60k/month Expectations

[trdx]

I'm posting this in dev section, because I'm interested what (experienced?) devs think.

If a game has $62000 monthly donation on patreon, what would be a realistic expectation regarding the updates? Timing, content per update/month or per 3/6 months?

If you had that kind of money, what do you see possible with your games? What would you do?

Having experience developing games, what do you think about Summertime Saga updates? What do you think is those devs' state of mind right now?

 

[Zachy]

If a game has $62000 monthly donation on patreon, what would be a realistic expectation regarding the updates? Timing, content per update/month or per 3/6 months?

With such a high amount of money, you could release an incredibly high amount of content per update (timing wouldn't change so much, as the recommended gap between updates is one month). But you definitely could hire some good artists who can draw (or render) the game scenes regardless of their art-style (this is called on-model drawings).

If you had that kind of money, what do you see possible with your games? What would you do?

I'd definitely hire a lot more people so I can work faster, but since I'm used to doing almost anything by myself, I'd leave a big amount of money for personal use (with that amount, I'd definitely be making games for a living).

 

[joecoe]

Are there more adult games than the Summertime Saga that earn more than 60k a month?

 

[trdx]

With such a high amount of money, you could release an incredibly high amount of content per update (timing wouldn't change so much, as the recommended gap between updates is one month). But you definitely could hire some good artists who can draw (or render) the game scenes regardless of their art-style (this is called on-model drawings).



I'd definitely hire a lot more people so I can work faster, but since I'm used to doing almost anything by myself, I'd leave a big amount of money for personal use (with that amount, I'd definitely be making games for a living).

I was thinking in a similar way, but it looks to me that many big projects get killed when "artist leaves". Especially if art is done in a way where it's not easy to keep the same artistic style. I guess it's risky to hire just "anyone", but could be an opportunity to hire an established artist who has reputation to protect.

It's curious that it seems to me that the higher Patreon pledge is, the lazier the devs become. The main reason I posted in the dev forum is because I want some dev to come and tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about and explain why I'm wrong. So I'm looking for rational explanations of the perceived phenomenon. It is my belief that had Summertime Saga patreon pledge amount to 15k at the moment, the game would have been better, there would have been much more content (if not actually completely finished by now)...

It pains me to see $300 devs who are producing tons of quality content on monthly basis, showing much higher motivation and passion for their game, not to mention professional approach.

With that said, there are exceptions. It's not clear how much NLT earns per month, but it could be even more. But the professionalism and content delivery from NLT is at much higher level.

 

[Synx]

I'm posting this in dev section, because I'm interested what (experienced?) devs think.

If a game has $62000 monthly donation on patreon, what would be a realistic expectation regarding the updates? Timing, content per update/month or per 3/6 months?

If you had that kind of money, what do you see possible with your games? What would you do?

Having experience developing games, what do you think about Summertime Saga updates? What do you think is those devs' state of mind right now?

I wouldnt start to expect more or better updates, but just a continued update cycle for the current game. The reason is that if you are used to do all the work on your own, its hard to find people that live up to your standards/your work schedule/etc.

On to actual DEVS that earn so much at the moment, most of them are milking their Patreons. Summertime saga seems to be doing better now as the time between this and his last update was 3/4 months, which is decently. Milf city on the hand is the prime example of a milker; a year for an update that was half done (didnt had any animations while all the other updates had) and was of lower quality overall. There are ofc others that aren't milking, and they seem to get more and more support which is nice.

As what I would do with that kind of income? Well I would finish of the game i'm working on and recruit a couple people for a more ambitieus project. Not that i got any income as I havent even released a first edition yet, but in theory I would try to see if an actual 3D game would be possible and recruit a programmer to team up with.

 

[Morgan42]

I was thinking in a similar way, but it looks to me that many big projects get killed when "artist leaves". Especially if art is done in a way where it's not easy to keep the same artistic style. I guess it's risky to hire just "anyone", but could be an opportunity to hire an established artist who has reputation to protect.

It's curious that it seems to me that the higher Patreon pledge is, the lazier the devs become. The main reason I posted in the dev forum is because I want some dev to come and tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about and explain why I'm wrong. So I'm looking for rational explanations of the perceived phenomenon. It is my belief that had Summertime Saga patreon pledge amount to 15k at the moment, the game would have been better, there would have been much more content (if not actually completely finished by now)...

It pains me to see $300 devs who are producing tons of quality content on monthly basis, showing much higher motivation and passion for their game, not to mention professional approach.

With that said, there are exceptions. It's not clear how much NLT earns per month, but it could be even more. But the professionalism and content delivery from NLT is at much higher level.

I believe NLT and Timestamps have a hired team of people working with them. I know NLT is HEAVILY investing in animation and you see the results with each update.

 

[khumak]

I'm posting this in dev section, because I'm interested what (experienced?) devs think.

If a game has $62000 monthly donation on patreon, what would be a realistic expectation regarding the updates? Timing, content per update/month or per 3/6 months?

If you had that kind of money, what do you see possible with your games? What would you do?

Having experience developing games, what do you think about Summertime Saga updates? What do you think is those devs' state of mind right now?

Not really the question, but if someone gets into making adult games Expecting the level of success that Summertime Saga has seen they're almost guaranteed to be dissappointed. I have no idea how that game brings in so much money but most people are not going to make remotely close to that even with a good game (and I don't consider Summertime Saga a good game despite all the money it's bringing in).

IMO it makes more sense to just look at it as a hobby, at least initially. Make what you like and if you make money at it, great. I will admit that if I made a game that started bringing in that level of money I would treat it more like a business though. I would quit my job, hire some help and make sure I had a pretty reliable release schedule with each release containing a decent amount of content.

 

[TessSadist]

At that level of income, I would assume whatever you have done before is working well from a purely commercial standpoint, so I don't know if you need to drastically alter the style of the game. But, you definitely could improve every aspect of the game already there in future updates and by hiring/outsourcing help to ensure the quality is even better than prior updates.

 

[recreation]

With that amount of money, I'd definitely hire some people to be able get more work done, BUT it's like Synx said, it's hard to find people who live up to your standards. Nonetheless, I'd absolutely change some workflow and (this is of course not necessary for Summertime Saga), get some idiocrazy hardware for rendering... (sheeet, realtime rendering, just thinking about it... ).

 

[Honey Tales]

I'd also hire more people to help me out and definitely, I'll do this hobby my way of living.

 

[kytee]

Not gonna lie, if I was making bank as a dev, I'd outsource the graphics and programming immediately to some Russians or Chinese (assuming I did 3DCG) and just focus on script writing. I'd just keep the same level of quality for my content; there's no point in improving it if people are paying you that much for the quality you currently have. I'd just find a workload that is sustainable for me and outsource the rest to cheap workers. For me, I'd stop improving the quality of my work at around $10k a month, which is the minimum I'd be really happy with.

 

[xoxo]

Honestly I expected devs to just keep doing what they are doing, maybe work a bit slower now that they succeeded and can relax a bit or have other people doing the actual work.
What do you expect when you don't know how much a dev makes? You're not their boss, how much they make is irrelevant.
If they manage to expand their business and make 120K with bigger and better games that would be awesome, but nobody sane would sacrifice half of their income just to have a better product that still makes the same amount of money.
Plus, after taxes, fees and payouts their 60K gets to probably around 30K. It's enough to buy you a nice life but you won't be buying any yachts and partying with super models.
Hiring someone really talented to work for them full time won't be cheap either - good artists nowadays tend to work on their own projects and Patreon pages, just like the successful dev did, so their 30K can easily become 20K just by hiring someone else to do the same work they were doing alone. Finding good, somewhat cheap and trustworthy workers isn't easy, specially in the porn industry I guess.

 

[KiaAzad]

Aside from the main problem of finding and keeping artists that can produce the quality of art a project needs, There are several other reasons that a causes a project to lose momentum, not all of them are true for every project, but I've seen them at work enough times to remember.

1- Too many members
A project moves at the pace of it's slowest member, specially if that person is one of the top ranks. People are lazy, they only work when they have to, and if there's one lagging behind, others don't see any reason to rush either. A small project has less people to slow others down.

2- Too much money
When the project is small, the team tries it's best to move forward and gain some attention while working side gigs to pay the bills, unfortunately when the money starts pouring in, the time that they're not spending on side gigs goes to spending some of the money and enjoying life, none of it goes to the project and often enjoying life takes a bite from the projects time too.

3- Too much have been done
When a new member starts on a project, they have lots of momentum, they are excited about what they are doing and want to see everything they ever wanted in the game become a reality, but not everyone on the team have the exact same vision, as they get a suggestion here, a guideline there and a criticism somewhere else, they lose their momentum to the friction of other members. The more material in the game and the more members on the team, the more there is to rub against.

4- Too many supporters
Often the supporters are passive and don't push the teams to move forward, specially on adult project where they don't want to get in touch with each other. With no pressure from the supporters, the developers don't see any need to leave their comfortable spot for the next milestone. With their big pool of supporters, losing few doesn't really make any difference.

5- They already got what they wanted
For some, the target wasn't finishing the game in the first place, they have planned from the start to amass a following and line their pockets as much as they can before the whole thing fizzles out. They have already got their target amount and are sailing the remaining wind to their personal vacation island.

6- Nobody else can do it why should we?
They know that nobody else has their files and consequently nobody else can take the project and finish it. They keep the rights to the art and the source files hostage to extract more money than they can ever get by selling the game. That's right, it's a hostage situation and they see themselves entitled to compensation for holding the unfinished work.

Well it took a real sinister turn midway, kill kill kill, burn it all to the ground, thigh high socks rule...! peace

 

[InCompleteController]

I honestly don't expect devs to change their schedule that much depending on the level of income. Sure, if they already have a full time job they might be able to dedicate more time, but the project could also just be seen as a short term gig for them.

My issues with Summertime Saga stems purely from the amount of bugs and lack of backwards compatibility.

With so many supporters, I'm amazed that they can't get a small group to play it first (it's even seen as being a perk to be a paying Beta tester these days it seems), before the game is released to the wider audience.

A much bigger issue is that you have to start over every single time a new version comes out. I just don't get why a check hasn't been implemented, either in a major hub area or triggered manually by the player, to initialize or reset changed variables.

I know that this might sound heretical, but I just can't support a game where I go "ugh, not this again ..." every time I open up a new version and get bored after 30 min.

Lastly, being famous for being famous is a thing. Once you are the #1 [Insert thing here], newcomers will check you out first and don't be surprised that they are willing to throw more money than everyone else, since they haven't had any negative experiences yet.

 

[Droid Productions]

I guess it varies a bit. I wouldn't "grow a large team", because I've worked on large teams, and it's largely soul-sucking mediocrity. A small, focused, team can have a shared vision, but those are usually forged from shared hardship, not from existing success.

In my personal case, there are things I could definitely do better; the big one is sex scene animations. I've really enjoyed picking up After Effects, but I'm not going to try to fool myself that I'm some kind of animator. And there *are* some excellent people specializing only in that, as you see from the Animations section on this site. More importantly, it's a compartmentalized task; I can say "here's $1,000; I want 3 x 1 min animated doggy-style sex scenes with these two DAZ characters, this is the lighting I had in mind, here's what the characters are feeling for each of the 1 min clips", and send it off. It doesn't require me to bring the person onto the team as a creative lead, and if the two of us work well together it's a painless way to add more sex animations.

Contrast that with bringing on another writer, for example, which would be a bit of a nightmare for me. If I wanted more 'confab get-togethers' and 'synch meetings to flesh out the creative pillars' in my life, I'd not be making porn games.

 

[anne O'nymous]

With that amount of money, I'd definitely hire some people to be able get more work done, BUT it's like Synx said, it's hard to find people who live up to your standards.

That's the main problem.
I still have to find the time to works on my game, but I know that if both opportunities come to me, I would only hire one person, someone good in 3D. But not to make the CGs. No, I would hire him just to take the scenes I made myself, and make them better, by moving this arm two centimeters in the left because it will fill way more natural, and using his magic on the rendering.
Oh, and probably also, time to time, a 3D artist, to make the assets I need instead of me tweaking the assets I can have.

And that's all. If a game make someone earn this much money, it's because people like the way he build the scenes, the way he write the dialogs, and the way he code the game mechanisms. Putting one or another in the hands of someone else would change this, and not necessarily for the best.

 

[polywog]

I guess it varies a bit. I wouldn't "grow a large team", because I've worked on large teams, and it's largely soul-sucking mediocrity. A small, focused, team can have a shared vision, but those are usually forged from shared hardship, not from existing success.

In my personal case, there are things I could definitely do better; the big one is sex scene animations. I've really enjoyed picking up After Effects, but I'm not going to try to fool myself that I'm some kind of animator. And there *are* some excellent people specializing only in that, as you see from the Animations section on this site. More importantly, it's a compartmentalized task; I can say "here's $1,000; I want 3 x 1 min animated doggy-style sex scenes with these two DAZ characters, this is the lighting I had in mind, here's what the characters are feeling for each of the 1 min clips", and send it off. It doesn't require me to bring the person onto the team as a creative lead, and if the two of us work well together it's a painless way to add more sex animations.

Contrast that with bringing on another writer, for example, which would be a bit of a nightmare for me. If I wanted more 'confab get-togethers' and 'synch meetings to flesh out the creative pillars' in my life, I'd not be making porn games.

I've worked with huge teams without any issues, it all depends on management. Creative people are notoriously scatterbrained, and technical people lack discipline. A good team leader keeps the team focused.

 

[Droid Productions]

I've worked with huge teams without any issues, it all depends on management. Creative people are notoriously scatterbrained, and technical people lack discipline. A good team leader keeps the team focused.

Good for you; would you mind teaching Ubisoft and EA? It's not that people don't work, it's that everything is design by committee, which waters down vision, reduces risk as the cost of experimentation, and produces bland content that nobody can disagree with.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Good for you; would you mind teaching Ubisoft and EA? It's not that people don't work, it's that everything is design by committee, which waters down vision, reduces risk as the cost of experimentation, and produces bland content that nobody can disagree with.

Remember me of Watch Dogs and their trains doing 90° turns, because the coders decided that it was easier this way.

 

[polywog]

Good for you; would you mind teaching Ubisoft and EA? It's not that people don't work, it's that everything is design by committee, which waters down vision, reduces risk as the cost of experimentation, and produces bland content that nobody can disagree with.

Some people think that I married into the Nintendo family to advance my career, but it was actually them who pursued me. Giving me a daughter as a gift, had little to do with the mutually beneficial business decision.

In any business you have to be practical, and sometimes that does mean that things get watered down, but I would say more often that "two heads are better than one" and those committee meetings lead to good things happening.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen an artist be "blown away" by what becomes of their character in the right hands.
They were great at what they did, but they didn't have the technical ability to take it to the next level. Likewise, the animators who suck at art, are in awe of the artist's work, and they are thrilled to work together.

Every member of a team has a job to do, and they should focus on that job, but that doesn't mean that they can't offer suggestions that improve the project. I had a voice actor once, who completely re-wrote a story.

Again it all boils down to management. Someone had to lead. Too many chiefs, and not enough indians, goes nowhere.
The manager follows the plan, and makes changes as necessary - keeps everyone working, without giving them more than they can handle, or asking them to do things they aren't familiar with. Not that coders can't into art, or vice versa, it's just not their forte.

Making games as a hobby is one thing, making a business out of it is another thing entirely.