You are going to give the poor poster diabetes if you do that.Well...
Better rig up some apple farming to make apple cider (vinegar) drinking to keep the sugar levels down.
You are going to give the poor poster diabetes if you do that.Well...
Thank you so much.O
Oh, here in Arg if you get paid in US dollars from outside the country (like patreon), the state takes literally more than half of those dollars and the rest that they give to you they transform them to argentinian pesos (which aren't worth a damn) through a series of bullshit laws and bureaucracy (you basically get between 30% and 40% of what you earned)... I've heard of a couple of workarounds but are hard as fuck and you still gotta pay fees along the way.
I don't know why ppl whine so much about how long it is taking, take as example any other game of this kind and you can see that the time-content ratio is the same or even better with HHG, and you get way better quality game.. Yeah sure, there aint no monthly game updates, but I rather get a big honking update that will give me hours and hours of gameplay than get one or two ingame girl events per month. Anybody that goes "iTs AbAndOnEd" or whatever hasn't even seen his twitter page, or the discord where he regularly posts info and screenshots of the game's progress.
Keep up dat fine work Komi!
You know, I don't mind waiting for this game. But I am curious if there's room to discuss the pros and cons of its release style, especially using this project as a sort of jump off point case study. Well, maybe there's some subconscious internal motivation here, hoping that if we discuss this reasonably instead of in a judging or begging manner, we can get more info or a quicker release or something. Anyways, I actually personally like getting a massive update after a long wait though, because from my perspective I agree that that's actually to my benefit. There's plenty of quick fix games on here that are always unsatisfying to spend time with, I don't need another. A longer update is definitely more satisfying in the end as a player. I do wonder how it affects development though.
Because despite me not caring too much, I downloaded the very first update, and having followed this game on and off for a long time, I think all told it's a little on the slow side. I don't think that's a fault of the dev trying to cheat money, or the dev's work habit though. I actually think its a natural result of it. Slower releases I tend to associate with devs that have mentalities like perfectionism, wanting to be judged off their best face, and maybe a touch of artistic arrogance and superiority.
The result tends to be a superior product, but also I think there's a degree of waste, slowness, and it can create a sort of conflict of interests and mindsets between the dev and the consumers. The problem of a perfectionist combined with an infinitely postpone-able deadline is a person can always find something to work on. Something to perfect, and finagle with. For this project, I can't say I remember too clearly, but I remember some of its early updates tended to frustrated me. Because they were focused more on adding or refining systems that are fine additions, but also I don't particularly care for, instead of storytelling or, to be crude, fapping. Like, the animated namecards, the little animations when you interact with navigation, all the resource management/more game-like systems. For devs, I think there's a mindset of, if i get these things right, here and now, I don't have to worry about it later, and can focus on content in the future, and these features help the game feel more complete, and stand out. But I don't think there is a get it right the first time. Systems always need constant refinement and a feedback loop. Games are always adding these things in, then it ends up being something that has to constantly be revisited. Made easier, less time consuming, less resource intensive, etc etc. But a consumer often doesn't notice these things, and just feels like the game is coming out too slow. Even as someone who does take note and appreciates, I also can't help but wonder, isn't this a large investment for a dev's time, doesn't this unnecessarily inflate the game's size and computer's resource consumption? For a large team, a company maybe, enough people are working that some time can be spent on these refinements, but for a small team or single dev, shouldn't there be more... focus? I think regular releases can help keep a dev more on track, and better able to keep in tune with consumer priorities (though some of that artistic arrogance comes into play here, who cares about consumer priorities right? An artist's real target audience is oneself, after all).
A project I see as similar would be Sylphine.
Another project I once saw as similar would be Offcuts, and I want to specifically bring this up because I think there's a lot of danger to this mindset, because I think it is vulnerable to abandonment. The longer a project stagnates, the more pressured a dev can feel for a more and more perfect release to justify the time spent. The ratio of badgers to supporters also becomes worse. Eventually, I imagine this can evolve into a fear of and a frustration with communication, and then with the project itself. I think a lot of devs on this site that have caught quite flak actually do come with good intents, and strong artistic desires that are badgered into non-existence by the people here. This dev has held up well (maybe because of the very stubbornness that pushes her/him to insist on finishing the update before release), and has enough supporters so I tend to not be concerned, but I think there's a recurring issue here, and I can't explain it terribly well, but one solution is again, some form of project management.
As a small aside, going back a bit, speaking of feedback looping, I think there's a point to be made for regular releases speeding a game's development time through beta testing. I can't help but wonder how much time a dev has to spend playtesting their own games bughunting. Just saying, there's a pool of interested players, some of whom are willing to pay extra to do some of your work for you.
So I just want to propose there is a balance to be struck here. Proper deadlining can actually be inducive to a project's health. People's motivations tend to be shiftable. A person's passion can be exhausted. A person's life situation is infinitely chaotic. Incentives and accountability are more consistent. I think in this case, a self set deadline, or a public list of project objectives/roadmap would be a fine answer.
I guess since this is an unnecessarily long essay (apologies),so the tldr is something like this. Some projects need deadlines to encourage a dev to work. Others however, need deadlines to encourage them to stop. To remind them when its time to take a break and get some midway outside insight.
Anyways this is the two cents of a non patron who hates everything discord, and is therefore the thoughts of an ill-informed proletariat, who doesn't know everything about the dev from a team perspective, or project management, or if this discussion has happened elsewhere, and hasn't developed a game herself, etc etc, so sorry if this was a waste/pointless, just musing.
He's probably referring to this post:Half a million.... w-what?
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It always amazes me how people have no notion of the value of money.
So, let's talk numbers.
For starters, lets disregard "small details" like the passage of time, fluctuation in Patron count etc., and get the total project budget for its estimated lifetime (5 years).
US$ 8500 (aprox., we have to deduct payment processor taxes) * 60 months = US$ 510,000.00
...This is a surprising reasonable budget for a game this size.
Numbers are tricky things, you always try to compare them with “how much do I get” or “how much does the stuff I use cost”, which is a terribly bad comparison base. Instead, you must compare to “how much does a game production and marketing usually costs?” and “how much does a game tends to receive in net revenue during their lifetime?”.
Consider that because HHG is free, there won't be more HHG income after the final release (any income would be related to whatever game Komisari starts working next, or sheer charity). It is actually supposed to get that much money in 5 years.
So yes, Komisari makes too much money (US$ 8500/mo)... Compared to an average Joe and maybe even to a senior developer. But compared to the project itself, half million is actually cheap.
And this is looking at budget. If you were looking at profit, in other words, “is it worth the time, the risks, and the work, to make this instead some other thing?”, you probably would not accept a cash flow below US$ 1,500,000.00 (it actually depends on thousands of factors, including the investor, assume this as a personal prospect if needed)
From the looks of this, Komisari is barely making enough to cover a basic budget, let alone making a profit, let alone actually milking anyone or anything. Commercially speaking, "milking" is when your return rate is above the market average, although it receives a different term ("star") if you are increasing the costs along the profits (star projects are good).
Therefore. You can start accusing Komisari of milking anyone when they starts making more than US$ 25,000.00/mo and only if they do not increase the game quality to match this (Remember the "star"?).
You can disagree with Komisari decisions regarding how they manage the project schedule, assets, etc. but claiming they gain too much is an argument which won't hold water.
I agree that $500k for a game like this is too much. But your maths is way off, too. For $500k you don't get a "whole ass team" (the assumption was a 5 years time span). You will not even be able to afford two fully paid team members. Of course this will depend a bit on where you live. But average game programmers salary is 65k. Here we will have to pay for equipment ourselves, and while you'll probably not really calculate stuff like workplace and furniture because as a private person you have that to a degree, but technically you need to account for them because you're not using them for yourself. Hardware is an issue and will cost more money than just your PC at home, software will cost, even though RenPy is free, even electricity will go up noticeably. Add to that that, as we now know, the "$500k budget" translates to $25k a year salary thanks to the 75% tax-and-exchange-fun in Argentina - that is not a lot of money to earn.Half a million dollars is a reasonable budget for a game with a whole ass team working on it. Not for an indie game using public free tech to build on (renpy and KK). Come on. Be real here. That amount of money for this kind of game is nonsense.
Don't forget the cost of the pre-fab (KK packs, GUI assets, and other QoL stuff that the dev actually do commission someone else to do, albeit indirectly), the costs of marketing, including fair remuneration to spend time coming here and replying to trolls (time is money, after all...), and to make wallpapers and other non-critical stuff to keep patrons happy. As I said, for a 50/60h game, that is a... reasonable budget. You can't know what is "reasonable" or "unreasonable" if you don't try to make something this size. Besides, using free tech (e.g. Ren'Py) doesn't mean less costs, it actually means not having to reinvent the wheel, and therefore, better application of said costs and time. (For example, imagine the wait if Komi also had to write the engine, test it on every user system out there, and... oh the pain...)I agree that $500k for a game like this is too much. But your maths is way off, too. For $500k you don't get a "whole ass team" (the assumption was a 5 years time span). You will not even be able to afford two fully paid team members. Of course this will depend a bit on where you live. But average game programmers salary is 65k. Here we will have to pay for equipment ourselves, and while you'll probably not really calculate stuff like workplace and furniture because as a private person you have that to a degree, but technically you need to account for them because you're not using them for yourself. Hardware is an issue and will cost more money than just your PC at home, software will cost, even though RenPy is free, even electricity will go up noticeably. Add to that that, as we now know, the "$500k budget" translates to $25k a year salary thanks to the 75% tax-and-exchange-fun in Argentina - that is not a lot of money to earn.
I can assure you, managing a team of people... is a full time job.Imagine from one day to another to stop working on the game YOU LOVE TO WORK to focus on managing a complete team of devs, asking them to meet specific deadlines, hiring the correct people and etc.
Wait, I was supposed to spend 8/10 hours on the prologue?Hero's Harem Guild is meant to be a game with roughly 50/60 hours of STORY content (And I believe that's too freaking much and I will try to lower it down), divided into 4 or 5 chapters of 8/10 hours each, counting the prologue.
renpy.get_game_runtime()
, I'm pretty sure I already spent ... 13 hours (48081 seconds). And according to the quest log... I am supposed to reach max level with all the girls and meet Delilah in the market, so I definitely did not complete the prologue yet...Holy fuck... I mean I knew the return rates would probably bite you in the ass, but they didn't even leave you an ass left.Thank you so much.
And yeah, as he said. They take from you more than half and then change them automatically to pesos using the "OFFICIAL DOLAR" that every dollar is valuable in 100 pesos. But not exactly, because there's another dollar out there that is valuable the DOUBLE, so 1 dollar = 200 pesos. So, you're losing half, again. You end up with almost 25% of your earnings. 50% from taxes and every stupid bureaucracy shit and then half of that 50% is transformed to pesos to the official. Losing half its value.
25% of 8k.
If you'll read posts from the Dev over the last few pages, you'll get a full pictureHey man, this is simply out of curiosity, but is everything okay? It's been... a year? Since the last update, and I'm a bit worried about the progression of the game. I understand if you want to make it properly, but may I ask how's the developing going?
I don't believe you.No, probably in 4/5 years. There are 4 to 5 planned chapters. This update is the first. Remember I'm doing this alone, 4/5 years seems okay to me (Always taking my time to play and relax, trying to not burn from work). Again; I'm planning on actually finishing this game, not selling 4/5 scenes per week/month. I'm planning every scene I'm doing and I'm preparing everything for future chapters and gameplay elements.
And please, don't try to hide the content of the updates behind the numbers, I know people are used to seeing "v3.67.435 #2" in almost all games bc how frequent they update. But v0.1.3 has even more content than v0.1.2, and it's not only that but a general upgrade of the game in everything.
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I don't care, I'm working on this game a lot, and when I'm not, I'm always thinking about it and planning/changing stuff. If you're a Patron, you're free to unsubscribe from my page. If you're not a Patron and just a guy that wants to play the game, I would ask you for patience. This is a lot of work and requires a lot of time.
If I wanted only more money, I would simply post per month updates for people to pay the 20$ tier. I'm not saying that the devs that do this want only money! It's just people have been accusing me lately because of the long period of updates and that I'm "Milking" patrons.
Come on, guys, we all know this game has the potential to become something greater than just a game that appeared once so the dev can now "milk" the supporters. It makes no sense. I'm even showing sneak peeks where I have custom models for items and etc that I bought and applied to the game. What? I'm milking patrons to BUY custom models, applying them to Koikatsu, and then keep milking them?
In any case, I have millions of proof that I'm working on the game, regardless of the time. There's a lot of textures that I took my time to modify for the game, a lot of added models, a lot of explorer history where I can show that I've been searching information for the game, a freaking LOT of new characters that NOT, I'm not showing them until the update, I'm working on somewhat good looking effects (as you can see on my Twitter) and a lot more.
Then, It's up to you to believe if it's ridiculous or not. And it has me carefree.
*head pats*
I may or may not have saved that for further use.
*jimmyXtremeFriendshipWhip*I don't know why, but I have this folder like this, I made the worst terrible mistake, I deserve punish
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Timmy certainly "dont approbe!" Hope the game gets better spell check : DI don't know why, but I have this folder like this, I made the worst terrible mistake, I deserve punish
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It was quick-made like December 2019. I never actually changed the name again, so yeah, xDTimmy certainly "dont approbe!" Hope the game gets better spell check : D