I posted at #GameDev subreddit describing my experience in Godot community. As expected, moderators immediately removed it. I presented it as a postmortem experience, and I have followed the rules, but they permanently banned me from /r/gamedev.
Before removal, someone said that my feedback is unhelpful. I replied that I cannot make it factual, otherwise my post may be deleted, just like it happened with my previous post that moderators deleted two month ago:
If you scroll down, you'll read a testimony of someone who actually agreed to what I've described (Godot is a cult). Usually, these kind of comments also get heavily downvoted on Reddit, and this is a consistent pattern I've noticed two months ago as well:
Eventually, someone from /r/gamedev moderators removed my post. Minutes later, they permanently banned me from /r/gamedev subreddit, without previous warning! How about that!
If you're unaware of my situation, @godotengine permanently banned me as well for revealing Godot's hypocrisy to the public:
A little bit of investigation confirms that at least 3 moderators at /r/gamedev are involved with @godotengine on some level! Could you imagine this?
The above allows me to come to a conclusion that /r/gamedev is heavily biased to support Godot ideology, including moderators.
So, when I say that Godot is a cult, I hope you come to the same conclusion. Cults have no territorial limitations. It's about ideology. And Godot's ideology cannot tolerate criticism of any kind towards itself.
At best, you'll be labeled as an outsider if you express critical thinking about Godot. At worst, you'll be cancelled from community if what you say goes against Godot's doctrine. Facts will be ignored, and you'll be labelled as biased, angry, and even mentally-ill by Godot cult.
I used to trust Juan, aka @reduzio. Never again. This manipulator cannot be trusted. I'm talking about this as someone who has spent years contributing to @godotengine.
Whatever you decide to do with Godot, please, do not give money to them.
If you're not aware of manipulation techniques, you'll instantly believe Juan, since he is very skillful in gaslighting. So skillful to the point that what you see on the fragment above must be broken down into smaller pieces and be explained in detail.
I am an open and honest person. But in a community-driven project, where Godot explicitly mentions that "community-driven" implies "open discussion", Juan wants to feel me guilty for being an open person, which is ridiculous.
Commenting on "what's wrong with that" regarding free labor:
The lead developer Juan Linietsky (@reduzio) wrote that there's "true meritocracy" in Godot. But if you ask him directly, he says that everything is based on trust, and "not meritocracy":
The Russian member and maintainer of @godotengine, called @YuriSizov, aka pycbouh, and other people like him, will destroy Godot faster than me. Let me explain why.
Russian maintainer, @YuriSizov, joined Godot community in 2020 or so. While Godot already had problems with its governance, @YuriSizov exacerbated it further. In fact, the reason why Godot leadership accepted him was mostly because of his toxic behavior towards Godot users.
I know the above sounds like a contradiction, but since Godot is governed by top-down, autocratic approach, toxic leadership thrives in Godot:
Even after quitting the Godot cult, sometimes I still find it difficult to believe that I used to participate in Godot cult in the first place... That's when you know how strong the brainwashing could get.
Godot leadership cannot kill you physically. But if you get indoctrinated by Godot followers and express critical thinking, you'll get emotionally abused: "you should not talk this way", "this is your last warning", "if you keep doing this, you'll be permanently banned".
Threats like above can really fuck up the brains of adolescents, and I suspect that there's a lot of younger people who use Godot at the moment. These kind of threats are disproportionate to the situations that arise at hand. And what for? Make people obedient? At what cost?
The first thing that you'd need to do is to learn @godotengine, of course. Take some time to learn GDScript, create prototypes, funny projects, and generally experiment with the engine. It should only take you like 2-4 weeks to master the basics of game development with Godot.
Join Godot community channels. I recommend joining Godot's Discord server first. Introduce yourself there. You'll quickly get bombarded with love from Godot moderators and other users there. Tell them that you're new to Godot and say that it's awesome!