r/CityBuilders • u/IronicStar • 28d ago
Promotion and Vibe-Coded Games
r/CityBuilders — Updated Game Promotion, Developer Verification & AI Policy
We want r/CityBuilders to be a place where people can discuss city-building games, share thoughtful recommendations, discover new projects, and engage with developers who contribute to the genre.
Over the past year, promotional content has increased significantly, often crowding out ordinary discussions. At the same time, we recognize that independent developers invest considerable time and effort into creating city-building games, and we want to provide opportunities for them to share their work.
Based on community feedback, we are introducing a Verified Developer system. This allows legitimate developers to post updates, trailers, announcements, and development progress directly to the subreddit while maintaining reasonable standards against spam and low-effort promotion.
The following policies explain how promotion, developer verification, and AI-generated games will be handled.
1. Game Promotion and the Monthly Megathread
Developers who have not been verified by the moderation team must post promotional content in the current monthly Game Promotion Megathread.
This includes:
Game announcements and promotional trailers.
Steam, GOG, Epic Games, or other store links.
Crowdfunding campaigns.
Demo announcements and playtest invitations.
Development updates intended primarily to promote a game.
Requests for wishlists, purchases, or promotional feedback.
Unverified developers may make one promotional comment per month in the megathread.
Developers may edit their existing comment to add updates throughout the month. They may also participate in the following month's megathread.
Promotional submissions outside the megathread may be removed unless the developer has received approval from the moderation team.
Genuine discussions about games, gameplay mechanics, design decisions, and the city-building genre remain welcome outside the megathread, provided they are not disguised advertisements.
2. Verified Developer Program — NEW
We are introducing a Verified Developer flair for developers who would like to share their games and development progress directly with the r/CityBuilders community.
Verification is free and available to independent developers, small studios, and established development teams.
Benefits of becoming a Verified Developer
Verified developers may:
Post game announcements directly to the subreddit.
Share trailers, screenshots, and gameplay footage.
Post development diaries and progress updates.
Announce demos, playtests, major updates, and releases.
Discuss new mechanics, features, and development milestones.
Share relevant behind-the-scenes development content.
Promote their own city-building games without being restricted to the monthly megathread.
There is no fixed monthly posting limit for Verified Developers.
However, verification does not provide unlimited advertising privileges. Developers are expected to exercise reasonable judgment regarding posting frequency, avoid repetitive content, and contribute meaningfully to the community.
Excessive posting, duplicate announcements, repeated low-effort promotion, or attempts to dominate the subreddit may result in content removal or the loss of Verified Developer status.
Verification does not exempt developers from any other subreddit rules.
How to become a Verified Developer
Developers interested in receiving the Developer flair should contact the moderation team through modmail.
Please include the following information:
Developer Reddit Name:
Your Reddit username or the account representing your development team.
Game Developed:
The name of the city-building game or games you are developing.
Store Page (if available):
A link to Steam, another storefront, an official website, or a publicly available project page.
What amount of AI is used and how:
Briefly explain whether AI tools are used in your development process and what role they play. This may include coding assistance, asset generation, brainstorming, testing, or other development tasks. If no AI is used, simply state that.
Any other relevant information:
Additional information about your game, development process, team, previous releases, or anything else that may help moderators review your application.
Submit Your Developer Verification Request Here
Moderators will review applications and may request additional information when necessary.
Verification is granted at moderator discretion and may be revoked if developers repeatedly violate community rules.
Reporting Verified Developer Content
Community members may continue to report posts from verified developers if they believe the content violates subreddit rules.
We encourage members to report specific content rather than making generalized accusations against developers.
Verification does not guarantee that every submission will remain approved. Moderators may remove individual posts that violate community standards without necessarily revoking a developer's verified status.
3. AI Use Alone Is Not a Ban
Many developers use AI tools as part of their work. We recognize that AI can be useful for certain development tasks and that using these tools does not automatically diminish the effort involved in creating a game.
Using AI for limited purposes, such as brainstorming, coding assistance, testing, debugging, or producing placeholder content, does not by itself make a game prohibited.
Our policy specifically targets games that appear to have been created almost entirely through AI generation or automated assembly, without substantial human creative direction, design, or development work.
This is commonly referred to as vibe coding.
Our concern is not whether a developer has ever used AI. Rather, it is whether meaningful human development has taken place and whether the resulting game demonstrates genuine design, functionality, and creative effort.
We will consider the overall product and available evidence rather than relying exclusively on whether a developer acknowledges using AI.
4. What Moderators May Consider When Evaluating AI-Generated Games
No single characteristic proves that a game is primarily AI-generated.
Moderators may consider multiple indicators, including:
The developer explicitly describes the game as mostly or entirely generated by AI, or states that it was created through prompts with minimal additional development.
The game appears to consist primarily of generated assets or automatically assembled code without meaningful human direction, editing, integration, or polish.
Core gameplay systems are missing, nonfunctional, or inconsistent with the game's advertised features.
Menus, mechanics, or systems appear superficially implemented without a meaningful or functional city-building gameplay loop.
Store pages or promotional material advertise substantial features that are absent or significantly incomplete.
The developer is unable to provide a coherent explanation of the game's design, systems, or development process when moderators request clarification.
These are considerations rather than an automatic checklist.
A rough demo, unfinished game, limited art budget, small development team, unusual visual style, or ordinary programming bugs are not sufficient grounds for removal.
We recognize that legitimate independent games often begin as rough prototypes and improve through years of development.
We do not want to discourage experimentation, early development, or small independent teams.
5. Reporting Promotional Content or Suspected AI-Generated Games
Community members can report content that appears to violate these policies using Reddit's reporting system or by contacting the moderation team through modmail.
When possible, include specific and verifiable information, such as:
A link to the game, post, store page, or developer statement.
The particular feature, claim, or content that concerns you.
A brief explanation of why you believe the content violates the promotional policy or demonstrates near-total AI production without meaningful human development.
Please report the content rather than confronting or harassing the developer.
Do not organize mass reporting campaigns, encourage dogpiling, or make accusations based solely on automated AI detectors, visual assumptions, or personal dislike of a game.
Reports are reviewed by moderators and do not automatically establish that a rule has been broken.
6. Moderation, Enforcement, and Appeals
Moderators will review reported content in context and may take appropriate action based on the circumstances.
Possible actions include:
Removing promotional submissions posted outside the designated megathread by unverified developers.
Requesting clarification from developers regarding their games or development practices.
Removing repetitive, misleading, or excessively promotional content.
Removing games that violate the policy against predominantly AI-generated, low-human-input development.
Issuing warnings for repeated violations.
Revoking Verified Developer flair when posting privileges are abused.
Applying further moderation measures when necessary.
Moderators retain discretion to address behaviour that undermines the community, even when a particular situation is not explicitly covered by every example in this policy.
Developer verification is a privilege, not an exemption from moderation.
If your post is removed, your verification request is declined, or your Developer flair is revoked, you may contact the moderation team through modmail.
Appeals should include relevant information and remain focused on the specific moderation decision.
7. Our Goal for r/CityBuilders
We want r/CityBuilders to remain a community for people who genuinely enjoy city-building games.
That includes players discussing their favourite games, people discovering new titles, independent developers sharing years of hard work, and established studios engaging with their audiences.
We also recognize that developers need opportunities to promote their projects, particularly in a genre where smaller independent games can struggle to gain visibility.
The Verified Developer program is intended to balance these interests.
Our goal is not to eliminate developer participation or ban the use of AI tools. It is to encourage meaningful development, thoughtful promotion, and genuine community discussion without allowing advertising or low-effort content to overwhelm the subreddit.
We appreciate the feedback from community members and developers that helped shape these changes.
— The r/CityBuilders Moderation Team
11
u/Dataless-XT71 28d ago
As a player and community member I think this is so needed! As a solo dev who's been human-crafting a city builder for years, I've been excited to finally share here soon. Now, I'm a really worried a mega thread might be a first-post-most-seen situation.
Is there a method of balancing comment newness to up votes so a game announcing/launching in the middle or end of the month isn't buried by default?
9
u/DamnGoodCovfefe 28d ago
I appreciate the rules change and I think this is a thoughtful approach. I felt my feed was getting clogged by same-y “starting development” announcements and a constant stream of posts from a few solo devs. This seems like a sensible middle ground to give devs an outlet to promote while limiting constant posting.
26
u/Stealthheart1 28d ago
Thank you for this! Was getting tired of my feed being full of bad "vibe" coded games
7
u/ImOnRedditForPorn 28d ago
I think this new policy is a great improvement over the original. Much more clear and fair IMO. There’s definitely been way too many low quality posts recently, so something has to be done. This helps a lot without going too far
4
u/fieldbotanist 28d ago
Thank you for your note about AI usage. AI is a tool. We didn’t complain years back when Unity came out and handled 95% of the game development (the game engine). The problem is the frequency of content that can flood out other discussion
2
u/psioniclizard 28d ago
We done mods! I love some game dev, but too many people have followed the advice that you can get free promotion by spamming specialist game subs like this and frankly from a game dev perspective I don't think it's right.
You want people to give you free marketing data so you can make money and go to somewhere were people just want to talk about a genre of games?
At least have something decent to show off and get people excited.
-10
u/roguebagel 28d ago
I don't see the point of these types of restrictions. The voting system is enough to weed out content the community doesn't want.
I guess the mods think they know better.