Sorry to say it harshly, but I think you messed up big time. You say “making money out of Love Inn in its early stages is extremely difficult” and I strongly disagree. I think that, considering the quality and reception of the game, this kind of thing is actually quite doable on Patreon. The problem is that you seem to really despise monetization, which has prevented you from making money. Of course, monetization isn’t something sexy or fun to do, but it’s something that can’t be avoided. In the end, it feels like a situation where everybody lost: You lost because you didn’t get the money to work on your dream game and the players lost because they didn’t get the development of Love Inn. To me, you’re the best adult game dev on itch.io on a technical standpoint by far. I know I’m not the only one on whom the quality of the Love Inn demo had a lasting impression. But I strongly feel like this talent has been somewhat wasted. What you probably needed was something like an adult game publisher to guide you, I don’t know. I wish you good luck with your projects. You’ll need some because launching a game on Steam is very risky compared to recurring Patreon income.
Viewing post in Update on Love Inn and new game, Chibi Monster Girls! comments
Hello! First of all, let me say I appreciate your concerns and the very kind words, truly.
I agree that I'm held back financially by my stubbornness, but I'm fine with that. I prefer to dedicate my efforts into something I'm proud of. I can't feel proud if I know I can do a better job. I really dislike some common practices in the NSFW gamedev world, so I simply won't partake in them, whatever happens happens. A lot of times I've thought about just leaving this space and going fully SFW, since I don't get the Patreon mindset. But I really want to see something that I'd play, and that's the games I make.
Having said that, with the way I want to make games, yes, Love Inn would be unprofitable for a long time. So I still consider what I'm doing the best option, since Chibi Monster Girls made more money in 1 day as a premium game than 3 months of Love Inn (back when I was doing updates). You think this was a big mistake, and you may be right in a strictly financial sense, but the way I see it, all this could buy me some time to develop Love Inn with love and care without the pressure to release low quality content quickly in fear of Patreon earnings dropping.
What I see is that because you’re being held back financially, you can’t develop your dream game at all. As someone who quit Patreon a few years ago, you have no idea how great this website is from a financial standpoint. Love Inn sorely lacked paywalls/incentivizing stuff to make players spend money. For Chibi, you put the whole game behind a paywall, so of course, it makes more money. On Patreon, there is no problem in taking your time developing your game the way you want when done in a transparent manner, even if scammers abuse this. From your answer, I understand that you definitely have a very different mindset from mine. I’ll continue to follow your projects with great interest.
Oh I was curious about what you said about Patreon, didn't know you were also a gamedev until now! I agree I have no idea how profitable Patreon is or how to make it interesting for people to spend money, so for now I'm sticking with traditional gamedev. We will see how it turns out.
You seem like a cool person, thanks for your interest. Hope things are going well for you too.