Appeal to developers

ludology/appeal-developers.md

@@ -3,6 +3,26 @@ title: Appeal to Developers
 ---
 # Appeal to Developers
 
-They're easy to make, duh. Also, they're [fun](./appeal-gamers).
+There are a lot of developers in the incremental games community - the genre seems to draw them in, and convert a lot of players _into_ developers. Let's explore the reasons why this genre appeals to developers.
 
-(I'll be expanding this section later)
+## Incrementals are Easy to Make
+
+Compared to other genres, incrementals have quite low expectations. You don't need to make fancy art, or music, or lay things out nicely. If you can make a button and learn the few lines of code necessary to make a number go up, you can make an incremental. This low threshold makes the genre perfect for those who are actively learning to code and haven't developed any gamedev-related skills yet.
+
+Additionally, unlike other genres incrementals are uniquely easy to implement in a normal web page - no need to worry about rendering sprites, moving them around, implementing physics, etc. New developers can just use HTML to add a button, and the game is now available in your browser. You don't need to choose an engine, have admin privileges, or hell for the dedicated you don't even need a _computer_ - there are tools for web development that run in the browser itself, so you can technically use your phone if that's all you have.
+
+Javascript is a perfectly viable language for making web games, whereas other genres are typically going to require using other more difficult languages to learn. There are countless javascript tutorials that start from 0 knowledge of programming, making it incredibly accessible to beginners.
+
+## Players are Easy to Find
+
+Once you've finished your game and uploaded it on github pages or itch or just copied the link if you're using glitch or replit (all of which are easy to do), anyone can now play the game in their browser. This low barrier to entry has shown tremendous success in getting completely unknown developers to have thousands of plays.
+
+The incremental games community, which mostly centers around [r/incremental_games](https://www.reddit.com/r/incremental_games), is always looking for new games and tends to flood any new ones posted with initial players.
+
+Having your games be played can be incredibly motivating, and the community makes it quite clear that you can expect players to play your game. These communities - both for incremental games in general as well as game-specific communities - tend to be very developer friendly as well. A lot of the developers know each other, and welcome new developers with open arms, often with dedicated channels for programming help and discussions.
+
+## Monetization
+
+I'd like to clarify that everything I've said above mainly applies to _web-based incrementals_. Incremental games are also _incredibly_ popular on mobile, but with a much different culture and community. Many mobile gamers will still participate in the web-focused community _for_ the culture. This web-focused community has a culture that has been criticized for being "anti-monetization". Ads, IAPs, and similar forms of monetization are often criticized, mainly due to the abundance of completely non-monetized games available from hobbyist developers. There are exceptions, like paid games often being considered fine, like Increlution or Stuck in Time, or donation ware games like kittens game, but even popular games that have IAP see some level of regular criticism, like NGU Idle, Idle Skilling, or Idle Pins. A large part of this can be explained by the community being hyper-aware of the [addictive](./appeal-gamers#addiction) nature of this genre and its susceptibility to exploiting players.
+
+On mobile, however, monetization is the norm and expected. If an incremental game is available on mobile, it almost _certainly_ will be monetized, and mobile players are aware and accepting of that. Mobile incremental games, due to their addictive nature, tend to make a _lot_ of money. It's very lucrative, and therefore these games are quite abundant on mobile storefronts.

ludology/appeal-gamers.md

@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ Vampire Survivors can be argued to have a comparatively low depth to its combat
 
 Incremental games are so easy, a lot of them even have you progress while you're not playing! Part of the appeal is being able to feel like you're making progress while doing something _actually_ productive - [multitasking](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-LziX2HynI), in a way. In this sense, the game is more of a fidget toy - not something to think hard about and play actively, but something to click a few buttons every so often while you're paying attention to a lecture or studying or working. Of course, not _all_ incremental games lend themselves to being played this way - it's specifically "idle" games that work like this. These are games that take an incredibly long amount of time to see all the content, stretching it as thin as possible, but they aren't expecting you to be sitting at your device playing it the entire time. They expect you to leave and come back later to make a bit of progress and repeat the cycle.
 
-If you look at the higher-level play of most games, you'll see them perform difficult feats with ease and speed. They'll achieve a "flow state" that takes all their knowledge and experience of the game and uses it to play the game as instinctively as possible. It's incredible to watch things like Slay the Spire speed runs or competitive DDR-likes. I'd argue the _goal_ of a lot of games with a competitive scene is to get so good that the game _becomes_ effortless. In that sense, a game that allows you to reach that point earlier isn't any less legitimate, but rather lowers the barrier to entry by allowing more people to get "really good" at the game. And to be clear, Vampire Survivors and (most) incremental games aren't _trivially_ easy - they, and to an extent, every game will have _some_ level of learning and improving over time.
+If you look at the higher-level play of most games, you'll see them perform difficult feats with ease and speed. They'll achieve a "flow state" that takes all their knowledge and experience of the game and uses it to play the game as instinctively as possible. It's incredible to watch things like Slay the Spire speed runs or competitive DDR-likes. I'd argue the _goal_ of a lot of games with a competitive scene is to get so good that the game _becomes_ effortless. In that sense, a game that allows you to reach that point earlier isn't any less legitimate, but rather lowers the barrier to entry by allowing more people to get "really good" at the game. And to be clear, Vampire Survivors and (most) incremental games aren't _trivially_ easy - they, and to an extent, every game will have _some_ level of learning and improvement over time.
 
 ## Addiction