Tutorial DevOps: How to not go months without a release.

[Fervid]

You must be registered to see the links

from the Quarantine bunker of Butterscotch Shenanigans CEO Seth Coster has nothing to do with ero games specifically, but it does have everything to do with eliminating wasted time and effort in games development.

Developers: Watch it, maybe google a few of the terms it uses, learn whatever you can from it, and start improving the way YOU make games. It was intended for small teams, but that's kinda the point. By following the processes a small team would use, you schedule your work, hold yourself accountable, and fix your process, all while automating some shit and keeping fans in the loop.

Rabid fans: Politely forward the link to all those creators who look like they've stopped updating your favorite game. Who knows? Maybe with less waste, they could start updating more frequently again.

Actual Goddamned Professionals: You're probably already doing most of this stuff, which is why you can stick to a release schedule. Maybe give it a quick once-over, just to make sure you haven't missed a trick. Then carry on, you magnificent bastards!

 

[anne O'nymous]

Rabid fans: Politely forward the link to all those creators who stopped updating your favorite game. You don't know. Maybe it's honest incompetence.

Or maybe they have a life and, despite it being part of their income, working on their game have a priority lower than their family and actual job.
Or perhaps that they value quality more than regularity, and take all the time it need to deliver good updates, by opposition of the average games updated twice a month.

And who know, it can even bet both because, well they are humans, not robots...

 

[Fervid]

Good point. OP changed to reflect it.

 

[lancelotdulak]

GDC is garbage but this is fantastic! A REAL story from a small studio telling the truth

 

[xMentat]

Devops, mmm, the new agile. Seen it all before. Like every process, it has good bits and terrible bits. The issue, as always, is that the person or people paying the dev bills are not the people who really care about the product.

 

[Fervid]

Devops, mmm, the new agile. Seen it all before. Like every process, it has good bits and terrible bits. The issue, as always, is that the person or people paying the dev bills are not the people who really care about the product.

Err... how so? In the case of Patreon, anyway, aren't the fans literally the ones paying a dev's bills?

Maybe unpack what you mean a little bit, because I don't get how it applies to the games on this forum.

 

[charlie19009]

Must be nice if you make enough money from your ero game to quit your job and work on it full time. Most of the time, though, the devs have families, friends, jobs etc. and their project is just a thing they do in their off-days.

 

[Paz]

Err... how so? In the case of Patreon, anyway, aren't the fans literally the ones paying a dev's bills?

That does not always invalidate the "people paying the dev bills are not the people who really care about the product" statement.

Supporters always have personal preferences, and they support something because it happens to tick some of those boxes. By nature, they will try and steer that project into ticking more boxes, especially with the carrot of "spend money to vote on how the game should be developed".
It might be beneficial to the creator financially, but not to the project itself at times.

They want a game to continue to be made (or finished at some point) but they might miss the bigger picture of how it will eventually reach that point, or at what state it will be when it reaches it if the above applies (i.e. a haphazard mess).

 

[anne O'nymous]

Err... how so? In the case of Patreon, anyway, aren't the fans literally the ones paying a dev's bills?

Alas, it's the question that invalidate most of the thread.

Either the dev isn't one of the 100ish who earn enough on Patreon (and other places) to fully pay his bills, and then the answer to your question is, "they aren't". Or the dev is lucky and earn enough to fully pay his bills, and then the answer to your question is, "they don't care".

The first one have more important things to do, their actual job, than strictly planning their release and stick to it. As for the others, well, why should they change something ? If you were Dark Cookie, the adult game creator with the most patrons, or Adeptus Steve, the adult game creator who earn the most on Patreon, would you really release an update every month ? This when an update (more or less) every three months, already let you earn US$ 89.xxx/month (Adeptus Steve) and US$ 62.xxx/month (Dark Cookie)...

Your advice aren't stupid, and they would effectively benefit to most of the creators. But they apply only for the really few that earn just enough to pay their bills and that also want to quit their job and start a career as full time adult game creator ; which imply that they'll not do just a game, but continue to do this for the rest of their life if possible.
For all the others, either they can't follow them, or they don't need to do it.

 

[TessSadist]

Must be nice if you make enough money from your ero game to quit your job and work on it full time. Most of the time, though, the devs have families, friends, jobs etc. and their project is just a thing they do in their off-days.

I believe you have to assume making it a real career will almost certainly never happen. I think you just need to have an idea of what kind of story you want to tell, be excited most days - certainly you will have a few tired days here and there - to work on it, and try and balance that workload with real life as best as you can. Without that passion to do it without any future guarantees, I think any game would be even more rare in being successful.

I kind of treat this like going to the gym. I exercise a little bit or a little longer six days a week consistently as a habit, and it's become a "normal" routine in my lifestyle because I really want to look good. So I kind of am doing the same with writing script/code and doing renders because in my mind I really want the game to be good. Just a little consistent forward momentum every day so it's "normal" and you don't give up and/or just get lazy.

 

[Fervid]

Your advice aren't stupid, and they would effectively benefit to most of the creators. But they apply only for the really few that earn just enough to pay their bills and that also want to quit their job and start a career as full time adult game creator ; which imply that they'll not do just a game, but continue to do this for the rest of their life if possible.
For all the others, either they can't follow them, or they don't need to do it.

It sort of feels like the main thing you're saying is only middle-of-the-road devs are both willing and able to work on a game. I'm not sure if that's true or not. Maybe after I've been here longer I'll realize how right you were.

Can we at least agree that a dev with money and an efficient workflow is more likely to release regular updates than a dev with money and a crazy ad-hoc workflow? And a broke dev with a good workflow can probably make more game during his limited free time than a broke dev with a crazy ad-hoc workflow?

I kind of treat this like going to the gym. I exercise a little bit or a little longer six days a week consistently as a habit, and it's become a "normal" routine in my lifestyle because I really want to look good. So I kind of am doing the same with writing script/code and doing renders because in my mind I really want the game to be good. Just a little consistent forward momentum every day so it's "normal" and you don't give up and/or just get lazy.

That's kinda the whole point of this thread. Game dev is only like "going to the gym" if you already know how to make that genre of game. In theory, yeah, anyone could boot up Daz Studio and Ren'Py and just keep adding sentences and pictures until they have a finished game.

But the devil's in the details. You don't already know Python? That's probably an extra two weeks up front, minimum. You want a stats system or an interactive touch-based mini-game? That's more time spent reading tutorials and problem solving. Your graphics card is an ATI? Congratulations, you're rendering out images orders of magnitude slower than your competition, but your fans don't neccessarily know that.

Patreon changed their policy on allowing this or that kink, so now you have to rewrite the story? You changed your mind and decided you'd rather use Unity or RPG Maker halfway through development? You just plain lost your inspiration and would rather be working on something else? Well, now you have to start all over again!

And if you're making anything more complicated than a Visual Novel, multiply everything I just said by 4 or 10 or 100, depending on the genre.

In all but the most trivial cases, Game Dev's more like building a house. You can't build the roof first and then fill in the foundation later. But a lot of people don't necessarily realize that before they start. That's what devops is supposed to try and solve. It imposes structure on devs who have none.

The other thing is, if telling the fans what you did today costs too much time and effort for the dev to bother with it, "consistent forward momentum" looks exactly the same as complete inaction. Hence, an automated news feed that fires off an alert every time you change something.

 

[anne O'nymous]

It sort of feels like the main thing you're saying is only middle-of-the-road devs are both willing and able to work on a game.

Then you should read again what I wrote, because it's not at all what I said.

Can we at least agree that a dev with money and an efficient workflow is more likely to release regular updates than a dev with money and a crazy ad-hoc workflow? And a broke dev with a good workflow can probably make more game during his limited free time than a broke dev with a crazy ad-hoc workflow?

Yes, we can agree to the obvious, but what's the interest of this agreement exactly ? To prove that an efficient workflow is an improvement ? We know it since Henry Ford invented assembly chains, in the early 1900's.
What is important isn't the efficiency of a method, but it's applicability and interest.

And it happen that broke devs can't apply it, because you know, when you have a job and a family, you don't have a regular schedule of free time. One day you came back to works and have all the time you want, and the next day, without warning, your wife/husband had a fucking crazy day, and you end bathing the youngest, while helping the oldest with his school works and making the diner.
As for the devs with big money, they have no interest in its application. They'll not add constraints in their life just to make even more big money.

In theory, yeah, anyone could boot up Daz Studio and Ren'Py and just keep adding sentences and pictures until they have a finished game. [...] You don't already know Python? [...] You want a stats system or an interactive touch-based mini-game? [...] Your graphics card is an ATI?

And what about the most important point, the one that effectively decide if you'll make more than 1,000/month or less than US$ 100/month, the creation capability ?

In all but the most trivial cases, Game Dev's more like building a house. You can't build the roof first and then fill in the foundation later. But a lot of people don't necessarily realize that before they start. That's what devops is supposed to try and solve. It imposes structure on devs who have none.

Which fall back to what I asked right above. You're missing and important point, well in fact two important points, in your thinking process.
Firstly, making a game isn't a building process, but a creation process. Devs aren't the code monkey who do what is asked to them, but the writer, artist and, at the end, code monkey. Even when they have the full script of their game already wrote, they'll have to change a lot of things mid-process, because it don't look as natural in real, that it looked in their head. They'll also stay stuck to something more than expected, because this part of the dialog is missing a little something, or because it's this CG that are missing something. And, yes it's an important point, yes it's something that can take a whole week to be solved, and also yes, it's something that can't be planned.
Secondly, well, even if you have the chance to do it as you full time job, it's a passion before being a job, and it need to stay like this. It's because of the passion put by a dev in his story, that a game succeed even while being an average one on some points. It's because of the passion put by a dev in his story, that an average game can improve with time.

So, yes, making a game is like building a house... while being both the architect and the mason, and having the possibility to break what you just built because finally it will surely looks better if it's made "like that".
While I still totally agree that having a strong structure and planning your game would do good to many devs, thinking that making a game is just a rational thing would also be the worst thing that could happen to the scene.
Creation need freedom. A contained freedom, but sill a freedom wide enough to let place to the imagination. It's not because a dev will not progress on his game during a whole week, that he effectively do nothing. He let the story grow in his head. He's working on the next scene, and it's because of this week not writing, that the scene will be remembered, that the game will be enjoyable.
Now, perhaps that I'm part of the minority, but I prefer, from far, waiting three months for few hours of enjoyment, than having a regular dose of, "well, it wasn't too bad".

 

[Fervid]

I apologize for misunderstanding your post. I thought you were coming from the complete other direction with that. I thought more updates was what you were saying you wanted. My mistake.

 

[TessSadist]

That's kinda the whole point of this thread. Game dev is only like "going to the gym" if you already know how to make that genre of game. In theory, yeah, anyone could boot up Daz Studio and Ren'Py and just keep adding sentences and pictures until they have a finished game.

But the devil's in the details. You don't already know Python? That's probably an extra two weeks up front, minimum. You want a stats system or an interactive touch-based mini-game? That's more time spent reading tutorials and problem solving. Your graphics card is an ATI? Congratulations, you're rendering out images orders of magnitude slower than your competition, but your fans don't neccessarily know that.

Patreon changed their policy on allowing this or that kink, so now you have to rewrite the story? You changed your mind and decided you'd rather use Unity or RPG Maker halfway through development? You just plain lost your inspiration and would rather be working on something else? Well, now you have to start all over again!

And if you're making anything more complicated than a Visual Novel, multiply everything I just said by 4 or 10 or 100, depending on the genre.

In all but the most trivial cases, Game Dev's more like building a house. You can't build the roof first and then fill in the foundation later. But a lot of people don't necessarily realize that before they start. That's what devops is supposed to try and solve. It imposes structure on devs who have none.

The other thing is, if telling the fans what you did today costs too much time and effort for the dev to bother with it, "consistent forward momentum" looks exactly the same as complete inaction. Hence, an automated news feed that fires off an alert every time you change something.

I certainly can buy this analogy in terms of the context you are providing, but I was really talking about a more limited scope and what I consider my own foundation so to speak. A creative passion and energy to consistently move forward day after day, one little thing at a time. I think without both the passion to constantly move forward and the discipline to make it a consistent habit analogous to going to the gym (at least this is how I perceive it in my personal context) the details and obstacles you will encounter will only be that much more daunting. My creative energy is a stronger foundation than anything else I will ever have with the actual process, as without it, I would be dead anyway.

And I'm speaking from the perspective of a complete non-tech person and I don't think I ever even READ a line of code - much less ever used it - before writing a new 0.1. It was incredibly daunting for me considering my lack of experience, and without a real desire and passion - and discipline too - to do a little bit everyday, no way I even finish anything.

 

[lancelotdulak]

lol i think you all missed the mark 100%. First: adeptus steve isnt "steve".. it's a literal game studio with i believe 5 or 6 staff doing cutting edge dev work. I havent looked at it recently but their first demo was a bit stunning.

Most of us have jobs. Mine is 6 days a week. Ive spent the last.. over a year .. not sure how long becoming as good with daz et al as i can. I think im capable of producing dmd quality content now. I have a fairly high end ryzen system.. but only a 1060 and 1070. The system cost me about a grand. And im an expert on computer science including hardware.. thats buying used hardware other than cpu and motherboard. It takes approximately 2 hours per render to Reliably Render that quality artwork. Tha'ts after i create the characters ,scenes etc which can take a very long time and which i constantly tweak. Think a day or 5 to create and finalise a character + clothing etc. Id say 2 hours to do the posing for a scene. So i come home from work at 2am after driving a truck all day tired.. spend 2 hours working on daz.. start a render and.. well im done for that night. (other people with other jobs have similar stories). Oh and if i check the render and find flaws /pokethrough/bad posing etc later? Scrap it , fix it and redo. Now consider that imho a FIRST release should contain 200-400 renders imho. Do the math on the time involved. So if i spend basically 200 days on a single game (excluding coding etc which can be trivial or complex.. in my case unity type game so trivial). Say 200+ days in your spare time but kinda dedicated on a pretty good system. You release it on patreon and .. get... $68 a month........ So dude says "hey ya know what i love that people like it time to work on the next patch".. still using that 1070 or whatever but a lot of base work done so quicker timing.. 3 renders a day... 100 renders total release... F95 is like "wtf why release an update with hardly any content wtf... fuck this guy anyone supporting him should be pissed"... but your patreon went up to a whopping... $200 a month!!! Youre now working for almost a dollar an hour with expertise in programming, 3d graphics and writing...! yay! Also... if you make that much EVERY month for the next 6 months you can finally upgrade to two used 1080ti's from ebay. As long as you know.. of course youve now worked hundreds of hours to earn.. 2 used 1080ti's... and be cursed for not making what joeblowx wanted and his particular fetish. ALSO youre really burned out on the story/fetish... and the models to be honest.. so you introduce new stuff.. now f95 is REALLY PISSED. How dare you! also why havent you included my fetish some dude gave you $5.. i mean i didnt but some dude didnt you should be giving me much more content!!!!


I think this is the reason a LOT of devs quit or arent in a hurry etc. Now the guys making 5k a month who cant be fucking bothered ? Fuck those lazyass mommas basement living losers. But the devs here ive seen work their ass off for nothing? This is their story.

 

[xMentat]

Err... how so? In the case of Patreon, anyway, aren't the fans literally the ones paying a dev's bills?

Maybe unpack what you mean a little bit, because I don't get how it applies to the games on this forum.

I'm a profesional software dev, my post was based on my experience that, in most projects I have worked on, the sponsor (i.e. the bill payer) didn't actually use the app and usually didn't understand it. The end users in their dept were the ones who knew what was wanted but had limited influence on new developments because of cost constraints.

It does apply here, patreons may pay but they are outnumbered by other players who popularise games and attract other potential patreons.

I guess my point is, there is nothing new in DevOps really IMHO, it's the latest fad which doesn't address the fundamental dichotomy that the bill payer is (usually) not the end user.

 

[lancelotdulak]

I'm a profesional software dev, my post was based on my experience that, in most projects I have worked on, the sponsor (i.e. the bill payer) didn't actually use the app and usually didn't understand it. The end users in their dept were the ones who knew what was wanted but had limited influence on new developments because of cost constraints.

It does apply here, patreons may pay but they are outnumbered by other players who popularise games and attract other potential patreons.

I guess my point is, there is nothing new in DevOps really IMHO, it's the latest fad which doesn't address the fundamental dichotomy that the bill payer is (usually) not the end user.

Youre just living in the dark age of game dev. Right now the business majors control it.. not the creators. Bethesda just rereleased skyrim in a moneygrab. Theyve been producing SHIT for years and ripping off customers. And dont want to hear a word about ES6 except when they use it to draw attention to their latest shit corporate project. Bethesda could LITERALLY port the skyrim assets to UE4, toss an ARK/7dtd network architecture on top of it, add content and stories and pull in a Billion dollars... but the business majors are too fucking stupid for that. They want some lootbox money on some new bullshit that noone wants...

 

[Fervid]

I'm a profesional software dev, my post was based on my experience that, in most projects I have worked on, the sponsor (i.e. the bill payer) didn't actually use the app and usually didn't understand it. The end users in their dept were the ones who knew what was wanted but had limited influence on new developments because of cost constraints.

It does apply here, patreons may pay but they are outnumbered by other players who popularise games and attract other potential patreons.

I guess my point is, there is nothing new in DevOps really IMHO, it's the latest fad which doesn't address the fundamental dichotomy that the bill payer is (usually) not the end user.

OH! You thought I was talking about video games in general! I get it now. Sorry for the confusion. No, I was talking about the types of games hosted here.

 

[Sinfall Studios]

This is really useful, thanks!

 

[kaiserarm]

I guess my point is, there is nothing new in DevOps really IMHO, it's the latest fad which doesn't address the fundamental dichotomy that the bill payer is (usually) not the end user.

While I agree it is at least in part a fad, the problem you mention is not the one DevOps is addressing.

DevOps tries to bridge the divide between "dev" and "ops", i.e. development and deployment. And it does that very effectively. Of course it comes at a price and by now it has become a buzzword many companies throw around without deeper understanding, just as agile. Still, maintaining a deployment process right from the start, or at least making it a conscious decision, is usually a good idea.