I'm looking at the forums after near many months of disappointment from Innoxia's blog. Now that's just fucked up. I'm fairly new to this name (6 months+) and I noticed how often Inno nevers delivers the updates in time, and when they do they're half-hassed, if not not worth the wait. I'm kind of shocked to hear from you that Inno's been doing this for YEARS.
The patreons have a right to feel entitled when they support the dev of the game, since they're supporing her with their own money. I'm sure anyone would be pissed to see their money wasted for someone who's treating her supporters like fool cashcows.
But anyway, my question is: why are patreons still supporting Innoxia? I'm not incentivizing anyone to cancel their tier, I'm just wondering what's the point of supporting someone who's been treating you like a fool, for many years?
Most Patreons are supportive and lenient towards Inno, despite her abysmal track record. There was one person who was getting fed up with the constant delays and told Inno to get help or hire a team because she was trying to do everything by herself and it was causing her to get overworked. They were instantly told off by other Patreons for being rude and impatient, that she was already getting help (modders doing stuff for free) and that the amount of play hours the game has was already "amazing" for a solo indie dev project.
As for the reason why, I can think of two:
1) Sunk cost fallacy
2) Patreons think of themselves as "donators" and not "investors"
The first one is pretty self-explanatory. Some people have probably already invested a good deal of money into the game and don't want to admit to themselves the possibility that it might have been a poor choice. And even if they came to that realization, they won't be getting their money back. The second one has to do with the argument that the game is free and since it's based on "donations" rather than a purchase, people have no right to complain or make demands of it.
I keep thinking there are two ways to look at it. Some people see themselves as donators and therefore don't want to push any boundaries, and those who see themselves as investors and want to see some kind of return in their investment, in this case, in the form of a working product and preferably delivered within reasonable time frames, with less delays and less personal excuses. If you were working in any other job, your boss may forgive you a few lapses, but when it becomes systematic, as is the case with Inno, you're liable to get into trouble. It's same principle here.
If Inno is taking people's moneys so she can treat this project as her job (her own words) then it should also come with all the responsibilities and seriousness that an ordinary job entails. Now, the money a project makes doesn't always reflect on its quality, especially a solo project. There are only so many hours in a day and she is only one person... but at the end of the day it's her choice to do everything by herself, without a hired team. She is making over 7k a month, which is a damn fine salary for how little she delivers.
She makes up her own deadlines and still misses them. She says she will deliver X and fails to do so, instead getting side-tracked on other stuff that was never mentioned or planned before hand. Every month she comes up with an excuse or another as to why things got delayed. If her health and/or personal problems are getting in the way then she should take a break, but also cancel her Sub.Star until she is ready to work on it again, instead of taking people's money with nothing to show for it. (And none of that "I'll upload a new paragraph of code/text a month just to fool subs into thinking I'm doing something so the money keeps flowing" BS that some developers like to pull.)
