$2.99 is not really a lot of money for a good story. A cup of coffee can cost more. Why not buy it ?
Viewing post in Penny for Your Thoughts comments
I try my best to offer my work for free and I operate through donations. One of the perks of being a supporter is early access to my work. On May 9th, Chapter One will be free to play indefinitely. I may change this business model in the future but for now, the majority of my support comes from Patreon and early access in one of the perks I offer to give incentive to support.
It is tricky as a solo developer. I'm doing this as a hobby currently but the assets and hardware can be rather expensive so support helps me make bigger and better updates faster. I put in around 60 - 70 hours a week for nearly three months to make the first chapter of Penny for Your Thoughts. It's relatively long for a first Chapter. Everyone reads at a different pace and, of course, I recommend lingering on images for a moment to absorb the details. But on average, it's a bit over an hour long. Around 800 images and 40,000 words with several animations and some special effects.
I'm quite a fast reader, even in English which is my second language and I know Lock for being rather humble. It's not just "a bit over an hour", it is more in my opinion. I've played AVNs that had 2 or 3 chapters for the lenght of this ch1.
The quality of writing (as spelling, grammar etc.) is top notch and the images, scenes and renders are also up to the tiny details.
Lockheart puts a ton of passion in his work and earns some donation for that.
The idea selling each chapter pre public release is rather great and customer friendy. You can wait about tow weeks or pay a small fee if you don't want to support monthly like on patreon or subscribestar - taking the risk that chapter take ages while you pay... which won't happen with Lockheart but I know everyone hast mad his oder her bad experience with that.