I built flopathon.cc last weekend - a live Steam player-count tracker where users vote whether a game is a "Flop" or "Hot." The whole thing is Next.js/React pulling public Steam data, behind Cloudflare.
Within 48 hours:
- 24k unique visits, 27k pageviews
- Organic coverage from Push Square, TheGamer, OpenCritic
- Mentioned by Paul Tassi (Forbes) and Asmongold
- DDoS attack on day one that forced a hosting migration
- Death threats over a site that shows publicly available numbers
- Day two: someone brute-forced the hosting panel for hours
The site uses a Helldivers-inspired aesthetic - over-the-top military language ("targets", "enlist", "field reports") as a comedic framing. Some gaming outlets took it literally and wrote articles calling it "rock bottom."
The coverage drove more traffic than any marketing ever could. Streisand effect in action.
