except scamming makes no sense, which i talked about in a previous post a few weeks ago. common sense dictates to just make a good game and get 10k subscribers and make even more cash. using common sense we see it's more beneficial to have good reputation, finish a game, increase your social capital, and use the finished game as free advertising for the next game. Chloe18 does this very well. That developer *Wants* to finish games and make new ones. Common sense also dictates it's far more fun to do this because you get to work on new ideas you have. common sense would then say this is the shittest dumbest scam idea ever especially if you are a) a competant programmer and b) working harder trying to scam people than you would be just coding the game right from the start. it's utterly useless to scam in this context and the only reason for a game to not complete is because the developer is extremely lazy/unmotivated (not the case for crush) or because the developer ran into a block. it can be a writers block, a technical block (they want to do something but need to learn how) etc.
This is the exact opposite of why scammers even do what they do (not just with software).
People scam because it's significantly less effort (for the monetary gain) than actually working. You can try getting a legit job in a casino...or you can run a street shell game scam. You could try and find a job at a company as IT Management/Support...or you can run fake virus popup "cleanup" scams.
In summary, you get two options:
- Work hard, be stressed, have higher risks, earn X money.
- Work
half as hard, have a more stable prospect, earn 70% of X money.
Everyone's different but I can't blame some people for choosing the second option.
Now, in this case, you seem to be suggesting that he would get
so much more money if he "did a good job rather than scam"
Let's put this into numbers, just for fun (even if I don't think Crush is a scammer, he's just incredibly bad at setting priorities);
He's currently getting ~5k a month (please leave the "but Patreon taxes and all that make it lower, it's irrelevant for comparison purposes). I know this is not the number since the beginning, I know it also fluctuates, so just say that it's 4k average every month since the beginning. Let's assume he
is delaying the development, and has been doing so since the beginning (3 years).
Now comes the part where we assign completely arbitrary numbers:
- How much time does the game need to be considered "completed" (not "finished", just "reasonable progress")? It's really hard to say...but let's say that,
working at full capacity, it would be 2 years total time since first release.
- How much (in %) is he delaying the game? In other words, assuming he's not "working full capacity" (not necessarily because he's not doing 12 hours a day, but more because many hours spent are wasted).
- How much more money (% increase on the patreon money numbers) would he earn if he
did work at full capacity?
So, if we say "He'd be earning TWICE! the amount (8k) if he's working full capacity", the game would be over in 2 years, and he'd earn ~192k
If we say "He's currently earning 4k, but he's working at half capacity": The game would take 4 years, and at the end of those he'd earn...the same 192k.
In other words: With literally half the effort, he's still going to earn the same from the game as a whole...
But here's when you say "Ah but he'd totally make another game in those other two years!". And to that I say: Maybe he would, but you see, games don't just pop out of nowhere, creativity can't really be forced, and perhaps more important:
People would expect a higher budget game to have...higher budget assets so a big part of that "full effort income" would/should be destined to the production.
