The Dev time on this AVN is so slow! Honestly one of the slowest I have ever seen. Roughly 9 months and counting...
If I was backing the dev on Patreon I would be so angry that its taking to long. I would think he is deliberately dragging out the Dev time just to milk his Patreons...
I have never been so thankful I refuse to use Patreon.
Same here. Can't remember much.
On one hand, that's a good excuse to start over from the start. On the other, should I have to do that just to stay engaged?
As for the milking thing: Why should I pay anything for a product that isn't finished yet? It's like going to a clothing store and buying the left leg of some pants... why would I do that? Typically you don't even see a product in stores for sale until its finished.
It's like Gaming companies releasing buggy games and then patching them on day one, or within the first week. Why do they do that? Because they know their customers will buy it anyway.
Lastly: 9 months is too early to call it milking? When is it enough then? 12 months? What if you're contributing the maximum amount, like $150 a month? In 9 months that's like $1350 with nothing to show for it.
Now lets pretend that the pretend Dev has 200 people supporting him for an average of $10 each for 9 months. Thats $18,000!
Now lets pretend the fella ghosts after 9 months of just posting the occasional pic or comment...
See why I am so wary of Patreon and milking?
This might be a good moment to clarify that the game is not a finished product, and no one is required to pay for anything. Version 0.7 is currently in development, and once it's released, 0.6 will become the new public version on Itch. Which is free.
I don't normally mind conjecture, as everyone is free to have an opinion. You might dislike Patreon for any reason, and that’s alright. But that’s also where we post status updates about the game and its development, including information on why 0.7 is taking longer. The TLDR is: more content and certain scenes per update.
We’re not going to force content in, so reaching certain scenes simply takes what it takes.
Updates will be released when they’re ready. Cheers.
Why not post updates regarding the AVNs progress here on Itch? Why not post the 0.7 version here on Itch as soon as its finished instead of waiting for the 0.8 version to be finished and up on Patreon?
The answer is the same answer as always: Money. Greed. To pull in customers using sites like Itch as advertising.
You could even put it behind a paywall here on Itch. I've seen other Devs do it. They put up the latest version for an amount similar to their Patreons at a reasonable tier and then slowly reduce the price on a weekly basis until it goes F2P.
Now I'm willing and happy to agree paying customers need to be offered something extra. But I don't agree that no information should be shared regarding delays or expected release dates here on Itch.
I mean, they aren't obligated too and most devs I've seen that have public releases on itch don't have a paid version on itch with it, it's almost always patron or subscribe star, plus with patron you can just pay the small amount and then stop after you download the files if you really want to, same difference than doing it here just a small bit less convenient. I haven't played the game yet so everything I'm saying isn't even related to release time or quality, just of what is the norm. Also money? yeah of course a huge drive is money. It takes a lot of time effort and cash to make these games/projects. Greed? honestly not sure yet but yes of course itch is used as advertising. It works and is simple, but it's also in combination with itch being a necessary place to show your work and hope your name sticks. like do you think most NSFW artists/game makers do it for the good of the world? you expect far more from these usually solo devs on itch.
Edit: just did a super quick look at the patron and there devlogs and pictures and discussions and whatnot every few days it seems so they definitely aren't ghosting. although I do understand the frustration for the wait time I would probably give benefit of the doubt that both the update is going to be good and also theres probably things going on irl that are occupying them but i'm not sure so thats a bit in the air for me as I didn't look super deep into it.
Here's the thing: I don't use Patreon. I refuse too. I have found in the past that Patreon is biased against certain political leanings.
I personally believe that platforms such as Patreon, Itch and Subscribestar should not have any such biases. They should be completely neutral, only concerning themselves with good customer service and following the law.
So I refuse to even click on Patreon much less support them financially, even if that financial support is indirect.
Which means if the Dev doesn't share news here on Itch I will never see it. Which doesn't exactly help me to feel like I'm part of their community now does it? And it doesn't take a lot of effort to copy and paste a post from one page to another does it? Maybe just a little editing to remove any references to services only available on Patreon...
So when a Dev fails to share news across various platforms it just seems lazy to me...
Last thing I'll say for now is that the love of art should be a powerful motivator too shouldn't it?
Lets face it, writing is hardly the most profitable occupation. If it was there would be far more George R R Martins or J K Rowlings in the world. But that sort of success in writing is exceedingly rare.
As for the notion that the Dev may have IRL issues that are slowing them down... well either he is an artist and can take his time for the sake of his art or he is a businessman providing a product he wants to sell, which means keeping his customers happy (Which means getting his product on the market before he loses their interest).
He can't be both, those two priorities really don't match. You can try to do both but one will always win over the other in the end.
