Tag: YouTube

Honey Scam

Honey is a browser extension now owned by PayPal. It promised cheap deals to the user by automatically searching for vouchers and applying them at checkout. However, there seems to be some possible foul play in the way that it worked.

Honey was adding itself as a referrer which sounds logical if the user has made their own way there. Referral links give a financial kickback to the referrer so would be fine to give Honey some credit for assuring the end user completes the purchase. 

The end user uses honey with the promise of searching for valid voucher codes to save further money. However, even when Honey couldn’t find anything, they still stole the referral. To the end user, this didn’t affect them because it was the referrer that was missed out. So all those YouTubers that had affiliate links will have lost out money, or future affiliate deals and sponsorships.

The ironic thing is that Honey gained a lot of new users from YouTube partnerships themselves. So YouTube audience would install the Honey extension, then any future affiliate links from the YouTuber (and any other YouTuber) would be then hijacked by Honey. So the YouTuber has been completely scammed but would be unaware it was happening at all.

There was another suggestion that Honey even did deals with shops to limit the discounts offered. So if there was a voucher available for 20% off, they would lie and say they have found 10% off. So Honey promised to find the best deal for you without you making any effort, but they were just finding mediocre deals for you and you could have got a better deal if you did put the effort in.

For some sales, you could say that the value proposition to retailers is dubious since they are giving customers discounts on products they were already about to buy.

Legal Eagle is filing a lawsuit against them, which is going to be interesting to see the outcome.  I’m Suing Honey .

Can AI Make Computer Games?

Jabrils created a game using various AI tools. Although he says it was 100% created by an AI, it required him to type in different prompts until he got something that worked, and needed to use different AI’s in order to get the code, images, and sound. So it still needs human input as a “director”.

I fooled an expert gamedev with a game made ENTIRELY by AI

He got David Jaffe, who worked on the likes of Twisted Metal and God of War, to harshly critique it, oblivious to the fact it wasn’t Jabril’s own game.

He initially struggles to work out what the aim of the game is, which highlights the fact that – even though it is a working game – it doesn’t have the extra polish such as a tutorial, button prompts, or subtle visual hints. Although, maybe it could have added them had Jabrils specifically asked for those features.

“I have no clue what I’m doing in this game. If I wasn’t recording this video with you – I would be done”

David Jaffe

“I also don’t know what my goal is. I assume it’s to land but you don’t really have the space marked very well.”

David Jaffe

Since David believes that Jabrils made it, he remarks on how you think your own game is obvious how to play it, but that’s why getting someone independent to play test your game is so valuable. It’s similar to any type of software development really; you can be so focussed on coding, that you don’t see the bigger picture and the various ways someone can interact with it

After he is told it was made by an AI, he becomes more positive. 

“I think it is brilliant. Looking at it from that perspective, that is how games are going to get made more and more, right. The fact that you could do that, and say ‘make me a game that does X, Y and Z’ is amazing…I love it. I love that you made this. It’s terrible, but it’s kind of like criticising a one-year-old who took his first steps.” 

David Jaffe

It’s going to be interesting how AI develops, and I do wonder how long it will be before human interaction will be reduced, and also if AI can “understand” game design to actually incorporate more user-friendly features.