Danieru (u/Danieru) - Readit News

Danieru commented on Open Banking and Payments Competition bitsaboutmoney.com/archiv... · Posted by u/smitop

theendisney · 15 days ago

I had a funny chat in the 90s with soneone in charge of a bank. The thing was, they wanted me to supply a business plan. I know how to write those but find it mysterious that they want me to write it for all completely unorriginal businesses. If one wants to start a shoe store one should simply investigate the demography and map the varous shoe stores nearby. The bank is in a position to do that cheaply for their entire service area. Innovation would be to put the opportunities in the window display. Their standard plan can have everything they look for. No need to complaint that the guy who hapoens to be good at baking bread forgot something. If the data checks out you can give much larger lones with more interest. If there are many holes in the coverage you sell someone a lone for a franchise. It was a funny chat because everything was impossible, even a bank director should not submit ideas.

Danieru · 15 days ago

The business plan is not about the business plan.

It's only even half about the business. Instead it is about the businessman making the pitch.

If someone is good at baking bread that suggest they are qualified to to bake bread. Running a bakery is a super set of that skill. The business plan request is a fantastic method to give such a person a chance to show they have the right resources, enough experience, and reasonable expectations and strong commitment.

Danieru commented on 2025 Infrastructure Report Card infrastructurereportcard.... · Posted by u/jonbaer

Danieru · a month ago

It is important to keep in mind how this "Report Card" is a lobbying tool. A wishlist meant to influence, not an independent assessment meant to inform.

The prognosis is to spend more money building more things. This has been the prognosis every year since the lobbying started. Prior projects built based on this excessive lobbying have since reached end of life this scheme is so old. Now the reports include horror stories of this federal lobbied over building which got poorly maintained: as if the poor maintenance is not the expected result of building more than can be maintained.

Infrastucture funding in the US typically operates such that the federal government gives money to build new stuff, while local governments are left attempting to pay for the maintenance.

Try to find a single page dedicated to identifying over provisioned infrastructure which could be downsized to reduce maintance costs... The ASCE's solution to all problems is to spend more money building more.

Danieru commented on Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses craigmod.com/ridgeline/21... · Posted by u/speckx

parpfish · 2 months ago

if you find your local region unenjoyable, change your local region

Danieru · 2 months ago

Your plan to address the decline in British beach towns is to depopulate the UK?

Seems a bit extreme just to avoid a plane ride.

Danieru commented on What Was Quartz? zachseward.com/what-was-q... · Posted by u/mooreds

refuser · 5 months ago

> The Paycheck Protection Program, for small businesses affected by the pandemic, helped keep us afloat.

In the grand scheme of PPP shenanigans it’s nothing, but how was an online-only _news_ website negatively impacted by perhaps the most globally relevant, urgent, and ongoing news story of the internet age?

Danieru · 5 months ago

Ad spending got put on hold or canceled during the covid recession. Companies in all sectors moved to conserve cash.

Even Google froze hiring.

It was a good time to have a conservative balance sheet. I bought some good stock on the cheap, and hired my best programmer.

Danieru commented on Why does Britain feel so poor? martinrobbins.substack.co... · Posted by u/prawn

Danieru · 5 months ago

Everyone appears to agree that Britain is broken. The author recognizes that the issue is not a lack of taxes, but lack of care at where the money goes.

Sadly the author I think is getting distracted by specific issues. Focusing on school or social costs. Or specific large project over runs.

While I do not agree with him on many things, I think Dominic Cummings's treatment of the subject digs deeper: https://dominiccummings.substack.com/p/q-and-a

You need to read through a ton, but it paints a picture of a government chasing newspaper headlines. And an overall ineffective method of running a country from the top down.

How could it be that an act of parliament is being held up by local councils? Parliament's orders used to be the law of the land. Now it is but one of many.

Often treatments of British decline read as if the authors wished Britain had been fire bombed to smithereens, and benefited from the Marshel Plan. Yet this undersells the British people. They know how to build new houses. They know how to build trains. Yet Britain as a whole is still searching for that win-win. The path to fixing problems without compromises.

Meanwhile Britain's managerial and governing class is so incompetent, it is hard to imagine replacements who would perform worse.

Danieru commented on Lego says it wants to start to bring video game development in-house videogameschronicle.com/n... · Posted by u/namanyayg

YesBox · 5 months ago

Hi fellow indie dev!

>Games can be a good business, I know my studio is

If you dont mind sharing, how many people do you employ/long term contract with? "Games can be a good business" is entirely subjective to the studio's goals. So I guess I'm wondering: is your goal to stay solo+/micro/indie, or are you planning to grow with each successive game? And how big?

Sustainability is something I've been thinking about a lot recently[0]. I'm relatively close to launching Metropolis 1998, which falls squarely in a long tail genre (if done right)[1]. I'd love to build up a studio, in office, and along the way figure out what's the right headcount for my goals.

Whiskerwood looks neat btw. Good luck on the game. I'd love to hear why you chose to go with a publisher this time around? Was it an affordable luxury :P ? Marketing, community management, localization can be a PITA, but it's entirely possible to do even at solo scale.

[0] It is not cheap to operate a game studio that employs local people in the USA. It's frustrating because the COL in the mid west is <= 70% cheaper than the coastal cities (where the vast majority of studios are). There's a lot of cheap land where the industry could be to make art/games a lot more comfortably (ignoring the fact that N% people dont want to live there, which is valid if that's not what they want)

[1] Many people play Rollercoaster Tycoon (1999), SimCity 4 (2003), and the original City Skylines (2015) today. steamdb.info, OpenRCT, subreddit activity, etc.

Shoot me an email if you dont want to respond here?

Danieru · 5 months ago

Hey YesBox! I've been watching your game for ages. I think since you first showed it on the indie subreddit. I'm excited to play it. Sim City 2000 was a big influence for me.

Overall though I'd say: coastal US is a market no one can afford to do gamedev with employees in unless you are a child company of a platform holder. We're based in Japan where cost of living is vastly more reasonable.

Personally I'd suggest you highly question yourself about what sort of studio you want to work in. The environment you want to work in, should be the one you try to make. For me that meant full remote with no offices. I'd honestly be surprised to meet ang gamedev who likes offices and commutes, much less one who list the extra cost.

Danieru commented on Lego says it wants to start to bring video game development in-house videogameschronicle.com/n... · Posted by u/namanyayg

pjmlp · 5 months ago

Google had internal teams, and were naive to think studios would rewrite their tooling into Linux and Vulkan, given their fame.

On the last year before shutting down Stadia, they were finally addressing this.

"How to write a Windows emulator from scratch"

https://youtu.be/8-N7wDCRohg?si=lOU6iTtwi6MS_Bhw

Danieru · 5 months ago

I remember we got a "devkit" into the studio before public release: it was an entire 1u server.

How are we supposed to use a 1u devkit!? Had no one on their team ever do console work!?

Console devkits fit on a desk because that is where a console devkit needs to go. On the porting engineer's desk, so they can do the work.

In the end Google announced the non-sense business model and we saw the writing on the wall. I do not think that devkit ever got setup.

Danieru commented on Lego says it wants to start to bring video game development in-house videogameschronicle.com/n... · Posted by u/namanyayg

Danieru · 5 months ago

Warner Bros has been trying to sell off their studios. So I can see Lego succeeding if they buy TT. Otherwise I think Lego will realize what many others have: starting up a new studio is hard, and having money makes it harder.

You cannot will a studio into existence with money. Google tried this. Amazon tried this. Microsoft has tried it a bunch of times.

Games can be a good business, I know my studio is, but it is hard in was that traditional business methods cannot cope with.

So Lego, make sure you acquire TT. That is your only clear opportunity to use money to solve this problem. Otherwise find a bunch of Lego fan gamers and hire them to make experimental games for half a decade. Don't listen to that VP who is promising you can push XXXmillion into an org chart and get an effective studio as the result.

Danieru commented on Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting bbc.com/news/live/c625ex2... · Posted by u/yakkomajuri

bchasknga · 6 months ago

Can you please inform me how the US bullied UK into mineral rights in WW2? We exported arms and equipment to them even before Lend-lease acts.

It would be true if you were to mention about our special flavor of freedom exportation during the cold war. However, this time Ukraine is a democratic nation being invaded by our biggest political rival, Russia.

Danieru · 6 months ago

No mineral rights: just gold up front.

The UK paid the US all it's gold reserves. Next it stole of the UK people's gold to use that to buy weapons.

The US was not giving the UK when it exported, it was selling. Lend lease came in once the UK ran out of gold. So the US gave them credit: which the UK tool until 2006 to repay.

Danieru commented on Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam · Posted by u/newobj

johnnyanmac · 6 months ago

even with a publisher, 200k copies at launch for a very small indie team is easily on pace for the 1%.

https://intoindiegames.com/features/how-much-money-do-steam-...

TBH I forgot the 1% was so high, even for an indie. But network effects are crazy, so getting to 700k will eventually be a thing.

Danieru · 6 months ago

That article is 5 years old. Sadly the article lacks a date, but you can tell because it claims Steam is 15 years old, when it had its 22 anniversary last year.

Next that 7M number is for self-published games. Aka, games where the dev is listed as the publisher. OP has Raw Fury as his publisher. Next Raw Fury posted their contract publically a while ago: it is a pretty harsh contract. 50/50 split, but there is a profit ratio baked into the recoup which is super odd. If OP had held off, did his own marketing for a bit, then negotiated with publishers once he had traction, he might have gotten a better deal.

The challenge for Indie devs with publishers is how the good publishers ask a pretty high take. Meanwhile the good deals come from new publishers with poor or no track record. Personally we signed with Hooded Horse which publically offers better deals and is highly effective. The trade off being Hooded Horse is famously quite selective.

Thus honestly: self publishing is the default-best choice. We did that for our last game and effectively replaced a publisher by just spending a bunch on marketing.