- Aug 28, 2017
- 12
- 5
I'm not saying that the discussion should be limited. I'm saying that there's no use in some of the complaints about this game. It has a very nice following, and is very well made. If it's not to a person's taste, they can simply play something else.Key words are "dictate" and "polls".
No one is any position to dictate except the dev. There would be certain risks for him to do this, but he could still insist.
A complaint can be the equivalent of "Hey! Why don't we have a poll?" about this or that.
If the voting [this is like a weighing machine measured in $] is against a person's preference, vent for a little longer and then move on (the next poll may be just around the next corner).
But this is a DISCUSSION thread. Designers come here. Players come here--as they should--to try to sort out those "10 million games". Limiting the discussion seems unsatisfactory for all concerned...
Just to be clear, I personally was not comparing it to a failed kick starter, just showing how one that was "successful" is worse than this.. there money was taken, a good deal of it, and not much has been received. In contrast the Patreon allows people to change their commitment monthly (or per release depending on how it's set up) and that way people have the chance to minimize things.As a matter of fact, you do have the possibilty of dating only the daughter in this game (and many players are doing exactly that), thus preventing the story from turning into a "father wants to fuck everybody etc" VN. Others might prefer the latter kind of story though.
That aside, since the very beginning there were an "MFF threesome", an "MMF threesome" and a "lesbian" listed among the fetishes, so you should have expected that other characters would have been added to the mix. The comparison with a dragged-on kickstarter doesn't hold for this simple reason. There was no reason to expect that the whole VN would have dealed ONLY with the F&D relationship.
Please take the following reflections as my personal take on the matter, not as the official team's opinion (we have VERY different ideas on this).The thing with patreon games and the likes is it falls under the same rules as a lot of businesses fall in. The investors call the shots. As an example, I worked for a local family entertainment establishment, they had bowling lanes, a decent kitchen, a bar, an arcade, etc. Fun for everyone. I also worked for a small fabrication business working with a water jet to cut materials into parts. Both owned by one man, both had investors. If anything over x amount of dollars broke, the INVESTORS had to approve how to fix it. If the INVESTORS didn't want to replace the old oven that broke own 5 times because it's old and inferior but would rather replace the part that broke they had the say. It's their money. If the fabrication business wanted to buy another jet station to expand output capacity, had to be approved by the investor.
The same can be said with these types of games, so in a way DMD is a democracy. Every single patreon is the investor, and I would imagine the devs aren't exactly making huge profits and getting secured for retirement or building safety nets and might be closer to living paycheck to paycheck than not. Just because it's dot's story to tell, doesn't mean he has control over it. That's why the polls are so important and discussion threads are important and communication is important. If 2000 investors want FFM action, we're getting it. So to say "It's not our place to say..." is kinda...well...wrong.
Absolutely. Design by committee will kill any project, especially a creative one.An act of creation should never be a Democratic process. These are porn games, so its no big deal. But Stephen King never asked his readers of Dark Tower to vote on whether Roland lives or dies etc etc.
Please take the following reflections as my personal take on the matter, not as the official team's opinion (we have VERY different ideas on this).
At least according to Patreon's official philosophy, pledgers are not investors who are paying for a determined product (that's the difference with a kickstarter) but supporters who are backing a creator they believe into (precisely because the want to safeguard, and not limit, his artistic freedom). Something more similar to a liberal patronage of the arts (as the very name hints) than a stock sharing business. Before I started collaborating with MrDots, I had been pledging to various creators on Patreon for years, and I've always seen it that way; never tried to influence the people I was backing. That's also, btw, the reason why pirate sites like this one do not bother me too much: I'm not paying for a product (hence I do not get angry if other people get it), I'm paying to provide somebody with the freedom he/she needs to create that product, and that's enough for me. If your model is the local bowling, my model is George Martin's Game of Thrones. In one case, investors have all the rights to determine the future of the company; in the other, fans cannot presume to call the shots just because they bought some books.
Then again, the two approaches tend naturally to overlap and their confines to blur: many people do see the whole issue as you do, and I can readily admit that my view is quite idealistic and dangerously bordering on naive (Patreon itself is obviously a capitalistic enterprise set up for profit). And still, I strongly believe you always have some room for manoeuvre, without ever being completely overdetermind by "free market" rules. Akabur for example is a creator who fully shares my ideas (i.e., he couldn't care less for polls, is very wary of fans trying to condition his artistic process, etc.) and manages to run a successful Patreon page nonetheless. But he is an exception under many respects. MrDots, on the other hand, is VERY attentive to his patrons' opinions/expectations, and always tries to meet them. Up to a certain point, he does consider his backers as investors who can "call the shots" - and that's probably good for business (I guess we are lucky I'm not the boss XD). For the very same reason though, he scarcely cares (I suspect) for what people might say on a pirate board: all his consideraton goes to his backers - which makes perfectly sense, once you consider them as investors.
All in all, I'd say that the best thing to do is trying to balance the two approaches, constantly keeping in mind that every project on patreon is BOTH a for-profit enterprise and a creative endeavour.
This very closely encompasses the point that I'm trying to make. As someone above stated, this is capitalism, and while money does talk, to some extent, a person's story to tell is there story, and it shouldn't be influenced by what the readers want. I write short stories. I have for years. These stories are a mixture of my life experience, and my completely overactive imagination. Taking money to change my narrative only lessens the impact of the story, because I am no longer telling MY story, but instead, a hybrid story of my life, my imagination, and the narrative to which I must conform, thanks to the highest bidder.An act of creation should never be a Democratic process. These are porn games, so its no big deal. But Stephen King never asked his readers of Dark Tower to vote on whether Roland lives or dies etc etc. Neither would Rowling, or RR Martin. They may ask close confidants or friends when conflicted, and they have editors, but the idea of a poll of randoms on the internet dictating what happens in a story before it happens is of course crazy. Even in Business, Steve Jobs would not poll the general public on what they wanted...he knew better, so he made it, end of story.
But, if you find yourself with horny subscribers giving you money, maybe more money than you've ever had in your life...the temptation to stray from what YOU want to do and cater to a mobs popular demands is certainly understandable. Cater to popular demand = my game will stay popular = I will continue to get $$$$ every month to pay bills. I wouldn't do it (Akabur) but totally don't hate on devs who do, just ever so slightly disappointed.![]()
did you check dev's Patreon? it's right there. (link is on the first page)is there a release date yet?