- May 11, 2017
- 3,109
- 10,828
As far as I know from what I can piece together, and from what I hear... This is the most likely situation of his actual story:
So there is this game developer named gumdrop. Back in March of 2017 He starts off as a normal developer actually making a pretty good game at a pretty decent rate. It's called Dual Family. He says it's going to be 30 parts, and he seems like a normal dev probably even a decent dev at first. Had he continued on that path he would probably be completing the game around now or some time later this year depending on the level of scope creep and how he branched it.
Updates 1-6 seem fairly normal nothing out of the ordinary. The guys money is rising and rising each month. Peaking at around $10,000. He got in the Incest game market when the getting was good. There was no covid back then, people had jobs. Apparently he was working with a small crew of a couple of guys he hired to write and render for him. To my knowledge the other 2 devs he was working with were like. "Um... hey can we get some of that cash too buddy? We are making like 10k now, and it kinda sucks working for free." And he is like "Who is this we you speak of? That's my money bitches" So he shakes off his team mates that helped him build the game, and then he is on his own having done his first scam he got a little taste of scamming oh and it tasted good. Unclear when exactly he ditched his team.
Updates 7,8 & 9 gradually got worse and worse. At some point he probably picked up a drug addiction. He probably wasn't use to having all of that money. He could have been smart about it, perhaps buying a home, a car, spend a bit on a crew and further development and put the rest in the bank for a rainy day. I bet a lot of it went up his nose or in his veins. When he starts doing the drugs he really stops giving a fuck about the game. (I am gussing he enjoys both heroine and coke with my experience with junkies). May of 2018 is the last update he ever had I believe, but it was clear that production was slowing down in a big way by then.
He does have this drug addiction, and decent man who has stopped production on a game would pause the patrons pledges, but not him as he needs that drug money more than they need their update. A decent man would hire a new crew to help keep it going... That wouldn't work for him as his crew would want a piece of his drug money, he thinks "fuck them", and goes it alone.
He figures "How long can I just kick the can?" So he goes on patreon and he is active on patreon probably posting on average a couple of times a week. Due to actively posting on patreon it keeps a fair core of people continuing to donate to him. He has about 600 patrons now with a $5 minimum buy in so it's gotta be at least $5,000 he is still making after nearly 3 years of no release.
At first nobody was the wiser. There are games out there that do take a lengthy time to make an update for. Using my game as an example: Sin & I probably spent around 7 months give or take making day 1 of our game but this was over a thousand renders and 10 animations and 6400 lines of code, and buidling the gui and gathering assets, and figuring everything out how to work as a team plus we were learning and making a workflow system and getting know each other and stuff. So it is possible for legitimate developers to take a long time between updates. Making big releases can take time. This is not abnormal.
Sometimes even a great Dev will delay a release, or miss a deadline. I'll give stoper as an example the maker of JOHN. That's a beautiful game very well written, and amazing renders. The guy is a perfectionist so sometimes something will be out a couple weeks or a month after a deadline he set. This does aggravate some hate at stoper, but at the end of the day he does always deliver, and in spite of not keeping his own self imposed deadlines better a little late than never. Thing is when a release does come it's always glorious and it does come so people quick to forgive and forget then a lot of people get cranky when misses the next one and gotta wait a little longer. You can really tell stoper loves making that game and it's a real passion for him to make. A highly recommended game by me.
Thing is no developer or developer team is going to spend nearly 3 years without an update, and gumdrop does what stoper does with the delays and stuff but then doesn't deliver as stoper does. Gumdrop tries to pass himself off as a guy like stoper when it's growing clearer and clearer to more and more people he is not. So the guy keeps saying this or that pushing that goal post a little further back each time. After so long some people grow to think "This guy is full of shit.".... And it keeps on growing.... And more people think "This guy is full of shit..." and keeps going and it keeps on going and going and generating more and more distrust. It's just bubbling over at this point. Even in recent posts he is admitting that he hates his own game, is unmotivated, and doesn't' care to work on it anymore.
He may actually release a real update next time. Without all of the piano bullshit. He may even hire a little team and be slave driver saying "Get to work!" There are people in 3rd world countries that will work for awfully cheap. It is possible for him to spend a small fraction of his drug money on actual game development to see it grow again. The thing is though even if he does that he is not going to see it through. He may do a few updates, and people will think he is getting his shit together again, and start to trust him again. No, don't trust it. He can't be trusted even in such a case. It will all be a ruse.
