alex2011

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Feb 28, 2017
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Eh, his income didn't grow that much.

02/05/22 archived version of his page:



He was making $2666 through subscribestar at that time. Not sure what it was immediately before patreon took the game down, but probably was a bit higher since he did just release a new version. So he recovered < $2000/month of lost income, when he was previously making $7k+ through patreon alone ($10k+ before the first takedown) on top of the other revenue sources.

On top of that, the game is going on a multiple month hiatus and just had an update that deliberately trolled the audience. He won't be broke (hell, he's making just about as much money through subscribestar as I do and I'm pretty comfortable with my standard of living), but he won't get back to the previous numbers any time soon.
Like I said in the third goal, 2021 level, which was before the first strike against the game. He was making quite a bit more back then than he has been up to this latest issue. The most important part is that he would recover enough to not have to worry about ceasing production of the game, which is a very real danger at the moment.

As for that last part, the update itself wasn't a troll update, there was trolling going on from the Discord, but the update was fully intentional as part of the story. It came together pretty nicely in a way that makes it seem like something does not want Sensei to reach that roof, but Sensei has made it every time so far. Each reset gets harder on Sensei as whoever or whatever wants Sensei to fail gets more desperate to stop him and, as a result, so do the puzzles.

He's going on a multiple month release hiatus, that does not mean he is stopping work on the game, he is reworking over 150 different events to varying degrees of change and that is what the hiatus is for, it would not make sense for him to release it as normal with a rework this large.

As for his standard of living, you do understand that he basically put all focus on the game, right? His entire income is the game right now, so if the game goes, he makes nothing and loses however much he pays in expenses per month, resulting in a net loss that may or may not be enough to handle on a negative income even for a single month. I won't compare where you live to where he lives because, out of the two of you, I only know what country he lives in since he outright said it back during the very first delay in the game's history, which came because of a large snowstorm that was causing power outages and other issues that were unsuitable conditions for game development.

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As you can see in the above example, simply making $2,000 a month or whatever number a developer is making is not as good as you think once you take into account everything that comes out of that number before it ever reaches his pocket. If it weren't for these expenses, this situation would not be nearly as bad as it is for the game or for him. The game would not be in danger if he didn't have these expenses. The thing is he does, they are unavoidable. And here I didn't even get into any licensing that he may be paying for music, which REALLY gets expensive quick.

Out of curiosity, are you also making a game?
I have, though not sure if mine would even run on Windows 10, they were made back in the era of XP.
 
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Jimbolance

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Nov 19, 2018
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An annoying wrinkle of this situation is that it's very likely that there are many people who supported him through patreon who haven't even noticed it's been taken down yet.
It still shows him in my subscriptions like nothings wrong, I have to actually open his page before it says it's been removed.
Anyone who doesn't go either here or to the Discord likely doesn't even know that anything has happened.
 
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worthlesspeon

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Jun 10, 2017
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Out of curiosity, are you also making a game?
No, I'm a physician.

As you can see in the above example, simply making $2,000 a month or whatever number a developer is making is not as good as you think once you take into account everything that comes out of that number before it ever reaches his pocket. If it weren't for these expenses, this situation would not be nearly as bad as it is for the game or for him. The game would not be in danger if he didn't have these expenses. The thing is he does, they are unavoidable. And here I didn't even get into any licensing that he may be paying for music, which REALLY gets expensive quick.
Last I checked, $4500 / month is considerably more than $2000/month. Those expenses you name are pretty much what anyone in the US would be paying, so I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make.
 

worthlesspeon

Member
Jun 10, 2017
193
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Out of curiosity, are you also making a game?
No. I'm not commenting on whether the $ amount is too much or too little for making a visual novel. Only that the amount he's making is enough to have a decent standard of living in the US.

As you can see in the above example, simply making $2,000 a month or whatever number a developer is making is not as good as you think once you take into account everything that comes out of that number before it ever reaches his pocket. If it weren't for these expenses, this situation would not be nearly as bad as it is for the game or for him. The game would not be in danger if he didn't have these expenses. The thing is he does, they are unavoidable. And here I didn't even get into any licensing that he may be paying for music, which REALLY gets expensive quick.
Last I checked, $4500 / month is considerably more than $2000/month. And assuming he wasn't completely idiotic with the few hundred grand he made before this, he should have plenty of money saved up to weather tougher times. Those expenses you name are pretty much what anyone in the US would be paying, so I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make there. He's also in Texas which famously has no state income tax and has some of the lowest cost of living in this country.

He's going on a multiple month release hiatus, that does not mean he is stopping work on the game, he is reworking over 150 different events to varying degrees of change and that is what the hiatus is for, it would not make sense for him to release it as normal with a rework this large.
Sure, but except for superfans like yourself, people don't really care about that. You're generally not going to attract new subscribers when there's a hiatus in content.
 
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alex2011

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Feb 28, 2017
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An annoying wrinkle of this situation is that it's very likely that there are many people who supported him through patreon who haven't even noticed it's been taken down yet.
It still shows him in my subscriptions like nothings wrong, I have to actually open his page before it says it's been removed.
Anyone who doesn't go either here or to the Discord likely doesn't even know that anything has happened.
Sad, but true. This is my current main concern even over people not wanting to switch platforms. Give them time and they will learn of it.

No, I'm a physician.



Last I checked, $4500 / month is considerably more than $2000/month. Those expenses you name are pretty much what anyone in the US would be paying, so I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make.
Nice, stay safe out there, physicians aren't exactly the safest profession to be at the moment.

Like I said, "As you can see in the above example..." I did not use real numbers from actual data on the game, it was merely for example purposes. The point I was trying to make is that what revenue is actually coming in through SubscribeStar is considerably more than what he actually gets into his pocket due to things he still has to pay even before receiving any profit. I also didn't name every expense a lone game developer has to pay, I would have been typing that comment still even now if I did.

No, I'm a physician. Resident, hence the relatively low, but completely livable wage (albeit works out to something like $15/hour when putting the hours into account).



Last I checked, $4500 / month is considerably more than $2000/month. And assuming he wasn't completely idiotic with the few hundred grand he made before this, he should have plenty of money saved up to weather tougher times. Those expenses you name are pretty much what anyone in the US would be paying, so I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make there. He's also in Texas which famously has no state income tax and has some of the lowest cost of living in this country.


Sure, but except for superfans like yourself, people don't really care about that. You're generally not going to attract new subscribers when there's a hiatus in content.
He still has to pay federal income tax.

Also, not a superfan, a superfan wouldn't oppose the developer regardless of what he did. A superfan would even support milking if the developer were to set that up. I have already been on record twice opposing him or his Discord. The first being because of specific scenes being removed in the rework that, to me, set up Ayane's early character before she starts to develop into what she is now (yes, the bathroom scene, and yes, I AM still opposed to that being removed). The second was when that troll was talking about the thing to delete a player's entire save data with no distinction being made between patrons who use this site, people who use this site simply as a forum and wait for the public versions, and actual pirates. I went off on the guy pretty hard and the only thing that stopped me from going over to the Discord and raising a stink directly to Selebus, who was not directly involved and made very little reaction to the trolling, was the very troll who made the comment coming here, allowing me to do what needed to be done without going straight to Selebus in a VERY foul mood. Funny enough, they've been oddly quiet over there at least in terms of any trolling on the same level as the one I went off on.

As for others who 'won't care,' they should because this is a gigantic update, the biggest in the game's history, that's why there's a hiatus. It isn't like all development is stopping or he's setting up to milk patrons. This is all coming together into something huge that will make the game flow better than it ever has plot wise. Anyone who doesn't care about plot development has simply found the wrong game for them, this is and always has been a plot focused game. The story has to make sense as does any event in it.
 
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forbiddentwo

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Jun 20, 2017
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I have, though not sure if mine would even run on Windows 10, they were made back in the era of XP.
Yahtzee got his old games running, you can too!

No, I'm a physician.

Last I checked, $4500 / month is considerably more than $2000/month. Those expenses you name are pretty much what anyone in the US would be paying, so I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make.
Oh I'm dumb. For some reason I mis-parsed your sentence as 'that's about what I earn ON SUBSCRIBESTAR'. As opposed to 'that's what I earn at my normal job'.

I guess I'm just thirsty for anything to play about now.


Sure, but except for superfans like yourself, people don't really care about that. You're generally not going to attract new subscribers when there's a hiatus in content.
That's true, but we're hoping that his existing fans will move over.

I wonder if he might decide to put the rework on the backburner for the time being, or if that would seriously screw things up in terms of workflow.

Did I accidentally make a monkey's paw wish when I wished to #SaveTheChu~ ?
 
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barglenarglezous

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Sep 5, 2020
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Last I checked, $4500 / month is considerably more than $2000/month. And assuming he wasn't completely idiotic with the few hundred grand he made before this, he should have plenty of money saved up to weather tougher times. Those expenses you name are pretty much what anyone in the US would be paying, so I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make there. He's also in Texas which famously has no state income tax and has some of the lowest cost of living in this country.
Low in the rural parts of the state, manageable in most of the cities, and suddenly really expensive in Austin. Not sure where in the state he is. I know he took a break from the game to move last summer, so he may not even still be in Texas anymore.

That said, $4500 is enough anywhere in Texas, including Austin, for a single adult to get a one bedroom apartment and support themselves provided they're not underwater debt-wise. If he's also supporting a kid and/or partner with that, it starts to get a little dicey (in Austin, at least, considerably less so if you're an hour or longer out from one of the major cities).

But I get what he says about it being stressful. Even if half of what he was making is liveable under normal circumstance, losing over half your income is still losing over half your income, and that shit's disruptive as fuck no matter who you are.
 
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alex2011

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Feb 28, 2017
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Yahtzee got his old games running, you can too!



Oh I'm dumb. For some reason I mis-parsed your sentence as 'that's about what I earn ON SUBSCRIBESTAR'. As opposed to 'that's what I earn at my normal job'.

I guess I'm just thirsty for anything to play about now.




That's true, but we're hoping that his existing fans will move over.

I wonder if he might decide to put the rework on the backburner for the time being, or if that would seriously screw things up in terms of workflow.

Did I accidentally make a monkey's paw wish when I wished to #SaveTheChu~ ?
I'll try it once I pull them off my old IDE hard drive, I didn't realize someone else had done it.

I think we're all a bit thirsty for some LiL, okay, maybe not anyone who got frustrated by the puzzles, I will admit that last one was pretty impressive as far as difficulty. It has me hoping for the next reset to come quicker just to see how utterly impossible he makes the next one. The challenge it will likely be already has me psyched.

That is exactly what we mean when we are talking about people making the switch to SubscribeStar, existing patrons at this very moment. Not patrons who got frustrated beyond their willingness to remain a patron, not free players, not pirates, just the existing patrons. I made the choice to start on SubscribeStar, so my patronage was never at risk because of Patreon, but the majority of LiL patrons cannot say the same.

I don't think the rework is going on the back burner, it is likely on hold until he can get the situation sorted, but I don't see that lasting that long with the way the goals on SubscribeStar already look. I am honestly surprised and impressed they reached as far as they did quite literally the day they were added.

Low in the rural parts of the state, manageable in most of the cities, and suddenly really expensive in Austin. Not sure where in the state he is. I know he took a break from the game to move last summer, so he may not even still be in Texas anymore.

That said, $4500 is enough anywhere in Texas, including Austin, for a single adult to get a one bedroom apartment and support themselves provided they're not underwater debt-wise. If he's also supporting a kid and/or partner with that, it starts to get a little dicey (in Austin, at least, considerably less so if you're an hour or longer out from one of the major cities).

But I get what he says about it being stressful. Even if half of what he was making is liveable under normal circumstance, losing over half your income is still losing over half your income, and that shit's disruptive as fuck no matter who you are.
That is true, he was during the snowstorm that hit there and that is what caused the first ever delay, but he may be out of that state, which could be good or bad in terms of the money issue. Based on what he's said in the Discord, he is not a single adult, adult yes, but not single. This also complicates things and I failed to account for that in my math.

The last part is true no matter what you are making, even a free project where you are only taking donations without connection to the project, like through PayPal, would become stressful if you suddenly lose that much.

I think considering the game pass, merch, and 4.5k/mo from subscribestar, there is no risk of the game being cancelled but yea a stressful situation nonetheless
There's definitely a risk, even now with the goals as they are, but it is nowhere as big as it was at the start. The math checks out against him, unfortunately, unless he can recover.
 

Chunkieba1245

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Sep 8, 2021
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Here's my unofficial android port of Lessons in Love v0.23.0 Part 2 (No Sex Version)


Download

Mega

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Here's my unofficial android port of Lessons in Love v0.23.0 Part 2 (No Sex Version)


Download

Mega

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Great thanks mate really appreciate this as a portable fapper, but where do I paste the sexual content zip?
 
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He's making over 4k per month on one platform, and it's a decent level of income. Listing food bills and gas bills, which everyone pays for, is ridiculous. Every wage that you ever see will be before taxes and expenses. And apart from the music licences, I'm fairly sure it costs nothing to make this game in the first place. He doesn't hire any co-developers, which is what most do with the level of support that he has. And as we know, the assets are all 'free'. So this is not a game that requires a lot of money to make

In short, the game will be fine. Going into panic mode because he isn't making 120k per year at the moment is not needed. We don't need to figure out what his phone bill is to know he will survive. As well as that, it's disrespectful as fuck to hyper-analyse another mans income and expenses anyway. And it should not be done here
 

_Grotest_

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Aug 5, 2018
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Bruh, I'm confused, I downloaded last version compressed with S content and got huggy boy edition instead, like what I supposed to do now, posts are confusing here not telling excatly what to do with compressed versions(or I'm not smart enough to understand). So can someone tell, should I download not comressed ones or there's a way to fix this?
 

moodle

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Nov 26, 2016
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He posted screenshots of a remade scene in the Discord last night, so I don't think the revamp is on pause.

According to the SubscribeStar, he won't be commissioning or licensing new music until he gets back up to a higher level of income, which is a bummer, but hopefully the royalty-free stuff can keep the game's soundtrack afloat until then.
Bruh, I'm confused, I downloaded last version compressed with S content and got huggy boy edition instead, like what I supposed to do now, posts are confusing here not telling excatly what to do with compressed versions(or I'm not smart enough to understand). So can someone tell, should I download not comressed ones or there's a way to fix this?
Download the non-compressed version, the person compressing it keeps using the wrong version.
 

alex2011

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Feb 28, 2017
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He posted screenshots of a remade scene in the Discord last night, so I don't think the revamp is on pause.

According to the SubscribeStar, he won't be commissioning or licensing new music until he gets back up to a higher level of income, which is a bummer, but hopefully the royalty-free stuff can keep the game's soundtrack afloat until then.

Download the non-compressed version, the person compressing it keeps using the wrong version.
I didn't think he would stop just because all this is happening, that's just not his development style, though that does worry me that he might be pushing himself too hard given all the stress, which even he has admitted to having. Is it the Yumi pics? The preview, I mean.

As for commissions, goal 2, which is $793 past 50% at the moment. Royalty free music isn't so bad, I think it will work as a stopgap measure for as long as it takes to get to goal 2 and get licensing back up and running.
 

worthlesspeon

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Jun 10, 2017
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In short, the game will be fine. Going into panic mode because he isn't making 120k per year at the moment is not needed. We don't need to figure out what his phone bill is to know he will survive. As well as that, it's disrespectful as fuck to hyper-analyse another mans income and expenses anyway. And it should not be done here
The only point I was trying to make is he's making enough to live relatively comfortably right now, but that it will probably be sometime before he gets back to his previous level of income, if ever. But quitting now would obviously make the income zero and he'd have to get a regular job or something.

That's part of the life of being self employed vs working for someone else. You trade off some stability for theoretically bigger gains.

Now the circumstances do make the timing of his rework less than ideal.
 

alex2011

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Feb 28, 2017
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The only point I was trying to make is he's making enough to live relatively comfortably right now, but that it will probably be sometime before he gets back to his previous level of income, if ever. But quitting now would obviously make the income zero and he'd have to get a regular job or something.

That's part of the life of being self employed vs working for someone else. You trade off some stability for theoretically bigger gains.

Now the circumstances do make the timing of his rework less than ideal.
More like the other way around, the timing of the circumstances is less than ideal for the rework. The rework was already underway when Patreon decided to do what they did and it was the circumstances coming in when they did that started this mess. I mean, it would have started the mess anyway, but it would not have been on top of a massive rework had it occurred during a normal update period.
 
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