For people who are patrons...

[HopesGaming]

[...]

I genuinely can't understand why you feel I jump you or anything like that.
I simply share my opinion like everyone else here. Just because we do not share the same opinion does not mean I am 'jumping' you.

About protecting my friend. That is a bit of a weird statement. I do not personally know Braindrop or have any relations with him. I am merely talking about him based on his game. The fact that you worded it like that insinuate that my only reason I have my opinion is that I know him and want to 'protect'? That is messed up... My opinions are not emotional but solely based on my view objectively.

My post was mainly about your points (as I heavily disagree with all of it) but was worded in a general sense to avoid targeting anyone (and why I didn't quote your post).

Also, the laws you linked make no sense in this situation. And you yourself didn't even write why they made sense. You just linked it and acted like it enforced your points.
Dafuq.

About top devs 'should' do something. They should only do whatever they want to do. I think they got a grasp on it...
Just because one group does something does not mean everyone else can or should do it.
It'd be the same as saying Pewdiepie should not be the only one in front of the camera and work alone anymore because smosh and other big youtubers made a whole team.
I am flabbergasted that some people even can think of these things as 'reasonable' thoughts.

Still, some people prefer to support that, knowing that their support isn't very much important to the dev anymore. instead of supporting smaller devs who really need support.

This is wrong on so many levels.
First of all, how do you know the support isn't important to the dev anymore? And why do you think that just because they support him they won't support smaller devs? The majority of patrons supports more than 1 dev.

And this whole idea on how the smaller devs are hurting because of support to big devs is probably the one point I disagree with the most.
All big devs were small when they started. They gained support and became big.
Small devs who don't get support is not because they are simply overlooked. It is because people do not like it enough to support it. I know that may sound tough. But it is the reality.
Devs (not aimed at any dev specific!) who have few to none patrons should stop blaming big devs for their lack of support. They should look inwards and try to understand what their game lacks compared to those games that do not lack support.
Stop saying that patrons should support smaller devs instead of devs. That is a, for lack of better words, pathetic mindset to have.
Patrons should pledge to games and dev they enjoy and want to support. Nothing to do with the size of the fanbase (tho good games have automatically a bigger fanbase)

 

[HopesGaming]

First Economy lesson I got in college was a definition for money: a scarce resource suitable for alternative uses. So my point is that I have a budget that first I choose to spend in adult gaming and then I have to choose who I support with it. And I take into consideration not only the joy and amusement the devs give me, the effort made or the quality of their creations, but also who could be more benefited from my contribution. That's another rule when you invest in development: impact. My 5 bucks are likely to cause more impact on a struggling dev than on one of the best well-known ones. So even though I like a few top games, I prefer giving my monthly money to someone who earns 100 than to someone who earns 10,000. Sure, we all like getting a salary increase even if it's just a 5 bucks one, but some people would notice it more than others.

I don't think that's difficult to understand. I didn't set any arbitrary bar to say 'Oh, I'd make a pledge if he were earning 3,995 per month but he makes 4,000 so go f**k yourself with all that filthy money of yours!' It's not like that, you can even say it's not a rational decision, just something you 'feel' like doing. As I've also said, I'm a long time supporter of someone who's making a living of this. If he were even more successful than he is right now, I'd probably keep my pledge because I'd be fucking happy about him and love his work. And I'd like to think there are more people like me out there.

On another note, a dev team is a ridiculously expensive thing to sustain if you want it to be an actual pro team. You just can't afford it with what Braindrop was earning (I strongly respect this guy, he's paused his Patreon for 5 months in a row because he can't deliver so actually he's not getting a dime right now). Getting help? Sure. A team? No way

The arbitrary point was mostly at the thought that we should limit any devs based on how much they make.
This was more based on a 'community' feel of it rather than an individual thing.
I can understand that some individuals want to help out smaller devs and I also respect it a lot.

I just dislike it when a helpful though becomes a 'fuck the big dev for making so much for so little work and the smaller devs are hurting because of it!'
(Not saying anyone said or meant it like that. Just an overexaggerated example)

Your way of doing it honestly falls into my example of leaving it up to each patron to support whoever they want for whatever reasons they want.

About the money thing tho.
Personally, I always tell anyone who wants to support me that they should only support me with the amount they can't 'feel' like losing. I rather want someone who supports me with 1 buck and says peace rather than someone who supports me with 100 bucks and could feel it hurt in his pocket. My game is after all free after one week of release. The support is simply that. Support.

 

[Joshua Tree]

On another note, a dev team is a ridiculously expensive thing to sustain if you want it to be an actual pro team. You just can't afford it with what Braindrop was earning (I strongly respect this guy, he's paused his patreon for 5 months in a row because he can't deliver so actually he's not getting a dime right now). Getting help? Sure. A team? No way

With a certain level of income you can afford to outsource some contract work though. But if you want to create a proper dev team and take on someone steady, it require a lot of money. You have to start pay proper wages after all. If you take a "game programmer" as example (after some google search), the entry level start at around 44k USD per year. Where a senior/lead programmer push 120k+ If you have this as your daily job already and make an adult game on your spare time as a hobby. There is no reason you ever would want to make that a full time gig.

 

[tanstaafl]

Still, some people prefer to support that, knowing that their support isn't very much important to the dev anymore. instead of supporting smaller devs who really need support.

This is wrong on so many levels.
First of all, how do you know the support isn't important to the dev anymore? And why do you think that just because they support him they won't support smaller devs? The majority of patrons supports more than 1 dev.

I think these two quotes sum up the last page or so of this discussion pretty well. To add my two cents to it, people are overthinking it. Support the game/developers you want to, the ones that you feel the best about supporting. I currently support three devs. One is a 0.1 release that shows promise (Glacerose, who is making Sylphine, seriously go check it out) and one is HopesGaming who has the better part of 1000 patrons. I chose the devs to support based on how much I like the games the devs are making. Full stop, done.

People are looking at highly supported game developers and fresh, new patreon games as if they have the same needs and requirements. This isn't the case at all. Comparing someone like MrDots, who has a team of developers as well as a ton of supporters, to a first time developer who just started their Patreon is the wrong way to look at it. As their enterprise grows, so does the cost of what they are doing. Their appreciation does not diminish just because they are more established and have more supporters.

 

[Joshua Tree]

All big devs were small when they started. They gained support and became big.
Small devs who don't get support is not because they are simply overlooked. It is because people do not like it enough to support it. I know that may sound tough. But it is the reality.
Devs (not aimed at any dev specific!) who have few to none patrons should stop blaming big devs for their lack of support. They should look inwards and try to understand what their game lacks compared to those games that do not lack support.
Stop saying that patrons should support smaller devs instead of devs. That is a, for lack of better words, pathetic mindset to have.
Patrons should pledge to games and dev they enjoy and want to support. Nothing to do with the size of the fanbase (tho good games have automatically a bigger fanbase)

So much this. It's not just about make a game, but make yourself a brand of sort as well. A bit unrelated, but this dude touch on a lot of it.

 

[recreation]

My personal opinion:
If a patron decides to stop supporting me for a new dev, because he's making a good game and doesn't have many patrons, then I'm absolutely fine with it, I don't like to see them go, but I can totally understand it.
Also I might not be a "Top Tier Dev", but I'm doing relatively good in comparison to others and I'm still happy about every single "new patron" notification that pops up on my phone.

Regarding BD, I don't personally know him and I think his game is massively overrated, but I would never say he doesn't deserve the support he gets, seeing the amount of work and content he puts in his game is just crazy, so yeah, he deserves the support imo, even though there are better games out there.
There are other devs that basically do nothing and yet have a ridiculous number of patrons and income and haven't even finished a game, these are the poeple that don't deserve their support!

 

[deluges]

I think these two quotes sum up the last page or so of this discussion pretty well. To add my two cents to it, people are overthinking it. Support the game/developers you want to, the ones that you feel the best about supporting. I currently support three devs. One is a 0.1 release that shows promise (Glacerose, who is making Sylphine, seriously go check it out) and one is HopesGaming who has the better part of 1000 patrons. I chose the devs to support based on how much I like the games the devs are making. Full stop, done.

People are looking at highly supported game developers and fresh, new patreon games as if they have the same needs and requirements. This isn't the case at all. Comparing someone like MrDots, who has a team of developers as well as a ton of supporters, to a first time developer who just started their Patreon is the wrong way to look at it. As their enterprise grows, so does the cost of what they are doing. Their appreciation does not diminish just because they are more established and have more supporters.

I'm supporting five devs, at least, and most of them are already doing well, like EvaKiss, but I keep supporting them because they put out quality work and are very engaging with the community. As much as the larger devs don't "need" the support, in a sense, I find that, probably due to their support, they are more active than the smaller devs. There's always exceptions to the rule.

One guy I'm supporting makes around 500 a month but does amazing work and seems undeterred (he also has a clear vision for his game). On the flip side is a newer dev who has managed to not make a single update in the three months that I've been subscribed.

 

[tanstaafl]

On the flip side is a newer dev who has managed to not make a single update in the three months that I've been subscribed.

Same. Currently supporting Unleashed, which is running several months behind on updates. Which is fine. I mean, there is a line in the sand where no progress is being made, but I judge that on a dev by dev basis. It's a damn good game and the dev is active on his Patreon, so I continue my support.

 

[Joshua Tree]

Same. Currently supporting Unleashed, which is running several months behind on updates. Which is fine. I mean, there is a line in the sand where no progress is being made, but I judge that on a dev by dev basis. It's a damn good game and the dev is active on his Patreon, so I continue my support.

Some start pump out a update every month and then people start expect this as a standard, its silly. Creators do what they can with time available and that differs a lot...

 

[DaClown]

people dont have a holistic mindset, so this ideology to help the whole is not working. unfortunately.
a libertarian way is what most people are following, they put money on something they like, without giving care that small teams will perish without support and eventually we only have a couple of teams doing games with a huge profit.

I believe in diversity, more we have the better, it will also spread creativity, and those "big teams" will also benefit from it, as they are "fast" to adapt and do what its trendy and what people want.

what can we do? nothing, people will not change, a holistic mindset is nothing you can learn easily, its something that is part of you that need to evolve with knowledge and understanding. so in the end we have what we have, you need to adapt and try to lure the masses to support you, "IF" you want some reward for your effort or want to earn money for what you are doing.

"eventually we only have a couple of teams doing games with a huge profit."
There are virtually no such teams being crowdfunded in the adult game development business at current.

Most teams are far far less than 1 million$/year (77,000$/month to 83333$/month). The way it cuts is that if you have 100K$/year going to a dev team then you can have 1 to 2 dedicated professionals working on that team; 2 people with a 50-50 split is going to be towards the lower end of the income for professionals in the US/EU national economies for game development. 500K$/year (39,000$/month to 42,000$/month) going to a dev team can support a small 5 to 10 person team.

Most professional game development projects (not even AAA) are million dollar a year projects for 2 to 3 years; they employ dozens of dedicated team members. Game projects that approach the AAA standards are hundred million dollar projects spread out over 2 to 10 years which translates to 10s of millions of dollars per year; they employ thousands of dedicated team members.

"Huge profit" here is a relative term. There are no Patreon adult game projects that are turning people into Jeff Bezos; there are no billionaire or even multimillionaire adult game projects that are crowd funded. Also, when we see people's Patreon amounts we're seeing something which is more like revenue than profits.

For comparison, a solo project for someone living in the US or an equivalent area would need around 3800$/month to support that dev full time. That would be roughly the equivalent of paying them less than 28$/hr for 40 hour work weeks to work a position that would pay around 50$/hr to 100$/hr in the US national economy, and they would be sharing that entire income with the demands of the project including contracting or commissioning assets or other business operation expenses like consultation with lawyers and accountants.

I am a huge fan of supporting small teams working on projects that are good for the communities. However, there are quite a few small teams that way way over extend or simply are not viable projects for a wide variety of reasons notably choices of content inclusion. The community has no obligation to materially support projects which are failures to launch; the community has no obligation to support devs that mismanage their projects or devs that fail to delegate.

As a general rule of thumb, if a project is launched as a solo dev then it is non-viable. I know there's a whole mythos about solo devs successfully single handedly making a game, but 9 out of 10 solo dev game projects fail. A minimal game dev team is typically no less than 3 people. Most successful dev teams are around 5 to 7 dedicated people including people running the business and not including investors, corporate officers, or owners.

 

[baka]

what u write is exactly a libertarian mindset. let the big eat up the small. let the one that knows how to please the masses be the successful ones, while the creative few they can die out since they didnt "understand" the way.
better focus on teams/devs that gives us fast-food projects, since that is the most appealing for the masses. let the creative minds die or force them to assimilate into the same dev, die or adapt.
better give all the money to a team, so they feel happy, while other devs that works (as much or even more) gets little or nothing.

yes, this is how it works, but I dont need to like it and I also knows that theres people out there that understand this issue and want to help the different, the one with a unique idea to survive, but they are few and that will not change.

 

[Crossett]

It's a risk investment, kinda like kickstarter. There's no guarantee you'll get what you expect in the end, but you're essentially betting money on something you believe in.

I used patreon until a couple years ago, when real life kinda took over for me, and I ended up not checking up on the site for several months in a row. If I wasn't even invested in the things I was donating to anymore, it felt pointless to keep the account active. Mostly used to give smaller token sums to keep supporting artists and game creators I wanted to keep an eye on, and maybe comment on and suggest things for. These days I prefer to buy games when they are completed if there's something in particular I like.

 

[Joshua Tree]

what u write is exactly a libertarian mindset. let the big eat up the small. let the one that knows how to please the masses be the successful ones, while the creative few they can die out since they didnt "understand" the way.
better focus on teams/devs that gives us fast-food projects, since that is the most appealing for the masses. let the creative minds die or force them to assimilate into the same dev, die or adapt.
better give all the money to a team, so they feel happy, while other devs that works (as much or even more) gets little or nothing.

yes, this is how it works, but I dont need to like it and I also knows that theres people out there that understand this issue and want to help the different, the one with a unique idea to survive, but they are few and that will not change.

There is very few adult games that support a team of any size worth. Outsource contract work, or collaborate is not the same as have a team. So claim big teams eat up the small is flawed when there is no such big teams to start with.

 

[baka]

the "big" means the teams that get a lot of money while "small" is the one that gets very little.
sometimes a "small" team is doing a lot but are not attracting support since most people are already supporting the "big" ones.
we also have people that start to support a team when they see they have tons of patrons, while "small" they could think, there most be something bad with this team if they dont have so many patrons.
so, that is what Im calling "eating up", the big one are attracting more people since they are doing well. while "small" need to work much harder.

a "holistic" mindset would prevent that.

 

[recreation]

As a general rule of thumb, if a project is launched as a solo dev then it is non-viable. I know there's a whole mythos about solo devs successfully single handedly making a game, but 9 out of 10 solo dev game projects fail. A minimal game dev team is typically no less than 3 people. Most successful dev teams are around 5 to 7 dedicated people including people running the business and not including investors, corporate officers, or owners.

Don't you realize that the market you're talking about is a completely different one than we have here?
There are only a handfull of teams in "this" business, almost all games you'll find here are made by single devs and not by a team, no matter how successful.
Porn games are not the gaming industry.

 

[Joshua Tree]

the "big" means the teams that get a lot of money while "small" is the one that gets very little.
sometimes a "small" team is doing a lot but are not attracting support since most people are already supporting the "big" ones.
we also have people that start to support a team when they see they have tons of patrons, while "small" they could think, there most be something bad with this team if they dont have so many patrons.
so, that is what Im calling "eating up", the big one are attracting more people since they are doing well. while "small" need to work much harder.

a "holistic" mindset would prevent that.

People support what they like to support. It got nothing to do with they support X so they can't support Y. If you do poorly and doesn't attract support and gain traction for what you are doing, then you need to start look at what you are doing wrong (and right). It's not just about creating a game, it's about create a game people want, and to bring the word out so people will hear about your game. If you make a game that come across as bland and just another clone of whatever else it's not likely to garner that much interest.

 

[DaClown]

Don't you realize that the market you're talking about is a completely different one than we have here?
There are only a handfull of teams in "this" business, almost all games you'll find here are made by single devs and not by a team, no matter how successful.
Porn games are not the gaming industry.

This is one of those really common fallacies. The way things are done in general in the porn game "industry" are incredibly dysfunctional. The way things are done are not necessarily the way things should be done, can be done, or are done. I'm actually very much familiar with the long history of both the non-adult and adult game development history. I wrote and taught an entire curriculum for a college. Game development history is a big part of that. Both the adult game development and the non-adult game development industries have collapsed many times over the past fifty years.

There are four great US game development industry collapses due to inviabilities of business or operation models becoming the prevalent way things were done. In the adult game industry, the collapses are the norm not the exception and are too numerous to succinctly count.

These adult game industry collapses do however follow a pretty predictable pattern. People figure out a work around to the social prohibitions; cottage industries pop up mostly driven by women in sex work supplying the demand of men; people move in on the increasingly profitable industry but the margins are very thin so people start exploiting labor including wage theft or pirating the intellectual properties of others; some people start to go too far drawing the attention of authorities to the work arounds to the social prohibitions; crack downs begin. The bankers and capitalists eventually realize the general utility of the financing systems that the sex workers developed to support each other; they rebrand and remarket those instruments while persecuting the sex workers, seizing the assets of the sex workers, and excluding them from the resulting goods and services. This is actually how Paypal came about.

While it may be true that the adult game development industry is not the non-adult game development industry and the conditions are in various significant ways dissimilar, it is absolutely true that porn game development is a form of game development; porn game development doesn't escape the pitfalls, risks, and costs of non-porn game development. If anything porn games have more pitfalls, risks, and costs than non-porn game do. Which means that team costs are going to be if anything higher than for non-adult game development. Keeping in mind that the game development industry is extremely exploitative and is massively under-represented in terms of unionized labor.

 

[recreation]

This is one of those really common fallacies. The way things are done in general in the porn game "industry" are incredibly dysfunctional. The way things are done are not necessarily the way things should be done, can be done, or are done. I'm actually very much familiar with the long history of both the non-adult and adult game development history. I wrote and taught an entire curriculum for a college. Game development history is a big part of that. Both the adult game development and the non-adult game development industries have collapsed many times over the past fifty years.

There are four great game development industry collapses due to inviabilities of business or operation models becoming the prevalent way things were done. In the adult game industry, the collapses are the norm not the exception and are too numerous to succinctly count.

These collapses do however follow a pretty predictable pattern. People figure out a work around to the social prohibitions; cottage industries pop up mostly driven by women in sex work supplying the demand of men; people move in on the increasingly profitable industry but the margins are very thin so people start exploiting labor including wage theft or pirating the intellectual properties of others; some people start to go too far drawing the attention of authorities to the work arounds to the social prohibitions; crack downs begin. The bankers and capitalists eventually realize the general utility of the financing systems that the sex workers developed to support each other; they rebrand and remarket those instruments while persecuting the sex workers, seizing the assets of the sex workers, and excluding them from the resulting goods and services. This is actually how Paypal came about.

While it may be true that the adult game development industry is not the non-adult game development industry and the conditions are in various significant ways dissimilar, it is absolutely true that porn game development is a form of game development; porn game development doesn't escape the pitfalls, risks, and costs of non-porn game development. If anything porn games have more pitfalls, risks, and costs than non-porn game do. Which means that team costs are going to be if anything higher than for non-adult game development. Keeping in mind that the game development industry is extremely exploitative and is massively under-represented in terms of unionized labor.

Morbil is that you?

 

[DbatRT]

And this whole idea on how the smaller devs are hurting because of support to big devs is probably the one point I disagree with the most.
All big devs were small when they started. They gained support and became big.
Small devs who don't get support is not because they are simply overlooked. It is because people do not like it enough to support it.

You forget that people tend to believe those who have the "majority", to put it simply, this is a herd instinct, when a person sees the number of likes, the number of posts in the topic, the number of patrons, and in General that this is "obviously" a large and reliable project, since so many people support and discuss this game, they can't be idiots, right? It can't be that so many people can be deceived, right? They can't all think the same way I do, can they?

And this is just one of the factors, and after all, a person may have little time, and he does not want to spend it searching for games, so he looks at the most popular ones, Oh hell, and again we return to the first paragraph...

Okay, I have time, but I'm not inclined to trust "small" or inconspicuous projects, because even though I have time, but I will quickly get tired if I look at all the games, hell, I have to rely on recommendations again, where they will recommend a popular game.

People are lazy creatures, our body tends to homiostasis, we do not like to waste energy, or go against the crowd, and there are still a lot of reasons that ultimately leads the player to a large and popular project.

I'm not saying that large and popular projects are to blame, but they will obviously gather a crowd around them, whether they want to or not, and this phenomenon exists, the problem is in us, in people, this is the reality.
To deny this is like denying the human stupidity that leads to it

P. S You could talk about this, if the same conditional 10,000 people would get acquainted with a large and small project, then we can say that the problem is in a small project, but we see that most small projects get little attention, no matter what nugget is hidden there, if no one sees it and can not evaluate it, it does not make sense.

 

[DaClown]

You forget that people tend to believe those who have the "majority", to put it simply, this is a herd instinct, when a person sees the number of likes, the number of posts in the topic, the number of patrons, and in General that this is "obviously" a large and reliable project, since so many people support and discuss this game, they can't be idiots, right? It can't be that so many people can be deceived, right? They can't all think the same way I do, can they?

And this is just one of the factors, and after all, a person may have little time, and he does not want to spend it searching for games, so he looks at the most popular ones, Oh hell, and again we return to the first paragraph...

Okay, I have time, but I'm not inclined to trust "small" or inconspicuous projects, because even though I have time, but I will quickly get tired if I look at all the games, hell, I have to rely on recommendations again, where they will recommend a popular game.

People are lazy creatures, our body tends to homiostasis, we do not like to waste energy, or go against the crowd, and there are still a lot of reasons that ultimately leads the player to a large and popular project.

I'm not saying that large and popular projects are to blame, but they will obviously gather a crowd around them, whether they want to or not, and this phenomenon exists, the problem is in us, in people, this is the reality.
To deny this is like denying the human stupidity that leads to it

P. S You could talk about this, if the same conditional 10,000 people would get acquainted with a large and small project, then we can say that the problem is in a small project, but we see that most small projects get little attention, no matter what nugget is hidden there, if no one sees it and can not evaluate it, it does not make sense.

One of the things that differentiates Patreon support for projects comes down to whether or not they have a "marketing department". Solo projects often lack marketing simply because the dev doesn't know, doesn't care, doesn't have the time/energy, or actively hates advertising; Portals of Phereon strikes me as that kind of project; the game by most measures of its production should be a lot more successful than it is, but it is one of the least supported projects I've seen; in market/investment terms, the asset values are high even though the market undervalues the assets. This mostly comes down to it being a solo project; the dev clearly knows how to program and do concept art, but there's simply too much to manage when it comes to all the factors outside the production.

Right now (2020 Sept 19), there's a thing going on in the Grimgate project by Grave Companions. I don't recall the name they used to operate under, but I am familiar with them because they started advertising their project before and during their launch in the Breeding Seasons comments. They were and appear to largely still be a development duo, but one of them is the developer (Amra) and the other does marketing, PR, and community management (Anika); Anika gets the word out and polls people for their opinions and filters the feedback to Amra. They're not showing the number of patrons they have or how much they get per month on Patreon, but I am pretty certain that whatever it is it is considerably higher than what the Portals of Phereon dev is getting.

It is pretty common in my experience for game devs to spend as close to 0$ on marketing, marketing research, and advertising as they possibly can or for them to tend towards that because they spend money on it and get burnt from bad investments in the spam and scam that is common to business practices.

This pattern by the way applies not just to the adult game development community or the game development community. It is really common across social media. A bunch of the streamers have the followings they have not due to some kind of merit but because of tricks of marketing. Pewdiepie for example didn't become the largest Youtube streamer for a few years on merit; he exploited a thing that had to do with how Youtube split channel advertising into regions such that his channel was marked for advertising in the US region and the EU region simultaneously; this gave him access to a much larger audience than most other Youtubers; this was then combined with marketing cartels of other streamers in the US and in the EU region.

Twitter is almost entirely built on people paying for Search Engine Optimization and bot networks to pump and hype them to inflate their followings. Corporate twitters in no way organically build their following as a general rule. They pay specialized social marketing services to bring the crowd to them and they pay to get their tweets in front of audiences.

This isn't helped of course by the fact that corporations pay devs of software to make algorithms that favor "popular" results. This allows corporations to game the systems to drown out the competition and pop their results to the top of the lists by shear preponderance. Consider either Amazon or Pintrest links in Google search results.