Oh my, another message just as I finish mine. Ok. Lets break Smutt's last two messages down, because golly gosh:
Death Star Trainer does not have DRM (Digital Rights Management)
Encrypting your save files is DRM, plain an simple. And your own changelogs state that some versions still have encrypted saves. DRM is stuff that makes it harder for pirates to share your game. Encrypting the saves was an attempt to make the pirate versions less enjoyable so people would pay you for a better version.
In fact, I believe that have YOU also have faith in this project. You and all the people who constantly come back to this thread and spread "incorrect or not contrasted" information, most of the times, based on their assumptions (because I promise you that I haven't had proper conversations with all those people who try to harm this project).
You keep calling the community a bunch of liars (you have been trying to avoid using the word liar because your posts that did were removed by mods). You havent actually pointed out any lies or smears in any of your posts however. What lies are you talking about? This is a tactic from you trying to delegitimize criticism and the thread by attacking and shouting down legitimate criticism. You have done this before claiming that the negative reviews were all fake and that the mods werent doing their jobs. Ironically that post got removed by mods.
Also note that if you intentionally withhold information from people (like you literally just confirmed you did) then you only have yourself to blame for allegedly "false" information about your game spreading. Everyone has been telling you to be more transparent. Thats all you have to do.
They want it to succeed so hard... but only on their own terms, otherwise they will spread false information that will only harm the project.
Again, what information is false? There are opinions here that are subjective, but all objective information that has been presented has been true as far as I know.
Lets say you continue dowloading this game in f95zone for free (or $0), which is totally fine because it is your money and nobody is forcing you to spend it. You go on like this, and lets guess the development takes two years, as you said, to fully develop this game, and you keep playing it this way......... 24x$0= 0.000$....... only to get the same, but just some time later.
Ok, this is whataboutism. The poster didnt ask you about the free players. He asked you to defend charging over a thousand dollars for your game to top tier players. You have constantly ignored or redirected this question. People aren't stupid. They know you are deflecting.
I do not know what the other devs really do, because I have not had a proper conversation with them and neither I have spent the time to make a deep analysis of their patreon sites, but I like to think that most of us do more or less the same:
We release the game for free. We expect that just a tiny percentage of our public understand the complexities of creating "anything" in this world, and they will want to support the creator so we can keep doing it.
If you don't know what other devs do how can you claim to know what their business model is? Secondly we have told you over and over that you are doing things differently and less efficiently than other devs and how to fix it. Don't release and upkeep 5 separate versions. Do one version. Have a clear release schedule and changelogs. Charge less for your top tiers. Simple.
I cannot judge the screams inside of you. They are never bron from whats in front of us, but from negative past experiences.
I could release free versions for two years in this forum, but if you decide to hear the screams inside your head instead of what you see, you will never stop believeing that you will get fucked in a possible future.
Fear may be useful sometimes, but it is an irrational thing only inside our minds, and it does not usually care for rational thoughts.
Again, trying to claim objective criticism is subjective and biased is a propaganda tactic. Trust is earned. You start being trustworthy and listening to your community, people will trust you more. Easy!
I probably have less experience than you in marketing. Otherwise I would not have this "community" issues.
Again, few devs have any marketing experience in this market. It isn't about your marketing it's about your business model and your demeanor. For instance, putting the community in quotation marks in order to be sarcastic is rude. You need the community. Treat them with respect.
Also, if you admit you dont know how to do something, try and learn from people who are trying to help you. Dont say theyre biased people trying to sink your game.
I fucking ROASTED the Personal Trainer game in my review for it. And the dev fucking messaged me saying my criticisms were legit, that he really valued my opinions and input and explained how he was going to make the game better in future based on my ideas. Totally out of the blue. It was a truly impressive, and even though I didnt like the game, I am keeping tabs on it because he got me invested in his vision.
I do my best trying not to be rude. Like other people here, English is not my native language, and I may lack the words to express myself in a proper way.
It isnt the words you use that cause the most offense, its the ideas you express. Your vocabulary isnt the problem, ignoring criticism and paint critics as villains who want to sink you is the problem.
I want to know you that I understand your dislikes about the game. But please, understand that I only want to create a enjoyable game and get people to support me (it should not be any crime in that). Understand that even if you may have good suggestions and ideas, and even if they may be better than mine, Death Star Trainer is my baby, and I also want to be able to build it the way I want.
Ok, if you acknowledge you game has faults, try and fix them. If you do something you know is bad just because you want to, then you arent trying to create an enjoyable game. Youre just being stubborn. The other thing is that, like we've said, the game is designed in a way that makes it grindy and unenjoyable in order to encourage people to pay you more. That is not creating a game, that is not seeking support, that is greed.
I may have made mistakes, but nothing justifies some of the attitudes and comments that I or this project are receiving.
This is called the poisoned well argument. I mean it's also a straw man really, but who cares. Basically you single out a handful of angry outliers who arent constructive (of which there really arent many) and then say that you cant listen to critics because the outliers poisoned the well.
And when you say "give me time". They immediately come back, notice you haven't obeyed them, and they start insult you, try so hard to sink your hard work, to make you less successful, to make you feel miserable, and start telling lies (even if they are unwillingful lies) to everyone because they want the people who is/could-be supporting you just ignore you and turn their back on you...
Ok, here you contradict yourself. You keep saying all the critics want your game, that you listen to all of them, that they are constructive. But at the same time you argue that everyone who is critical hates you and just wants you to fail. Which is it?
