Devs who haven't finished games, creating extra content

[darthsprinkles]

I don't see a thread similar to this being talked about. I am curious how the community feels about this. You are following a game because it is amazing to you and you love the story/gameplay. But the only issue is that the Dev takes forever between updates or drags the creation process, even with updates, on forever. The issue, and subject of this post, when the Dev does put out an update (sometimes super small) you discover they also added non-conical art/cgi renders on the side. Meaning, they took time away from the actual game development to spend hours rendering art or animations of the characters in their game in subject matter that has nothing to do with the games plot.

On one hand, i get it, it is your game to do with what you want. On the other hand, you have people sometimes paying subscription fees to support you finishing the actual game and you took time out of providing more content for the actual game to do "extra unneeded stuff".

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate every Devs artistic ability.

What say you community? How do you all feel about this? I mean, it's not like we can stop it. I am just curious to know if I am not the only one this bothers.

 

[Icarus Media]

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[morphnet]

I don't see a thread similar to this being talked about. I am curious how the community feels about this. You are following a game because it is amazing to you and you love the story/gameplay. But the only issue is that the Dev takes forever between updates or drags the creation process, even with updates, on forever. The issue, and subject of this post, when the Dev does put out an update (sometimes super small) you discover they also added non-conical art/cgi renders on the side. Meaning, they took time away from the actual game development to spend hours rendering art or animations of the characters in their game in subject matter that has nothing to do with the games plot.

On one hand, i get it, it is your game to do with what you want. On the other hand, you have people sometimes paying subscription fees to support you finishing the actual game and you took time out of providing more content for the actual game to do "extra unneeded stuff".

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate every Devs artistic ability.

What say you community? How do you all feel about this? I mean, it's not like we can stop it. I am just curious to know if I am not the only one this bothers.

There is a bit of info missing, are the extra renders in all versions or patreon only? Are they only supplied after the update comes out or while the update is still being made? Are they doing it on a regular basis or once every now and then? etc.
Some dev's release extra renders so as to not lock content behind paywalls, some to thank supporters, some do it because of requests, some do it because they had some free time while waiting on other team members to finish their part of the update work. etc.
In general, IMHO, having a few extra renders is a good thing, now if they released 200+ extra renders per update it might seem strange, some wallpapers are pretty nice and adding scenes you wouldn't see ingame like 2 red heads making out can be a bonus.

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When is the next update to the pic

 

[RPDL]

I don't see a thread similar to this being talked about. I am curious how the community feels about this. You are following a game because it is amazing to you and you love the story/gameplay. But the only issue is that the Dev takes forever between updates or drags the creation process, even with updates, on forever. The issue, and subject of this post, when the Dev does put out an update (sometimes super small) you discover they also added non-conical art/cgi renders on the side. Meaning, they took time away from the actual game development to spend hours rendering art or animations of the characters in their game in subject matter that has nothing to do with the games plot.

On one hand, i get it, it is your game to do with what you want. On the other hand, you have people sometimes paying subscription fees to support you finishing the actual game and you took time out of providing more content for the actual game to do "extra unneeded stuff".

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate every Devs artistic ability.

What say you community? How do you all feel about this? I mean, it's not like we can stop it. I am just curious to know if I am not the only one this bothers.

Unless you're a patron of theirs, why do you care?

 

[darthsprinkles]

Unless you're a patron of theirs, why do you care?

It was just a question bud. I get what you are saying, but the purpose of my question was to simply see how other people felt. I am not naming specific games or anything.

 

[tanstaafl]

Depends on the game, regularity of updates, and general trustworthiness of the dev. Granted that last one is usually a nebulous thing and so-called "untrustworthiness" is caused by sour grapes of people getting impatient. But sometimes a dev pushes trust too far and you have a Milfy City situation. Regarding your question though, as I said it depends on several factors. Most of the time when I see extra content it's from a dev that's on a regular schedule and it's because they put in extra time or have it scheduled so it doesn't affect their output. Overall, never had an issue with it.

 

[Atemsiel]

I can give a dev perspective on this, that obviously isn't gonna apply to every dev, but I can explain my reason for making extra things.

Burnout is a real thing. Sometimes, you need something else to work on for a little bit so that you don't lose interest in making your game. It's the same reason a lot of devs choose to make more than one game at the same time. By making extra renders and releasing them, at least that's "sort of" related to the game, so it's easier to justify that as a method of avoiding burnout, vs just watching a movie or something.

I doubt any dev does extra renders because they don't wanna finish their game, it really is just a method of taking a break for most devs. The alternative that achieves the same thing is to just not work on the game at all for a bit. At least this way, people get some extra art. No matter how much you like doing something, there comes a point where you need to stop doing it for a bit, to avoid ruining your enjoyment of it.

 

[TessaXYZ]

I don't see a thread similar to this being talked about. I am curious how the community feels about this. You are following a game because it is amazing to you and you love the story/gameplay. But the only issue is that the Dev takes forever between updates or drags the creation process, even with updates, on forever. The issue, and subject of this post, when the Dev does put out an update (sometimes super small) you discover they also added non-conical art/cgi renders on the side. Meaning, they took time away from the actual game development to spend hours rendering art or animations of the characters in their game in subject matter that has nothing to do with the games plot.

On one hand, i get it, it is your game to do with what you want. On the other hand, you have people sometimes paying subscription fees to support you finishing the actual game and you took time out of providing more content for the actual game to do "extra unneeded stuff".

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate every Devs artistic ability.

What say you community? How do you all feel about this? I mean, it's not like we can stop it. I am just curious to know if I am not the only one this bothers.

Just tossing in my dev perspective too.

There are three reasons I occasionally put out extra content that isn't the VN:

1. It's something I specifically state I'll be doing on my Patreon page. It's not frequent, just around once a month. The alternative is that supporters get absolutely nothing substantial from me between releases. Is that really preferable?

2. I need a palette cleanser, like Atemsiel said. After spending 50+ hours on a single scene, and knowing the next scene will have more of the same style of visuals, characters, environments, etc, sometimes I just want to take a day or two in a completely different direction, just to avoid burnout. My VN is a modern setting, so I'll briefly mess around with something sci-fi or fantasy, and then I'm feeling more clear headed about how to tackle the next actual scene.

3. Sometimes I know there's something particularly challenging that I have planned with the VN, so I'll play around with some concepts, learn some techniques, and spit out a few test renders. This is just part of development, but I'll share those images instead of letting them rot away in my render folder.

I can't speak for every single dev, but I'd say most of us do all three of these things.

 

[RPDL]

It was just a question bud. I get what you are saying, but the purpose of my question was to simply see how other people felt. I am not naming specific games or anything.

Mine was just a question too, and it's genuine. Look at it another way, you say "it's not like we can stop it" so you already know it's pointless. You say "not naming games" so you know it's a loaded question.

I get what you're saying too. I used to care too until I realised it's not my money so what's the point. If it's a game you like(d), well tough titties - shit happens. Pointing and laughing is more fun anyway.

 

[DuniX]

I can give a dev perspective on this, that obviously isn't gonna apply to every dev, but I can explain my reason for making extra things.

Burnout is a real thing. Sometimes, you need something else to work on for a little bit so that you don't lose interest in making your game. It's the same reason a lot of devs choose to make more than one game at the same time. By making extra renders and releasing them, at least that's "sort of" related to the game, so it's easier to justify that as a method of avoiding burnout, vs just watching a movie or something.

I doubt any dev does extra renders because they don't wanna finish their game, it really is just a method of taking a break for most devs. The alternative that achieves the same thing is to just not work on the game at all for a bit. At least this way, people get some extra art. No matter how much you like doing something, there comes a point where you need to stop doing it for a bit, to avoid ruining your enjoyment of it.

Precisely, the extra content is not bad by itself.

It's bad because that is a symptom of the project going nowhere.
If the game had regular updates nobody would even notice or care about the extra stuff, it would be what it is, bonus stuff.

And I disagree that it takes away development time, extra stuff can be cheap and even free junk that is just lying around that got cut for a reason or another through the natural process of working on the game and experimenting with stuff.
You don't have to integrate it into the wider story and endlessly tweak it for a scene, you get what you get and that's it with no need for further considerations.

 

[Count Morado]

I don't see a thread similar to this being talked about.

Then you aren't aware of what terms to use the search option for, because there is a new thread like this created nearly every every day on this site. And that's outside of the similar posts in individual game threads... particularly on the more popular of titles on this site.

you have people sometimes paying subscription fees to support you finishing the actual game

And they have the option to stop subscribing at any time if they feel they are being taken advantage of. Some do, some don't. What people do with their own money is their business. I have yet to contribute a penny for any of the titles I play here, so I don't let any length of development cycles or what content a developer puts out get to me.

Now, if I had paid $10, $20, $50, $100 based upon a stated promise by a developer that by a certain date I would receive a fully completed product and the developer had blown past that date without some kind of agreed upon justification, then I would have an actionable dispute. However, that is not normally how Patreon or Subscribestar works, nor is it how many Itchio creators do business. And if contributors have convinced themselves of any different perspective, that is their own fault - not that of the developer or the host platform

simply see how other people felt.

The line for the pitchforks and torches to storm the castle of "greedy milking devs" starts over there.

• There are multitudes of millions of people who play adult games
• Of those, a minority come to F95 to download adult games for free
• Of those, a minority post more than 2-5 posts on here
• Of those, a minority post in non-game threads about their opinions on game development, etc
• Of those, a minority post their opinions on the work ethic of developers
• Of those, a minority post opinions similar to yours.

So while it is a good number of people who share your perspective, it is a drop in the bucket of the overall adult game players' perspectives. I see many of the same names over and over again in similar threads - on the various sides of this debate. So, even then, the idea that there is a groundswell of similar opinion - like most things in life, it's usually the same handful of people creating the impression an opinion is more popular than it really is.

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

I don't support devs that put out an update "whenever". Regular updates and clear communication. You want me to pay every month, you put out content every month and keep me informed. As for making extra content, it's situational and depends on factors like:

- Does it come at the expense of the normal development pace?
- Is it coming out of the game's budget?
- Do I want that specific content to be made, or do I not care for it?

 

[anne O'nymous]

On one hand, i get it, it is your game to do with what you want. On the other hand, you have people sometimes paying subscription fees to support you finishing the actual game and you took time out of providing more content for the actual game to do "extra unneeded stuff".

No one is paying subscription fees to support a dev finishing the actual game. People are giving few bucks to a dev to support his/her creation process ; it's not the same.

But in the end, what do you know about this extra content ?
Sometimes they are in fact reward for the patrons ; reward that, this time, happened to have leaked.
Sometimes they are experiments to see what the public think about a change in this/that.
Sometimes they are another kind of experiment, the dev trying something new and, since the result is not bad, (s)he decide to share it with the public.
Sometimes they are just the dev staying active while facing a lack of inspiration for the game.
Sometimes they are just the dev doing something on the side in order to keep his/her sanity.
There's the marketing side stories (the special Halloween, special Christmas, etc.).
And, yeah, sometimes they are purely useless. It's rare, but it exist.

But well... Patrons are grown adults. They can perfectly stop to pledge if they think that those side projects shouldn't exist. And the fact is that they are the only one to have a say on this, because they are the one who spend money on the project.

 

[woody554]

extra renders are probably just stuff they made for themselves which they thought they could just as well share. I make them all the time: in the actual game the mom is barely showing a bra, but outside it all her holes have been thoroughly violated by family members, large animals and diesel operated machinery. most of which will never end in the game, but the renders exist nevertheless.

but 'christmas specials' etc. tend to be red flags of them getting bored working on the actual game. it usually happens when they're already systematically lagging with the updates, and sometimes its even the first excuse for why the update is massively late.

 

[Count Morado]

but 'christmas specials' etc. tend to be red flags of them getting bored working on the actual game. it usually happens when they're already systematically lagging with the updates, and sometimes its even the first excuse for why the update is massively late.

As always, YMMV.

This has not been the case in my observations. There was, for a brief period a couple of years ago, the fad for developers to make quick one-off holiday specials. This didn't appear to be a collective sentiment of developers getting bored with their games. There was a vocal minority of players who wanted them for a variety of reasons (ironically to get additional content while waiting for the actual update, to get scenes that would never see the light of day in the game, to have certain characters get special content, etc). Sometimes developers just have some interesting ideas they want to see come to fruition but not necessarily to be canon. There still are a few of these specials which pop up - but the fad appears to have mostly died in the past year or so.

The idea that they are "getting bored" may be a bit of a subjective judgment, but the specials aren't much different than making extra wallpaper, animations, etc. I don't see them as "red flags." Sometimes you get in a funk in the creation process, staring at a blank page and just want to create something outside of the norm to help get out of the funk. This is not unusual and many creators do this in a variety of the creative fields. I've written several essays during those moments that describe my funk or mental block just to move forward in my actual writing.

In the end, the creative process isn't a machine that has constant input/output constraints. It's not an assembly line. It's a rollercoaster ride. It's easier to dampen the hills and valleys of the process if you have a larger team of people working on the same project, but when it's a solo or small team project there are going to be noticeable periods of hyper development paired with periods of the reciprocal.

 

[Doorknob22]

I normally don't do it, I'm a "tunnel vision" type of creator, but I can understand that some of my colleagues might need to take a little break from a project in order not to burn themselves.

Sometimes, doing "something else" for a while does wonders to one's creativity.

 

[Mystic]

I normally don't do it, I'm a "tunnel vision" type of creator, but I can understand that some of my colleagues might need to take a little break from a project in order not to burn themselves.

Sometimes, doing "something else" for a while does wonders to one's creativity.

Such as.... NEW DLC UPDATE IS OUT, you can get it by taking my Patreon Tier for just $9.99!

 

[Count Morado]

Such as.... NEW DLC UPDATE IS OUT, you can get it by taking my Patreon Tier for just $9.99!

Again, though. It doesn't matter to me and to the VAST majority of the players on F95 - we play it all for free, not a penny spent (much to the chagrin of some developers) - ergo, again, whatever time developers take and whatever content they create shouldn't be a concern for the great number of players who download through F95.

I wouldn't bust your ass if you were taking 2 months, 2 years, or 20 years in developing Strings of Fate. Nor would I berate you for creating content not relevant to advancing the development of the game. Finally, I wouldn't even bitch if you were attempting to sell DLC content for $9.99 or $99.99. It's your choice and it's the choice of others of whether or not to subscribe for access to your content. It's my choice to play whatever I want without paying anything for it and me complaining about your choices makes no sense.

 

[Mystic]

Again, though. It doesn't matter to me and to the VAST majority of the players on F95 - we play it all for free, not a penny spent (much to the chagrin of some developers) - ergo, again, whatever time developers take and whatever content they create shouldn't be a concern for the great number of players who download through F95.

I wouldn't bust your ass if you were taking 2 months, 2 years, or 20 years in developing Strings of Fate. Nor would I berate you for creating content not relevant to advancing the development of the game. Finally, I wouldn't even bitch if you were attempting to sell DLC content for $9.99 or $99.99. It's your choice and it's the choice of others of whether or not to subscribe for access to your content. It's my choice to play whatever I want without paying anything for it and me complaining about your choices makes no sense.

Well said is what I can say, though having someone with reasonable approach and realistic one for that matter, is rare case to find if you can find it at all here.

 

[Count Morado]

Well said is what I can say, though having someone with reasonable approach and realistic one for that matter, is rare case to find if you can find it at all here.

Don't worry, you probably have removed at least one of my posts in another thread for being unreasonable (in the least). If not, I'll try harder next time.