Are you reminding people of their subscriptions?
Yep. Every time we make a post, they get alerted in both their Patreon inbox and their email connected to their Patreon account, so that's 4 times a month, minimum.
Additionally, I maintain a separate email database of Patreon backers since Patreon likes to delete Patreon messages after a few weeks, and I need to keep track of who wanted what rewards.
With those emails, I directly email people their rewards, as well as directly email them alerts for things like updates to rewards and so on.
Finally, again, as a failsafe, people are good to request refunds, in full, any time, for any reason.
Additionally, even if all these people are supporting you - it seems you have no problem taking payment for product not provided
The crowdfunding product isn't just the full game. It's multiple things;
It's the rewards, which have been implemented into the game, with a great deal of them visible in demos (for databanks and names in the background), as well as the soundtrack, audio packs, and level editor, all of which have been delivered multiple times over.
Additionally, of course, it's also the over 50 demos we've sent people over the years, many of which had polls directly after to get player feedback, another perk of being a backer, and in most cases we've directly implemented that feedback which changed the game as a result.
Feedback on things like powerups, game mechanics, aesthetics, audio, you name it; it's all been influenced by backers.
The cutscenes themselves, also a majority from backers, affect the game storyline drastically, of course.
We also have posted many h-animations, songs, and so on in regards to upcoming content on the Patreon over the years.
Finally, during this hiatus
without posting demos (although everything else listed above still got posted), we did make it very clear to people that we would not be posting anymore demos, on multiple fronts (emails, discord, patreon, twitter, etc.).
I would say in terms of content, for $5 getting you access to practically every animation in the game, all five levels, multiple demos, and your name in the credits,
and you can still get a refund, that's a pretty solid amount of product provided for payment.
It is very hard to judge the financial value of the finished product because it doesn't yet exist.
No, it's pretty easy to do this; we're selling it for $20, and if you back us for $20 you get the game at launch. You never have to back again to still get the game.
With the amount of funding your project seems to have it seems even more suspicious that you are mentioning selling your car (this sounds more like redirecting attention, trying to get others to feel pity for you and think that you are actually barely making ends meet).
I'm still not sure why people think we're going for pity; I've said it before, and I'll say it again.
I don't want pity.
I'm mentioning the car being sold because I'm trying to be as
transparent as possible about how we're getting funding and how those funds are used, instead of just going "yeah ok so we just mysteriously got enough money to keep going".
And extending the lifetime of the project by what will seem like a quarter of a year (which should be another $30000 in your pocket) also raises a lot of suspicion for a project of this scale and type (and lifetime).
The scale of this project, as noted before, is pretty massive. We're making a game with content that rivals a good deal of AAA games in regards to replayability and overall density of art/audio/music/gameplay/story, and that's despite those AAA games having teams between 10x to 100x our size and with 100x our funding.
We're doing a game with 1,000+ cutscene variations, 100+ hand-animated sex scenes, 25 hours of voicework, nearly 5 hours of music, 40+ endings if you count the secret ones, and 350+ NPCs with a good amount having their stories intertwine with each other, not to mention all the gameplay aspects, mechanics, and so on.
I can't think of many non-MMORPG AAA games that have a single one of these aspects I just named, let alone all of them.
That's all going to cost money, and it's going to cost time as well.
Also, it's not "$30,000 in my pocket";
- audio alone will immediately eat up roughly $10,000 of this money through the hypothetical three months of time, between voicework, sound effects/mastering, and music (the music is done, but the musician still gets paid per their backer tier, as does the lead voice actress. the rest is paying the remaining voicework needed; note that in both cases, we are
losing money because people are getting the game for free effectively since the money for those tiers goes to the respective people, not to us, even with no work done, as sort of a royalties system to them)
- the remaining $20,000 for those hypothetical three months would be split between Frouge, Triangulate and myself evenly, which means $6,666 for three months.
-
that's $2,222 a month at the end of it that's "in my pocket", and considering my rent, electricity, and other utilities
alone are over $2,000, it's coming back out of my pocket real quick. It's certainly not enough to keep going on solely when that leaves me barely anything for food and other expenses (medical insurance, taxes, etc.)
Again, this is NOT for pity; this is being transparent about funding.
I don't think I can make that any clearer.
But, instead, people will present their work and/or products at face value and ask a fair price for them right there and then.
No one who isn't already indepedently wealthy is going to be able to conjure up a game demo to present people (let alone a full game) with art, audio, gameplay, writing, and so on out of thin air, besides people who are ridiculously skilled that are 1 in a million that can do it all, and even then, they still need money and time to keep them going while they make said content.
The entire point of crowdfunding and things like Patreon is that it allows for so many games and other creations to be made that would otherwise be impossible. If people have free will to back said projects, and ESPECIALLY if people can get refunds on their backing, why is that a
bad thing?
Personally, I don't want to return to the era of AAA developers being responsible for 99.9% of games, with them putting out cookie cutter, barely altered games, with zero inspiration, zero player feedback involved, and in a total black box where you have no idea how, why, when, or what they're making, with them likely filled with pay2win or gacha elements.
I'd rather give the power to the players; if they like how a project is going, how it plays, how it looks, how it's being handled, then they give it money. If not, they don't.
That process puts more power and control in your hands, as an individual, to curate and make real the games you'd like to see (and to snub the ones you don't think are worth your time and money), which is far more power than you'd
ever get doing things the traditional way with AAA companies.
