Elevator7009

Kind of surprised this is the take. Algorithms in general, just sorting by highest to lowest or whatever common problem that needs to be solved, aren’t bad. “Algorithm” has become a dirty word mostly because of the stuff pushing short-form content over long-form content, outrage that generates engagement over something you would enjoy that doesn’t enrage you enough to make you type fifty paragraphs and keep coming back to fight in the comments, etc. So I agree with the literal statement that algorithms aren’t always bad.

But as for what you meant, I’m super surprised at all the people who want an algorithm to feed them content and aren’t satisfied. I looked for the stuff I was interested in, subscribed, and am happy. When I run out of content I either log off and do something else or go seek out stuff I’m kind of interested in. In my most charitable possible assumption, people who want algorithms are probably a lot less suspectible to getting pulled in by outrage and scrolling all day, and just want to be able to discover cool stuff fast, and the algorithms somehow worked to show them the cool stuff. In my experience I had to strictly stick to my Home feed with just stuff I subscribed to on Reddit to not see outrage porn, could never poke my head into Popular or anything without seeing some outrage sub like r/noahgettheboat or /iamatotalpieceofshit. And then they started forcibly sorting my Home feed by Controversial… yep. Stopped regularly browsing there really fast.

I am just really wary of asking for algorithms back because I really don’t want the Fediverse to become another place catered towards outrage porn for max engagement. I really want users to have options if this is implemented, so as not to force this algorithm on users like myself who like the “chronological order of stuff you purposely followed only” algorithm. And for that option to not be taken away from me in an effort to “drive growth!” and all that.

I don’t want to refuse others a good thing just because it’s not for me, but I also have been burned by social media algorithms that were once nice chronological, and later became catered towards outrage and showing you content you never signed up to see without having an option to switch back to chronological and opt out of having RandomInfluencerYouDontFollow in your feed. Looking at you, Instagram. I signed up with my elementary school classmates, liked chronological feed, liked having Explore just be friends of friends… I still only follow people I know in real life but now Explore is a bunch of controversial memes, people selling stuff, and influencers who want me to form a parasocial relationship with them. This is also what my regular feed, which used to just show me chronological order posts only from people I follow, turns to once I scroll past maybe 7 posts my friends made. Have not fully deleted but also haven’t touched the app in months now.

I guess the real solution is giving people options and not taking them away because you decided to go public and need maximum eye-on-advertisement time. Hopefully Lemmy stays open source and different instances stay popular, so in case someone does try to take it public we can all flee to different servers and keep talking.

• !otomegames@ani.social
• !visualnovels@ani.social
• !cozygames@lemmy.world

There were some more genre communities I followed but they are not near active enough for me to feel ok posting here

No, I don’t think so. On one hand I’d love to see this, r/gamingsuggestions is one of the few things I still look at Reddit for, on another I’m not sure how much activity it would see right now.

Hey thanks for the information! I didn’t even realize that was going to be the assumption, even though you are absolutely right about games with that kind of icon often having characters designed and animated with horny straight men in mind (even if non-horny straight men and people of other demographics enjoy it too).

Part of why some women like the game is because we have nice hair and clothing physics (first game I have played where I can put waist-long hair on a 3D character without it clipping into their back!) but no boob jiggles or clothing flying up to reveal underwear or the like. In my opinion the most sexualized thing at all is the fact that there is a clothing style called “sexy.” Even these clothes feel very designed for the eyes of women, and very not designed for titillation purposes.

copy/pasted from my comment on !newcommunities@lemmy.world

Game is actually very high-quality. A lot of girly games I grew up with were… not of the best quality, while more stereotypically boyish or gender-neutral fare was better. This game is aimed at women/girls and actually has very nice gameplay and graphics (and people of other genders can absolutely enjoy it too). As of now there are soft and hard timegates but they do not feel anywhere near as frustrating as typical mobile energy timers. I tried Ikemen Vampire and despite liking otome games, I bounced off super hard after a couple days of genuinely trying because so much was gated behind freaking energy. Progress on story can be soft-gated here (must level up clothes or get good enough clothes to certain amount, it takes energy to level up clothes or get certain—but not all—clothing materials) but you can still explore the open world, collect most materials, and dress up Nikki/play minigames to your heart’s content, so it feels way less bad.

At least, that’s why I am assuming such an innocent community ad has attracted downvotes so early on. It’s not some shovelware game or a Flash dress up game out of 2008 (though I did like the latter). In a period of my life where I am having trouble sitting down and just enjoying a video game, I have gotten quite hooked on Infinity Nikki. Tried on the recommendation of the OP once late December, have been playing almost daily ever since. It’s genuinely fun.