A very interesting trend I have observed since the pandemic. Devs in general got less reliable. So the ones who were before that already unreliable, basically abandoned a lot of projects. The others who had just problems delivering timely, put games on hold. And many who did have a good record somehow got sloppy. Of course there are always good examples of those who still deliver high quality or the rather unfortunate ones, who, well died. (Palmer, Chatterbox R.I.P) But all in all, things got generally worse. It might be just a coincidence that it happened or is happening during a pandemic or economical crisis. Mind you I am only member here since 2017.
I don't think it's a coincidence at all, but I also think it was part of a larger trend. It's something that I've been thinking about a lot lately, and it's probably worth its own thread, but I think there are a few related issues:
1. The maturation of the Patreon economy- Patreon was a game changer for the AVG industry and allows for more adult games to be developed than ever before. Patreon opened the industry to a vast number of new developers with new ideas. Some of the earlier adopters have now been on the platform for 4+ years, and we've seen how their support has grown and matured. Most of the devs that have survived this long are no long concerned with the monthly fluctuations in their support, and many can rely on steady growth.
2. COVID Pressure Chamber- The AVG industry saw an explosion in growth with the onset of the pandemic and world-wide shutdowns. F95 itself saw membership balloon immediately following the start of the pandemic in March 2020. That brought a lot of new consumers into the market at the same time that devs were also locked in their homes with nothing else to do but work on their games. But that growth can be a double edge sword, and I think it brought a lot of new people into the market with different/higher expectations than those that had been in the market before.
3. Burnout- Even without COVID, I think there is evidence that after four years many creators on Patreon begin to suffer from burnout. I haven't done a scientific study on this, but anecdotally it seems to me that we can expect a major slow down of new content from games beginning in the third or fourth year. Many/most of the devs are amateurs with little to no experience producing games, and I think they struggle with planning. After initial success and momentum wears off, these devs are left with increasingly complex games that they have difficulty managing. This was made many times worse with the COVID Pressure Chamber effect. Devs who probably would have experienced some level of burnout anyways have spent the last two years getting the crapped kicked out of them. An onslaught of new consumers to the market (some pirates and some patrons) has raised the stress level higher and faster than many devs were prepared for.
4. Amateur Hour- As I said, many devs are new to creating adult games, and I don't think many of them did a good job of planning for the future. They had good concepts and worked hard, and that carried them for a long time, but they got into the market a year or two before COVID when Patreon was just beginning to take off. Because of their inexperience and lack of planning, they were probably always doomed to run into trouble by 2021. But because of COVID, with more eyes than ever on their games, the attention they get far exceeds what they could have expected in January of 2020. Back then if a game's development stalled and eventually died, there were relatively few people who would notice. Now some of these games have huge audiences, but they're still developed by a regular guy who is in way over their head.
When L&P set out to make AWAM, I think he correctly identified a gap in the market. High quality games with good stories are still hard to find, and in 2018 they were probably extremely rare. This whole time I suspect that he's been working off a set of expectations he formed back then, but I don't think he EVER accounted for his game being this popular and for consumers with these expectations. I can't prove this, but since the market has grown so much over the last couple of years, I wonder if the average player expects a higher level of professionalism from devs than the average player did in 2019. From what I've seen from other long running games, it seems like everything started off really small and with an engaged community that was more laid. But growth has brought less patience and more critical analysis. Some of that is bad (UPDATE WHEN? HAS SON FUCKED MOM YET?!), but some criticism is good because it reflects a maturing market and high levels of engagement.
ooookkkkk, this post went off the rails. I'm going to stop myself there, but yes, I do think there is a relationship between COVID and devs struggling to produce new content. I think the whole AVG industry is at a crossroads and L&P is just one of many devs that will need to adapt.
