Some context...
Long ago in a forum far, far away,
@Palmer shared his masterpiece of AIF "Emily: Sister Attraction." It was a passion project literally dedicated to the earlier works of Goblinboy and is a no-brainer hall-of-fame title from the tail end of what I consider to be the 3rd-generation of adult game creators along with Goblinboy, Lucilla Frost,
@BBBen (still active!) and many others. (The 2nd generation included Christopher Cole, Newkid, A Bomire, A Ninny, Sly Dog, and others--the 1st generation predated 1998 or so--basically before the internet as we know it, and those games were rather scattered and mostly unmemorable (with some exceptions)) ((Sorry for all the asides, but I should mention that devs like Tlaero and
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were crucial 3.5 generation developers that changed how we looked at adult games.)))
Anyway, the response to ESA was overwhelmingly positive (except for perhaps the creepy rape scene with the random track girl the MC "accidentally" knocks unconscious--back then it was kind of a WTF?! thing, but kind of vanilla now and definitely made for an interesting lens into Palmer's brain given future scenes in his newer games).
Back then Palmer was active in older forums, explaining in engaging detail all kinds of things from his personal creative motivations to the technical aspects of ADRIFT coding, from walkthrough assistance to details of asset use. Years ago I had multiple email exchanges with him, and he was... cool! He loved making games, he loved talking about his games, he loved helping people enjoy his games, and he
loved that people loved his games!
But he also had a rather unusual sensitive side when it came to criticism, at least compared to other game creators at the time. He was...
protective I guess is a good word, about his creation. It wasn't that he took it personally--I don't mean "sensitive" in an a emotional or immature sense. Not at all! It was just that, at a time when other game authors involved in the AIF community took valid criticism on the chin and shrugged off oddball comments with a hearty "cheers!", he responded at length to comments that 90% of the other forum members probably shrugged off as lazy commenting at best if not outright trolling.
Then, after some ESA2 teases, he announced he would be working on a new project, a "4G project" if you're catching my drift, called
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. Not long after, he let it be known he would be soliciting payments on some newfangled website called "Patreon" (wtf?!) for additional releases. It's important to note that this was in early 2016, well before DMD or BB or DOD or any other high-profile game was making thousands of dollars per month (and, I think before F95 even existed!).
Palmer saw the future and, I might be mistaken, so if anyone wants to correct me please do, but to my knowledge he was one of the first of the "old guard" AIF creators to shift his focus to creating 4G games dependent on Patreon funds. In other words, he stepped out of TADS and ADRIFT and released a game using cutting-edge interactive programming and said, basically, "This is hard work. If you like it, consider supporting me with money." (It should be noted, crucially, that he has always been consistent with releasing games for free eventually. One day
everyone will be able to play DFD without having contributed a single dollar).
One result of his vision to ask for contributions for working hard to create products people liked was that his game topic was removed from the popular games thread of the old forum to a newly created "other games" thread. He did not take well to this. It's funny looking back on it now, and I'm pretty sure if Palmer is reading this now he would agree that his response to this "demotion" was a bit overblown. He wrote a lengthy diatribe I won't share here, but he came across as rather apoplectic about it. All of the minor, smaller, insignificant defensiveness boiled over. He basically rage-quit a previously supportive forum because he had the gall of asking for money for his hard work, and he got shuffled off.
And so here we find ourselves in 2018 solidly in 5g-game territory, and Palmer is living out his dream of making a decent living from creating and writing and producing and sharing high-quality sex games. I would argue he's earned it. To turn this post back to its beginning, it's both a miracle and a shame that Goblinboy didn't earn a dime (as far as anyone knows) for creating multiple masterpieces, and now 4th-rate hacks make hundreds a month from idiotic faptantasies. No one should give Palmer too much grief for making some money working on a game that will ultimately be free to play once it's finished.
Palmer was ahead of the curve then, and he's ahead of the curve now. Kudos to him for figuring out how to monetize quality in a sea of pirates. Respect.
ETA Haha I posted this without making what was my original point in what I originally thought would be a 200-word response (oops):
I wonder if Palmer would be as actively aggressive with thwarting piracy attempts if he hadn't felt so disrespected by the previous primary forum for sharing adult games? I honestly think the hours and the effort to make the game harder to crack is a result of being rejected by people he thought were his peers. I'm not judging that response one way or another... It's just that when I started my post with "Some context..." this is the point I wanted to get to and got a bit derailed.
