I agree with everything you are saying.
However, PandP (and lots of creators of their size) is in a "chicken and egg" or "Catch 22" situation if you like:
1 They have a great thing going
2 What's holding their Patron revenue back is that it takes too long time between each release.
3 But in order to move faster they need to hire devs/artists etc
4 But in order to be able pay those new devs/artists (to move faster), they need more revenue
repeat from step 2
And this is the dilemma for a creators on Patreon.
Patreon is using a sort of crowd funded start up model, where you need enough crazy "investors" who are willing to take a looong leap of faith. The key is to find enough Patrons (e.g. crazy investors) willing to pay enough for a long enough time to fund the machine until the dev machine is fully revd up and is cranking out release fast enough
![Smile :) :)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
After that other patrons will come and then things works by them self...
Lots of creators have this dilemma.
A few have broken out though of this loop though.
NLT is probably one of the best examples: they were clocking $3K/month about a year ago (august 2018) and today they were clocking $26K/month end of August. Yeah that's right $26K! (they finally stopped disclosing the $ amount a few days ago - I think they got scared to show how much they are actually making lol).
Now $26k is serious business!
So what is similar/same P&P vs NLT? Well:
- NLT are doing RPG games in the same style as PandP LotV so the game style work! PROVEN that is is NOT a renpy vs. RPG thing
- NLT are great story tellers same as P and P (I may even give an edge to P and P - deeper story)
- NLT's 3D models look great! I would even say P and P looks better!
- NLT's animations are good. I would say P and P's animations are clearly much better!
- NLT's games are also well scripted - but P and P are more complex and even better scripted.
What are the differences?:
- NLT has been releasing 2 updates per month now for more than a year i think! That's right 2 updates per month!
- each update is less ambitions than P and P's, but they provide enough game play for someone who has full time day job and is playing a bit on the week ends between their family and friends commitments - AND they have MONEY to spare
That's the difference - 2 releases/month in smaller playable 20-30 min chunks
How did they do it?
NLT got enough funding (somehow from somewhere) to fund devs/artists to do 2 release / month for a year! It paid off in a big way!