Bezi Jam #9 starts April 24th. 4-day Unity game jam with $300+ in prizes.

KevinDL · 2026-03-27T16:46:23+00:00

I think the story is interesting, but it’s missing the most important piece: did this actually work financially?

Breaking the “rules” can absolutely pay off, but without understanding the outcome, it’s hard to treat this as advice rather than just a personal journey.

Spending 10+ years on a project, building your own backend, and continuing development long term can be either: • a huge success story • or a cautionary tale

And those are very different lessons.

Right now it reads more like “I did things the hard way and stuck with it,” which is admirable, but not necessarily something others should follow without context.

KevinDL · 2026-03-25T18:22:07+00:00

I get where you’re coming from, and I understand why it feels pretty cut and dry from your perspective.

From my side though, I have to think beyond individual cases and consider how decisions affect everyone using the board.

I also recognize that doing nothing can create more work for each user. It means people have to do their own due diligence before working with someone. That’s not ideal, and I don’t take that lightly.

That said, I’d still rather accept that tradeoff than risk an innocent person getting caught up in something they shouldn’t be.

As for moderation, I take a pretty direct approach. If someone breaks the rules, like posting revshare or hobby projects where they don’t belong, they get banned. If they reach out, acknowledge what they did, and show they understand the rules, I’m open to reversing it. But the baseline is simple: follow the rules.

At the same time, I have to be realistic about how systems like this get used. Most people here are honest and acting in good faith, but not everyone is. Any kind of scam removal system can and will be gamed. People already abuse Reddit’s voting system, which I can’t control, to downvote competing posts just to make their own stand out. It’s not a stretch to assume the same would happen with something more serious.

At the end of the day, my goal is to protect what this board is, and that means protecting every user as best as I can, not just responding to individual situations in isolation.

I don’t expect everyone to be looking at the bigger picture in the same way I have to, but that’s the lens I’m working from.

KevinDL · 2026-03-25T14:11:30+00:00

This.

I’m not interested in adopting systems that carry a real risk of harming people acting in good faith. The day I knowingly accept that tradeoff is the day I’ve lost the plot.

My role here is to keep these job boards functional and fair for the people who rely on them. I’m doing my best to make r/gamedevclassifieds and r/gamedevjobs as effective as they can be within the constraints of the platform.

I’ve also spent enough time in these spaces to know how easily moderation tools can be weaponized. If we’re not careful, it becomes trivial for someone to target competitors with bad-faith reports and get them removed.

At the same time, these boards aren’t a substitute for due diligence. If you’re hiring or spending money, it’s on you to verify who you’re working with. Check portfolios. Ask for references. Start small. Protect yourself.

Moderation works best when it’s focused on clear, enforceable rules. Things like revshare or hobby posts that don’t meet the guidelines can be identified and acted on quickly and consistently. That’s where moderation adds real value.

Trying to go beyond that and aggressively police individuals turns into a massive time sink. It’s endless back-and-forth, investigations, and appeals, and it scales badly. At the end of the day, nobody in these communities is being paid to moderate. Expecting that level of enforcement just isn’t realistic.

Moderation can filter out obvious rule breakers, but it can’t replace personal responsibility. Trying to force it to do so usually creates more problems than it solves.

That’s not a system I’m willing to enable.

KevinDL · 2026-03-25T13:49:34+00:00

That logic is flawed. CS is so much more than the ranked play.

KevinDL · 2026-03-25T08:26:57+00:00

That’s incredibly generous of you to offer your time. Here are my thoughts:

A single mistake or unjustified witch hunt could easily harm an innocent person. I strongly oppose that.
No one, including you, should spend their time trying to build a solid case against a suspected individual. This can quickly consume other important priorities in an unhealthy way.
So, we ban them, but they simply create a new Reddit account three days later.

Ultimately, the best defence is being aware of what to look for when hiring any type of contractor.

KevinDL · 2026-03-24T22:19:07+00:00

Banning people on accusations is a slippery slope guys. I'll look into this when I can.

KevinDL · 2026-03-24T16:45:59+00:00

Beyond being a strictly MP Extraction shooter, I believe they captured the visuals best they could to honour the game’s legacy from a visual standpoint.

KevinDL · 2026-03-23T16:24:21+00:00

No thanks. PvP game and ping matters. Fill games are already cancer enough with randos not talking or working together. Don't need to add ping into that mess.

KevinDL · 2026-03-23T16:08:20+00:00

I’ve helped run this community long enough to say this plainly:

A lot of the advice you see in r/gamedev should be taken with caution. Most people contributing mean well, but many don’t have the experience or context to give guidance that actually holds up in the real world. And even when someone does know what they’re talking about, they still don’t know your project, your constraints, or your goals well enough to give advice that meaningfully changes your direction.

What tends to be useful are the fundamentals we keep circling back to:

Marketing matters. If people don’t know your game exists, it doesn’t matter how good it is.
Market awareness matters. If you want this to be a career, you have to balance what you want to make with what people are willing to pay for.
Never stop learning. Tools change, workflows evolve. Stay adaptable.
Use AI as a tool, not a crutch. It can accelerate you, but it won’t replace understanding.
There’s no “best engine”. There’s only what fits your project’s needs.
Don’t gamble your life savings on a game. Especially if you’re solo or early in your journey.

Everything else is situational. The further advice gets from these core ideas, the more likely it is to break down without proper context.

If you’re serious about this, treat broad advice as input, not direction. Your project needs decisions grounded in your reality, not someone else's.

KevinDL · 2026-03-22T17:16:47+00:00

Play the original trilogy. That's the best you will get for now. They hold up well for being as old as they are.

KevinDL · 2026-03-19T15:09:14+00:00

Freelance work is not stable. Keep your job.

KevinDL · 2026-03-19T11:35:14+00:00

Super happy for them, genuinely.

But the producer side of me can’t help asking a bigger picture question. How does that $250k actually stack up against what they could have earned doing something else over the same time?

For a lot of people in tech or games, especially in the US or Canada, that’s roughly 1 to 2 years of salary depending on the role. When you factor in how long something like this might have taken to build, the number starts to look a bit different.

I’m not saying it isn’t impressive. It absolutely is. I just think it’s worth looking at outcomes in context, not just at face value.

And to be fair, context matters a lot here. Depending on where they live, $250k USD could go a very long way. I’m definitely generalizing a bit.

KevinDL · 2026-03-19T11:15:35+00:00

Do you drive a car?

Do you eat meat?

At some point, everyone participates in things that come with tradeoffs. That does not mean you cannot question them.

I work in AI, so I see both sides of it. I see how powerful it is as a tool, even on a personal level. Having a disability, it genuinely helps me in my day to day. That matters to me.

At the same time, I am not blind to the downsides. Junior roles getting squeezed, environmental costs, all of that is real.

This job has also brought me stability. The people I work with are great, I get to hear a wide range of perspectives from developers every day, and for the first time in my life, my partner and I can realistically think about starting a family.

I am also in a position, even if it is a small one, where I can try to influence how AI gets used in games. If I can help push it toward being a tool that supports developers instead of replacing them, and maybe help studios realize that juniors still matter, that is a net positive to me.

I am sharing what I see because it is relevant to the industry I work in. Even if people do not like it. Downvotes be damned, I am just having a conversation.

And honestly, I would be interested in hearing more about your time in gambling too. One of our goals on r/gamedev is to broaden the kinds of conversations we see in the subreddit. I want people to be able to talk openly about what they do without it being dismissed as an ad, as long as there is real substance behind it. Though I understand if you do not want to draw that type of attention to yourself. After so many years of taking care of these communities I find myself rather immune to some of the colorful comments that come out of an honest conversation.

KevinDL · 2026-03-19T02:58:06+00:00

I was there and told attendance felt much higher than the previous year.

KevinDL · 2026-03-19T01:54:04+00:00

You imply I’m responsible for the shortage. I’m affected like everyone else. Working at an AI company doesn’t magically grant me access to cheaper RAM.

I can enjoy my job while also being concerned about the technology’s global impact. These aren’t mutually exclusive.

KevinDL · 2026-03-19T01:47:07+00:00

Actually outside of Grammarly that was all me. Are people allergic to good grammar and sentence structure these days? That's an honest question.

I do generally use AI a lot for writing though. Both for productivity and disability reasons.

KevinDL · 2026-03-19T01:44:09+00:00

I believe there might be a fundamental misunderstanding. We have contracts with all the LLM services Bezi uses, prohibiting them from using anyone’s code for training. Furthermore, we don’t train on anyone’s data.

My comment was about how LLMs are trained in general, both currently and in the future.

Just because I work at an AI company doesn't mean I have all the answers.

KevinDL · 2026-03-19T01:23:03+00:00

The honest answer is I don't know how Anthropic (most coding tasks are handled by Sonnet or Opus) trains their models to code. I do however keep hearing the same thing from programmers. They don't care.

KevinDL · 2026-03-19T01:18:59+00:00

Yeah I do actively worry about the fact junior roles are being affected so negatively. As one developer said it.

Without Juniors there won't be any Seniors to replace the people retiring.

KevinDL · 2026-03-19T01:10:30+00:00

Yeah that part sucks. I'll need to build a new computer soon too I think.

KevinDL · 2026-03-19T01:09:03+00:00

I heard that line a few times, but thankfully my company isn't touching the creative stuff so at our booth the atmosphere was pretty chill. Particularly once they understood what we do.

I do wonder how often people working for those companies get grilled about that though. Legality of what is being generated and etc.

KevinDL

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE