imbalance in how their products are run.

Again, I'm responding to someone asking "what needs balance". If you don't agree with me it might be more useful to provide a more compelling opinion instead of picking my words apart.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't disagree with him, but the Soros-Murdoch media circus has only paved the way for them and has likely done more damage to the American "freedom of mind" to date. Faceboogle is just the new guard - better, faster, and stronger.

</comment><comment><USER8> Regarding this statement,

> "There could be an alliance between authoritarian states and these large, > data-rich IT monopolies that would bring together nascent systems of > corporate surveillance with an already developed system of state-sponsored > surveillance," he said. "This may well result in a web of totalitarian > control the likes of which not even Aldous Huxley or George Orwell could > have imagined."

It's possible, but the big US companies seem to have good intent. I'd be more wary of big China tech for totalitarian control over information presented to users and their interaction with the tech systems.

Having multiple giants with competing interests might help to combat the risk that one of them turns to this.

<comment><USER9> Well, China already has pretty much the kind of collusion/cooperation being suggested there - you'd want to be more than wary if you were in the PRC. I am skeptical about the good intentions of US companies, but at least they tend to want to make money off you, not see you imprisoned.

<comment><USER8> I agree with you. I'm arguing that if Chinese companies are colluding with the PRC, then having other international companies that provide those services would provide options to choose ones that are not purposefully misleading their users. I think that customers have at least enough of a preference for transparency that if one option got too restrictive, they would switch to another global provider of such tech.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not sure which is worse: unaccountable Big Tech or Big Tech 100% accountable to governments.

I'd be more sympathetic if it seemed he wanted Big Tech less powerful, instead of simply transferring control of that power to elected officials that are cheaper to buy than controlling interests in Big Tech companies.

</comment><comment><USER11> OK, I'll take the downvote-heat on this one and offer a solitary "lol".

</comment><comment><USER12> This looks more like the old dance that has always been done in all industries. Rich and influencing people saying "we need to regulate the giants", so the legislators regulate the market and the giants don't have to face competition anymore but just give the lawyers a little more cash, maybe for some bribes too when things get a little too messy.

This tactics is as old as the laws, we should recognize it instantly.

</comment><comment><USER13> He's proving just how slimy he really is. Facebook and Google are some of the few companies truly innovating and growing in the economy these days. The BANKS and PRIVATE EQUITY are the real menaces to society, rent seekers who take advantage of lobbying, bailouts, and interest free loans and other shenanigans from the Federal Reserve.

<comment><USER14> I doubt anyone posting here know much about him, but everyone seems to have a strong opinion. Far as I'm concerned, it lends some weight to his point.

I know everyone who reports for a Rupert Murdock or Mercer family property seems to hate Soros. That's a bit fishy.

And the people who hate him the most are also some of the worst wingnuts on the internet: Alex Jones, Daily Stormer, David Duke.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Looks like all the money spent on his various "campaigns" hasn't been felt to be well spent.

<comment><USER13> Haha he's salty all of the troll farms and Facebook ads he's financed hasn't paid off

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Some might consider Soros a greater menace to society than Google...</comment>


I Brainwashed Myself with the Internet - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/she-wanted-freebirth-no-doctors-online-groups-convinced-her-it-n1140096 <comment><USER3> Very sad story. As a new parent, I'm devastated every time I read about the loss of a child.

We did a homebirth (with a registered midwife) and it was an amazing experience. We found a midwife who listened to us, went to eight weeks of birth classes, and delivered a healthy baby at 41+6. The birth was an enjoyable experience and felt very natural.

The cost was much less than we would have paid in a hospital and also was agreed on upfront. We did end up having a complication, but since the midwife had medical training she was immediately able to recognize what was going on and transfer us to the hospital.

I guess I'm telling this story because there are ways of having babies in a safe and healthy way not in the hospital - but you have to find the right people and do your research. Our midwife went to an ivy league midwifery school and had a license. If you're like me and thinking about having a baby someday, but you don't want to deliver in a hospital, look into birthing centers and registered midwifes. If you do want to deliver in a hospital - <USER2> for it!

</comment><comment><USER4> Almost trivial to say at this point, but I think this is one of the biggest challenges we face nowadays. Before the Internet, socializing for the most part required some sort of physical presence. This meant that "fringe" beliefs were much more readily counteracted by the more balanced make up of respective peer groups. Now that communication and virtual "gathering" are commonplace, peer groups are often directly chosen by belief.

</comment><comment><USER5> "Your whole responsibility is to protect your child, and I didn't before he even had a chance to breathe."

As a parent, the thought of being in this position, or any position of failing to care for my child, makes me feel sick. This really is a terrible failure. She found the wrong information and perhaps her child died as a direct result.

In British Columbia, Canada, a home birth under these conditions wouldn't be supported or allowed by a midwife. These are people who are typically very pro-homebirth and supported all 3 of my children in home births. I'm disturbed that people were encouraging her to trust herself so far past her due date.

The danger of accepting advice online with matters like this is that generally only an idiot would think they're competent enough to provide adequate advice.

I feel incredibly sad for her and her baby.

</comment><comment><USER6> While a home-birth can be quite safe i'm astonished to hear about a community that would ignore the need for a midwife. midwifery is probably the second oldest profession and every community and culture around the world has an equivalent. I cannot see any benefit for not having at least this much.

</comment><comment><USER7> Sad sad story. She had no medical supervision and her baby was stillborn.

Sorry but I have no comments other than it's 100% her fault. Having a baby without the benefit of modern medicine is a choice made out of complete ignorance and she has only herself to blame. I don't care how many Facebook friends or posts directed her to forgo medical care, no one does that without a purposeful decision to be ignorant.

</comment><comment><USER8> Finally! A website that gives a usable error message:

Error loading shorthand embed: Could not load Shorthand content from remote server.

Please see the javascript developer console for more details.

I will check! In the mean time, I wonder what the article is about.

Update: Ahh, the corporate MITM proxy made this a CORS problem. Thank you, corporate MITM, you waste my time, not only when I try to do work, but also when I take a break to read an article.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think it is easy to jump on the "I told you so" bandwagon, be it for "freebirths" or anti-vaxers or HAES movements. In the end these movements only lead to suffering. Be it still-born babies, people dying of preventable diseases or an early death because of obesity. I wish there was an easy answer to these problems. I feel strongly about personal freedom, but in the end how can you attack these issues then by information and regulation? The only other option may be the Chinese way of their social credit system. Don't vaccinate? Points deducted. Don't have a birth in a hospital? Points deducted. Obese? Points deducted. That will certainly impossible to implement in the west and also probably hard to reconcile with our culture, but it may come through the backdoor, as insurances are implementing finer and finer pricing factors, such as smoker/non-smoker.</comment>


Huun-Huur-Tu - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=i0djHJBAP3U#t=268

<comment><USER2> This could be the opening ceremony for Waza 2014!</comment>


Caffe – a fast framework for deep learning - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/BVLC/caffe

<comment><USER2> Please don't put "Show HN" in the title unless you're personally involved with the project.

Anything that anybody posts is technically being shown to HN, so if we didn't have this rule, Show HN would cover everything.</comment>


Tim Cook Supports Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/tim_cook/status/1184953662071885824 <comment><USER2> A few comments under that twitter accuse that it's actually quite UNFAIR as it grabs most immigrants from one nation.

I tried to read the whole act but God Damn it it's so difficult to understand the words...can someone explain to me what exactly is the fair act? Thanks in advance.</comment>