So just quoting both of these comments as I simply cannot agree with these statements
- 10k per month is what the dev is earning now (gross before the cut of Patreon and taxes presuming he declares this extra income) it wasn't always 10k per month so 1 million is too high it was less than that over that time frame
- In the amount of time since this game was first released as a v0.01, the dev has completely started from scratch on it (engine swap I think it was to a newer version of RPGM) and also got inspired to make another project at the same time, Overgrown which could have easily ended up being abandoned or gotten slow updates. But while it did delay the development on Claire's Quest - Overgrown has been finished and completed. Which is great and it is a great game with a substantial amount of content
- The dev likely has IRL stuff as well, a family, a job --- who knows? The difference with a professional company and hobbyists like those that make a lot of the games that are on F95 including Claire's quest is that hobbyists aren't going to be able to work on it 5 days a week 9am to 5pm. No they likely have 9-to-5 job taking up the bulk of their time and are only working on their game in their limited free time
- Even as a full-time endeavour, solo development is long and hard
- I don't think many people really understand how hard game development is even for an adult game. Just making the art in itself takes a long time and for that this dev had to hire someone else to do it. But also the writing of the dialogue takes a long time, the coding of the events, map building in RPGM etc.... this is all very longwinded and very time consuming to do
As for whether or not the development is being intentionally dragged out, without personally knowing the dev no one can say that for sure. He may have other stuff going on in his life and adult game development even at 10k per month might still be a hobby for him
One thing about Patreon income is that it is not guaranteed income so even at 10k unless you first build up a massive savings is not a safe bet to then quit your job and rely on that income. The income can fluctuate or just completely stop one day like we saw with the invasion of Ukraine, Patreon stopped all payments from both Ukraine and Russia so many devs saw their income go to near 0 for quite an extended amount of time. So while it is a lot of money, it isn't reliable money
If I started getting 10k per month as an adult game dev I would be tempted to quit my day job but I would have to weigh up the pros and cons. One benefit of keeping my day job is then I have my 4k per month (before tax) income. Which is guaranteed and safe (I am very good at my job and the company I work for is massive with little to no risk of vanishing and my job is essential to the company so even with downsizing my role would always need to be there no matter how many jobs they need to get rid of) and then I'd suddenly be earning 10k on top which would just be pure extra money that I can save, invest, use etc....
If I were to quit my job then that 10k extra (or whatever it is after Patreon cut) is suddenly a lot less. And I would still need to declare that income anyway and pay taxes on it so you can see why many devs even with high earnings on Patreon still keep their day jobs
What some devs have done is use the income to build up savings and then start their on adult game development company and that has been a massive payoff but others simply stay as a hobbyist dev and thus their games don't get the update progress we'd hope for but it doesn't always automatically mean they are scamming their Patreon supporters or being scummy
Anyway sorry for long text, that's my 2-cents on it. I am a bit of a fan girl of Dystopian Project, I love Claire's Quest and I love Overgrown Genesis
And I also am developing my own Renpy game now for the past 2 years and I still don't have a v0.01 ready so I know how hard it is to find time and develop a game not to mention how personal circumstances can change and delay development. In my case being kicked out of flat I was renting as landlord decided to sell
honest communication on point is the key,
that is the minimum i would expect as a supporter/customer. So when a dev/team/company (yes in that case, there is no difference between a big player or a single hobby dev) decides to stretch his schedule, this should not happen without a understandable reason and it should be communicated on time.
10K(after patreon and taxes cut) from Patreon is it enough or not?
that is not easy to answer, some devs might have a save well payed regular job, all bills are covered, so the 10k is just extra money and in that case even big fluctuations might not be a problem. Others depend on every cent they earn and could get in troubles with ideas like "stretching development" especially when they struggle with supporters that are skeptical.
IRL of Developers or the struggle of most human beings
Some ppl are lucky some are not but fate throws stones in our way, i already partially covered that in the part you have cut out of the quote of my post. The simplest way to handle it is covered in my first part of this post, honest communication on point, if they have troubles they should not be shy, i do not need to know the name of the landlord that kicked you out of your house/flat, just to take your "stone" as an example, but it would be nice to know why your first release is delayed, the ppl that support you should know why there is a delay, you need a break, be honest tell it, but not two months after you were away, and yes in some cases there might be no way to communicate, maybe a russian or ukrainian developer is signed for duty and had no time to log into his patreon account to tell that in the next months he might not have time for his project and if he has real bad luck we might never hear from him again.
Is development/programming/drawing easy?
Again for some ppl it might be easy for some not, some ppl threw code out like a huge waterfall some are like a small water tap and need lot more time, some have such a good understanding of the programming language or a program they use to paint/render that it is easy for them, there are other factors too like hardware, especially for rendering your progress might depent on the hardware you use. The dev/s from Distopian Project as you mentioned changed the engine, that might also make it harder but that does still not explain the delay, i mean they started actually fast and now they seem to struggle, this is the point where i would like to know why, if that has some other reasons maybe one of them had IRL problems, a short "Sorry we had some troubles because this or that happend" would bring light into it. Especially in the adult game industry where your income depends on individuals such things should be communicated.
For the rest you mentioned further, i think that i mostly covered it up with the points above, if it got stretched with or without intensions, i can only repeat myself, honest communication on point is the key, silence just leaves room for speculations.
Some devs especially those that are well skilled, for them building up a company could be a good deal but doing that by making mistakes like going silent, or getting the money by scamming might not be a good head start for a company. Especially for adult gaming they have a hart time to get money if needed, crowd funding or big sponsors are hard to find so the only way is to do it with platforms like patreon and for those you need a ongoing schedule, their income might be somehow equal to streamers on twitchtv, when you stream enough and your streams are interesting for a wide range of ppl you earn enough to be a full time streamer, but when you do not stream for a month or two and did not put some money on the side, hard times might follow, same with adult game devs, a month delay and no communication and your 10k are 5k or even less in the next month, it is a risky field but that is why weird decisions might break your neck, the only "anomalies" are the "hardcore supporters" or "believers" that i mentioned, they sometimes allow that weird things happen, it might be good for the devs behind those projects but not always for the project itself, those things might turn into a weird mix of kinks, i do not remember the name of the game but the devs gave to much options for supporters and they kinda trolled them so this game ended up as a weird "something" or the devs gets greedy and the project turns into a "milking machine" with nearly endless development time.
But don't get me wrong i would not call me a fanboy of both Dystopian Project games, but i like them, especially Claire's Quest is one of the few non-animated games that i like very much, maybe that is the reason why i am skeptical and seeing that the light at the end of the tunnel is getting further away makes me even more nervous.
