Stop the cap, you're milking your Patreon and you know it. You are currently making around $50,000 a year or $4400 a month from this game alone. Why would you ever finish it? I guarantee you've came to the conclusion that finishing the game faster would destroy your patreon income. 3 years for one (big) update is insane when you consider how quickly you completed the Christmas updates. At least have the humility to admit you are milking it just like DarkCookie and ICSTOR. Tbh though I don't blame you, 4400 a month for doing very minor progress a week sheeesh
Viewing post in Hero's Harem Guild (NSFW +18) comments
I was doing $15,000 a month by posting constant updates (Not even counting itch.io revenue), if I wanted more money I would do that and post infinite content instead, don't you think?
Have you seen the difference between the Christmas update and the prologue? Yeah, that's because I'm constantly improving my content by working every day, seems pretty good for doing "very minor progress a week.", other games have released at almost the same time as HHG and they remain with the literal same quality as of today, years later. (BTW I posted the Christmas update COMPLETELY FREE, not even beyond patreon tiers!)
It takes time, sorry. I hope you understand it once you play it, and I hope you do. It'll also be free. ♥
For both points you are making, I find that they conflict with one another. Apologies if I appear hostile but I am strong in my belief that you are taking advantage of people.
You claim you are making this game completely for free (As with the Christmas update for example), yet you are getting paid for it? It may be free for the regular user to download, but are you not profiting from this game? From a logical standpoint, that would mean the game is not "free". You have many loyal fans backing your project expecting good things to come from it.
In my personal opinion and belief, you are letting these people down with the occasional radio silence of progress updates. $50,000 a year is a LOT of money, my mother is a professional Hair Stylist that has to continuously retake school and destroy her fingers using scissors and makes 2/3rds of that. $180,000 is an absolute KILLING of income. You could possibly hire a small team to help you with progress if you are actually motivated to complete this game, but alas.
I understand developers need some form of income or "spark" to be motivated enough to continue, but it has been THREE YEARS of pledged support by your backers, and Prologue (Just the BEGINNING of the main story, not the whole thing) isn't even close to being finished. (Judging by the Trello page and updates in your server you are a little more than halfway).
Another one of my opinions? You should 100% sell your game when it is finished. I know this goes against your moral code and overall goal, but even a small cost of $5 would be more than enough to supplement your labor. I admire a developer who can boldly claim their games are free, but in this case, this game is 100% not free. Free to play, not free in price.
You deserve your success and your backers for making this game, clearly you touched a bunch of gooners' hearts and it has a pretty decent storyline. My point is would it kill you to be more open to your fans?
Thank you. I like it when I can talk to people like this.
I've said it multiple times that I'm mostly active on Discord all day, every day!
I'm incredibly open with everyone. You can come to Discord and ask for proof or whatever you want and I will answer you without any single problem, I have nothing to hide, and I have lots of content to show.
I'm not showing much on itch.io, etc. because I can understand people might get tired from my posts saying, "Hey! It is STILL developing!" while saying the same things all over again. XD.
That's why I said in my latest post that it'll be the LAST ONE before the update. No other posts; the next one will be the update.
You can ask me anything; you can ask for anything. You don't have to be a patron for that. I even suggest to non-patrons on discord that wants to pledge to please wait for the update before pledging. I can live enough with that I get from Patreon. It is not about the money or anything, as I said, I believe the easiest path would be dropping quick monthly updates with a 2 week test if I wanted to grind money XD.