Post by luckysince97 in 30 Days comments

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I appreciate your understanding, about this subject, was asking myself if it would have been ok to pay for the subscription, but instead of being a recurring payment would be like pay per patch.As i was not sure if it would have been lucrative and legal, i decided to wait.

As you explained, the program that you use, if we add up all the fees, i can understand that some developper are tempting in putting a amount that pay all these fees, and then their salary, plus employee/subcontractor, in the end it could cost an easy 400$ per week if it not even more.

Though the first thing a independent developer should focus on is to publish and finish his game to get a bigger fan base, bigger team, bigger budget, well you get the picture.

So why am i saying all this, i think that at first, you should get a fixed amount for a fixed product, paying for developpement is to non-precise, example 5,00$ ---next patch, 50.00$ personalise character *ingame so those who invest like me as an exemple again, you create a npc with my name, now; what does he do, 10$ extra; per customisation, and there you got an NFT.

If you follow me, now don't get me wrong i really appreciate your work, the fact that you share your experience with us, and especially your story, thought as an old accountant, i can understand why people don't get on patreon.

As it may be totally normal for the generation that live paying per month for a game like World of Warcraft, this business model doesn't work with the gen"X" as we were used to by a finished game, no dlc, no addon, no mod, no subscription. So if you want to reach us you got to make a clear product because for us, and the generation before us, money doesn't fall from trees.

On a positive note the fact that you decided to put a final amount on your games with a define structure 1 patch / 3 month for 10$ 1 time payment, was probably the best , you wont get as much, but you might get more cashflow in one big wave, and then you gonna be able to play with your budget, and then if you want to make extra tip you always got the extra *ingame NFT, something that is unique, a product that says to your fanBase here something that you really want.

Finally, as you, English is not my first language, French is my first language, but i didn't use gpt, for this letter of opinion and appreciation, and i wanted to say Thank You you are a really inspiring developper.

AllNaturall53 days ago

No, thank you for the support and for your words.

Anyway, because of this game’s theme, I think I’ve attracted a mostly adult audience (talking about Patreon). Generation X, just like me. One proof of that is my Discord server, which has more than 160 people but is basically dead because I’m the only one talking. People over 40 don’t really use Discord that much. In fact, I didn’t use it myself before creating this.
I don’t know if you’ve seen my Patreon, but I really can’t complain there. It’s been going pretty well for me compared to others. A lot of new devs think making a game is easy money, and that’s exactly why they fail. I knew from the start this was a marathon, something that takes a lot of time to grow. On Patreon, I make around 500 dollars a month, while others never even reach 200. Of course, there are always others who easily make over 2000 in half the time. Patreon’s full of all kinds of people and projects.
The problem with my game was mainly here on itch. Something went wrong from the start and I never figured out what. I’m in contact with several other NSFW game developers, and what’s been happening to me here has happened to many of them too. Itch just acts weird with some developers, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

At first, my idea was to move people from here to Patreon. I was doing that for like a year. But then the whole Visa/Mastercard issue came up and things got messy. So after thinking it over a lot, I came to the conclusion that it’s not good to lose options. That’s why I decided to stick with this new system.
I have a part-time job in the real world, and together with what people contribute on Patreon, that’s what covers my expenses and the game’s development, since both things together make up a full salary. If I didn’t have that, I’d have to look for a full-time job, and the game’s development would slow down a lot. That’s what Patreon is for, to help someone who really intends to do something actually make it happen.
Creating a game, even if it’s just an AVN, is a long, tedious, and incredibly demanding process. And for that, you need both time and money. I’ve got the time, but without the money from Patreon, things would be very different, and there’s no way I could’ve just made a full game and then released it to the world afterward.

It’s just me doing all this, and it’ll always be just me. The money from Patreon and what comes from here goes into my everyday life (bills, food, etc.) and a bit of savings to slowly upgrade my hardware and help speed things up a little.
When I started this, I had a crappy computer with a video card that wasn’t even made for this kind of work, a GTX 1050 with 2 gigs. Now I’ve got a much better main PC than the old one (it died, passed away, and had to be completely replaced about 8 months ago), with way more RAM, a better processor, and an RTX 3060 with 12 gigs. I also have a small secondary Mini PC that I use sometimes for coding while the main one is rendering. All of this is thanks to the supporters, like you. Every bit helps.

💖💖💖

luckysince9752 days ago

And that the reason why i think you are a inspiring developper, adult audience or not, taking the time to speak with a total stranger about this , taking the time to answer, i did not mention it but yes i read your post, i wish dev on patreon would open more on news not behind Cash wall, because i think that this is the main issue here, take "Satisfactory" -game from coffee stain as an example, they started to have a dialog with their fanbase around update 0.3.0 and after that they made a big patch every 6 month or so, but between each patch they keep in touch with the dev, the fanbase..

By keeping the developpement (news) behind the membership "pay to get news" is a big mistake, actually you want your fanbase to be hook to your "news" keeping your fanbase inform, "information should be free", you will reach a bigger fanbase, and your project will grow much more faster.

Now i can't argue with you as a non-professional game dev, i started to craft game on rpg-maker a few years ago, and my main issue, everytime i get the code down is "visual" what you call Render...i got no talent to put my mind into an image, whatsoever, but i understand a lot of concept that non developer would not even be aware of.

If Render would be they only issue for me, as i'm aware of a lot of programming principle like ; check, variable, switch, conditional branch, parallax mapping and so on. The fact that you master this on your own is already something. I don't know about python, i look into ren'py and to me it look complex, maybe i'm just too old now. Ya im almost 50...

And like me the main reason why Visual novel work so fine with us , including yourself, i guess, it that lack of romanesk adventure, let face it we like the Romantic even if this Romantic is Gore, best example is "the boys" serie on prime, people like hero, even if they are murderer, why because we like power!

My love for game is way to heavy to explain as it come back to 1982 when commodore 32 bytes was release with a keyboard and a cartridge on his right side, if people speak about atari and coleco as the first console id say that keyboard was probably among them.

That aside, i'm a big fan of fantasy, from the first rpg style, spaceQuest and other more known to the public like final fantasy... So that the main reason why i want to make a game, though even if i had patreon to help me, i'm not sure i could do everything on my own, i would probably need a drawer, if you get what i mean so anyway, this letter is not about my project but yours, and again i really appreciated the fact that you took the time to get back to me.

It show how you respect your fanbase, and since the first day i've been following you, you never deceived me, i like your idea, it reach me in all my "R" spot ---Roman spot. And ya i get it when you speak about the hardware issue.

I think the main reason why i didn't publish any of my game was because of software issue, don't get me wrong Rpg-maker is good got a great community that really help non coder like me, but the limitation of the program is a PITA, that aside im sure if i would take the time to get the financial support like you, that i could drop a great game in the end, i guess i'm still not convinced enough about what i can or can't do, and how to do it.

Anyway i guess you understand why i would make a great game dev, by now as i like to write down so much...lol

Sry for that big hell of a response...

As i read i think you are spanish so buenos dias Mister AllNaturall ty for your quick answer and let keep in touch...

AllNaturall52 days ago

Haha... it’s in my nature to just write and write. I simply can’t help it.

It’s not that hard if you actually want to create something. I knew absolutely nothing about any of this a year and a half ago. I’d played a ton of AVNs, and one day, since I had some free time and needed money, I decided to learn and make something different.
I’ve had a programmer’s mindset since I was a kid... Asperger’s, plus a logical personality. Terrible combo for social life, but great for coming up with ideas and learning stuff. I started learning Blender, but after a month I realized it wasn’t what I needed, so I switched to DAZ, focusing on learn about optimization because of my serious hardware limitations.
Learning RenPy was easy. When I was little, I learned to program in Basic and made some simple games just using the manual from my Sinclair Spectrum 48k.
Obviously, I don’t know everything, there’s always something new to learn, and you pick it up as you go.
For many people, the really hard part is the writing. But if you’ve got the soul of a writer, that’s already more than half the journey done. So if you’ve got some time, don’t hold back.
About game development announcements, most people keep those almost exclusively for their Patreon supporters, and there’s a good reason for that: Patreon itself.

Patreon it’s one of the strictest platforms when it comes to content. I usually post previews of what I’ve done, but Patreon doesn’t allow certain things in public posts that aren’t for paying subscribers. I’ve mentioned it over there more than once. A lot of times, it’s not that we don’t want to share with everyone, it’s that we risk getting a warning or even having the page banned. In open posts, you even have to tone down the language if you don’t want problems.
So, we’re stuck with that choice: either make open posts for everyone but totally watered-down, or just play along and share the good stuff only with the paying crowd. In the end, it’s just Patreon’s way of forcing creators to follow their system so they can have more control and make more money.

The other option is to make double reports, one public and one for Patrons. But my reports are usually pretty long and weekly, and I can’t afford to waste extra time... actually, I shouldn’t even be writing this xD

itch.io

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