b e a r d
if i have enough money one day i hope i can just like, fund a mod/game website that is censorship resistant and the only way something gets taken down is via DMCA or if it's illegal (although in that case it would more likely just be denied verification or something).
it doesn't even seem like it's that hard to pull off something like that. just put up some content filters for people that don't want to see certain things. or, better yet, make the more spicy stuff opt-in specifically. that way everyone can still enjoy the site.
why the fuck hasn't someone like notch done this yet? the dude totally could and it's not like he could come under any more fire than he already has, as if it would even matter goddammit.
@graf that's the reason why i said if i ever got rich i'd fund it lmao, i'm definitely not a person that could code something like that.
@graf but i will keep this in mind in case i stumble upon anyone 
@beardalaxy @graf I probably could, but I don't think PHP (the only server-side language I'm proficient in) would be a good language for this.
@beardalaxy @graf Okay, maybe I could whip something simple up. I can't promise any paywalled content because I'm not familiar with any payment processor or crypto APIs.
I haven't messed with backend dev in a while though. I'm just afraid that whatever I create won't be scalable.
@xianc78 @graf yeah, i'm thinking of something like itch.io but free from censorship, only with opt-in tags for more "objectionable content" instead of just a general "adult" rating system or whatever. and also mod hubs for games of course, both ones hosted on and off the site.
a lot of sites like these end up not garnering lots of traction because they get a lot of extremist (or "extremist") content on them, which leads people to not want to use them. if you had to opt-in to see any of that i think it would make it much more compelling to visit for most people. there are lots of boorus that already do this and they don't really have any issues. they just require an account, and require opt-in.
as far as payment goes, if we're just talking mods then the only real option is to just have donation links. games are a lot trickier and would probably have to be crypto. you could always just let the game authors handle it themselves though i suppose and just use the website as a means of pushing their game out to more people, you know what i mean?
i don't expect anyone to just randomly start working on this and hosting it though lol. it was really just a thought that i had floating around after seeing more mods being banned for stupid fucking reasons.
@beardalaxy @graf I was also thinking something like itch.io. I had an idea of creating an indie game marketplace for a while, but my lack of knowledge with online payment processing and the difficulty of hosting a service with large files prevents me from implementing it. I could use something like WebTorrent to save server space, but that would mean that people can easily just share the magnet URIs and download whatever they want on the site for free (assuming the know the correct URI).
Now that I think about it. I think @alex was thinking about creating a NewGrounds spiritual successor. Not necessarily a marketplace like itch.io, but I think he could incorporate some of your ideas (likes mods or commercial games) into it.
@xianc78 @graf @alex I don't think it necessarily has to have a commercial element to it beyond just donating and stuff. Certainly not from the beginning.
Like I said, it might be better to just let the creators handle that sort of thing at least at first. RPGMaker.net is a good example of that, they don't have any way of commercializing a game directly but let you link to somewhere that does. Could also always go back to like, the shareware days where a demo is hosted and if you send mail with payment they'll send you the game or something xD that would legit be pretty funny. I mean, fuckin Mullvad lets you do that so why not an indie dev? xD
But yeah, I'd be down with a NG spiritual successor. NG itself is already pretty damn good and always has been tbh, there are rules and things they don't allow of course but it's still a really good place to show off your creativity in a place that's not so corporate. but it'd be dope to have a place like that which actually allows a lot more stuff. i like the community aspect of it and it's pretty much the only place that has star rankings anymore xD
@xianc78 no idea tbh. I only went back in the last couple of years. It seems like it's maybe more lax than something like YouTube generally speaking, and then it has porn there too lmao. You're unlikely to get away with "hateful content" or loli, but pretty much everything else seems to fly. I have seen animations there that some freaks would be like "that's racist/sexist!" when really it's just being done for comedy, that kind of thing.
@beardalaxy It seems like they are really only known for FNF and their Flash emulator now.
@beardalaxy @graf @alex
>Like I said, it might be better to just let the creators handle that sort of thing at least at first. RPGMaker.net is a good example of that, they don't have any way of commercializing a game directly but let you link to somewhere that does.
I think GameJolt used to be like an engine-agnostic YoYoGames or RPGMaker.net, but in recent years, they allowed commercial games on their platform, so they are more like itch.io these days.
>Could also always go back to like, the shareware days where a demo is hosted and if you send mail with payment they'll send you the game or something xD that would legit be pretty funny. I mean, fuckin Mullvad lets you do that so why not an indie dev? xD
There are newer games for older computers/operating systems that do that just for nostalgia purposes, though I think they are payed through things like PayPal.
>But yeah, I'd be down with a NG spiritual successor. NG itself is already pretty damn good and always has been tbh
I never used it much tbh. It seemed like all the flash game creators on there eventually got their own websites, so I was on those sites more. (kind of weird that the exact opposite is happening today with everyone posting on Big Tech platforms, but I guess people eventually realized that they can monetize their games by self-hosting and putting banner-ads) I also played more of the "professional-quality" flash games like the ones on AddictingGames, MiniClip, and XGEN. Most of those games were developed by actual companies, though they are probably considered indie by today's standards.
>there are rules and things they don't allow of course but it's still a really good place to show off your creativity in a place that's not so corporate.
Didn't they bend the knee to BLM? I remember everyone bitching about how they brought back Tankman just for a BLM virtue signalling video. I think they also had an influx of Tumblr users back when Tumblr banned porn, so the culture might have changed.