- Aug 4, 2020
- 2,535
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Yet another lesson to those who are patrons.
Never pay for unfinished stuff. If you want to risk losing a shit ton of money, become an investor instead.
Never pay for unfinished stuff. If you want to risk losing a shit ton of money, become an investor instead.
I wouldn't really expect a hentai piracy website to understand the importance of financially supporting projects that you wish to see succeed. There's a big difference between a generous donation to show your continued support and actually paying for a product. Even if many of these projects do not finish or take forever to do so, there'd be even less content for everybody here to consume without the donations via platforms like Patreon. Certain developers have proven themselves incompetent and unreliable (see: Bo-Wei & Koda) but other people who are genuinely trying do deserve the support. You always have the gen Z meme kids coming to threads like this to type "haha u all got scammed, i never get scammed because im a freeloader".
One of the developers, I assume the animator and artist, would stream herself weekly showing her progress with the game so it wasn't really a scam so much as a lack of financial support to turn it into a full-time endeavor. Sadly, this is yet another game with great potential that fell victim to internal drama but also a lack of support from the community that is certainly large enough to help but most of the time chooses not to do so. From the quality of the animation just from the current version of the game, you can see that she put a lot of time and effort into it. It wasn't some sort of half-assed attempt that is more indicative of a developer not wanting to bother with it.
It's understandable if somebody cannot afford a monthly subscription or doesn't believe it to be financially feasible, but even when a game shows constant updating, new content, etc., these same people still refuse to pledge or even just do a one-time donation to show their appreciation and support. There really isn't lecturing that they can do towards anybody else when they demonstrably just want everything for free.
I imagine it is difficult to replace lost team members with new, qualified people being that these developers would essentially be contributing to a project like this for very little compensation to their free time when the Patreon page was not generating that much money per month. Plus, it's a game about sex with monster girls so it's already a rather niche idea to the common folk.
One of the developers, I assume the animator and artist, would stream herself weekly showing her progress with the game so it wasn't really a scam so much as a lack of financial support to turn it into a full-time endeavor. Sadly, this is yet another game with great potential that fell victim to internal drama but also a lack of support from the community that is certainly large enough to help but most of the time chooses not to do so. From the quality of the animation just from the current version of the game, you can see that she put a lot of time and effort into it. It wasn't some sort of half-assed attempt that is more indicative of a developer not wanting to bother with it.
It's understandable if somebody cannot afford a monthly subscription or doesn't believe it to be financially feasible, but even when a game shows constant updating, new content, etc., these same people still refuse to pledge or even just do a one-time donation to show their appreciation and support. There really isn't lecturing that they can do towards anybody else when they demonstrably just want everything for free.
There was a falling out with the team some months ago -- arguments and drama, maybe chalking it down to creative differences or something. As well as the usual suspect of a game failing to conclude: financial support.
I imagine it is difficult to replace lost team members with new, qualified people being that these developers would essentially be contributing to a project like this for very little compensation to their free time when the Patreon page was not generating that much money per month. Plus, it's a game about sex with monster girls so it's already a rather niche idea to the common folk.
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- Aug 4, 2020
- 2,535
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I really don't care about them succeding, because I was too young at the time to support ANY game that I soon after loved, yet they still made it and became super profitable.
Same with all the other things I use day to day - none of them got patreon support.
If the project team understands they need some capital to start a project and bring it to a place where it can start earning money with no support that's fine, if not, they can fuck off, because I'm not paying shit unless it's for the full release of the game AFTER I play the pirated version to know it's good.
I don't want to play any games or use any software from people that think they're entitled to my money before they even give me something with more than 2 hours of use.
When did it become standard to pay for things before they were finished?
You have to be born after the Patreon era and as such are probably too young for this website.
- Jul 30, 2018
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Yeah, I'm anti Patreon/Fanbox whatever (I did Kickstarter one single game because they had a long history of delivering) because I've seen so many of them just run and make excuses later. I also buy COMPLETED H games if they are actually available in my country.
I don't think there is anything wrong with supporting a project you like.
The point I wanted to make is that, a project shouldn't rely entirely on Patreon money.
You don't open a restaurant and sit there begging for money for chairs and tables and rent day 1.
And then when it fails due to reasons like high school drama in a professional environment or whatever happened here, we get the "you should've paid more hurr durr".
The point I wanted to make is that, a project shouldn't rely entirely on Patreon money.
You don't open a restaurant and sit there begging for money for chairs and tables and rent day 1.
And then when it fails due to reasons like high school drama in a professional environment or whatever happened here, we get the "you should've paid more hurr durr".
I'll throw 1 dorra or two a month to say "good work so far", but patreons prob shouldn't last more than a year or 2 unless they have some releases that really show signs of continued good work.
Full Patreon post down below if you want to read it. Damn we all saw this coming a mile away, still didn't wish it had come at all:
Hello everyone,
We regrettably have to announce that the project will not be continued. We are terribly sorry to deliver such a message to all of our supporters and followers. The love we felt from the community so far has been incredible and it really hurts us to disappoint expectations by failing the project and therefore all of you.
We still ask for your understanding as to our decision and will explain why we came to the conclusion that this was the necessary choice to make.
As of April 2023, there has been a strong disagreement between two members of the team which resulted in permanent damage of the teams cohesion. It left us unable to work together without further mental health sacrifices. Attempts were made to keep the project alive as best as possible but the tension made clear that the project can't succeed this way nor can it be solved by replacing the members. Our final decision as of the end of September was to end the project entirely.
Furthermore, as each team member loves the project and the community, we don't want to end it without giving anything back. We hope that we can still keep the community alive and continue to enjoy our time together. More information will follow, but first we need to address refunds.
Refunds
What we still want to give
As we would like the community to get something for their support over the years, the following has been decided:
- The Zolvatory Team
Hello everyone,
We regrettably have to announce that the project will not be continued. We are terribly sorry to deliver such a message to all of our supporters and followers. The love we felt from the community so far has been incredible and it really hurts us to disappoint expectations by failing the project and therefore all of you.
We still ask for your understanding as to our decision and will explain why we came to the conclusion that this was the necessary choice to make.
As of April 2023, there has been a strong disagreement between two members of the team which resulted in permanent damage of the teams cohesion. It left us unable to work together without further mental health sacrifices. Attempts were made to keep the project alive as best as possible but the tension made clear that the project can't succeed this way nor can it be solved by replacing the members. Our final decision as of the end of September was to end the project entirely.
Furthermore, as each team member loves the project and the community, we don't want to end it without giving anything back. We hope that we can still keep the community alive and continue to enjoy our time together. More information will follow, but first we need to address refunds.
Refunds
- We plan on refunding everyone's payments of August, September and October 2023. For this we will send out a Patreon Private Message to everyone that is currently one of our patrons. Please check your inbox and respond that you would like the refund. We plan to have everyone refunded by the end of the year and only requests before this time limit will be refunded.
- The masterminds ($500-tier) will have the options of accepting a full refund or have their promised characters created. This will include 1 sketch, 1 sprite and all +18 animations (1 animation with 3 variations and 1 animation with 3 intensities + background).
- By request masterminds are also allowed to wish for more animations like idle, walking and attack if desired. The rights to those characters and artworks will also fully belong to them.
- Full refunds will also be available to big contributors to the community which we will contact.
What we still want to give
As we would like the community to get something for their support over the years, the following has been decided:
- We plan on stopping the payment of patrons, yet still plan on posting content to make up for their loss. These are things we still want to work on while not accepting any new payments, to make up for the cancellation of the game.
- Finish every designed characters +18 animation. Every teased character will get 1 sprite, 1 sketch and ALL +18 scenes for those characters including at least one background per character. They will also receive their fully written dialogues and descriptions in the form of character sheets. This will include up to at least 10 characters, resulting in 29 18+ animations.
- The masterminds characters, if given permission, will be created with the formerly mentioned content. Their characters will be the first ones to be worked on if the concept has been approved by them.
- Possibility of weekly art-streams until all the work is done, if the community would welcome it.
- Making a big roadmap for the game, which includes a detailed summary of what the story and its plot points were going to be, character descriptions, game mechanics and boss fights. Character descriptions would be in the form of previously mentioned character sheets and, of course, their appearance in the story would be written about in the story summary.
- Implementing necessities for what is still being created (gallery mode, scenes, etc.)
- Cleaning up problematic code left in the project.
- Once all of these tasks are done, we will combine our work in a big file to be uploaded outside of Patreon and make it accessible for free to everyone. More info to follow once we got that far in the future.
- The Zolvatory Team
- Jan 5, 2018
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who hurt you?
- Aug 4, 2020
- 2,535
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And whoever preorders is a fucking idiot
So it's actually quite fitting that you're defending that lol.
Idgaf BG3 allegedly came from crowdfunding. A quick google search shows that BG3's crowfunding raised about 2 million dollars, while another states that the production cost was over $100 million dollars, so if these are accurate, the crowdfunding made 0 difference lol. Could've been covered by one serious investor or publisher contract.
But please, keep paying in advance for the games that I will try for free, then buy on a sale if I liked them, I'd really appreciate it xoxo.
- Jun 26, 2017
- 557
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Random question but just out of curiosity, what was the game that you Kickstarter'ed?
- May 25, 2017
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A big enough schmuck to go to
You must be registered to see the links
- Oct 1, 2020
- 23
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I am extremely upset and saddened to hear about this game being discontinued. It was getting to amazing potential
- Jul 24, 2017
- 2,438
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What a shame, was really looking forward to this one. Heart goes out to the devs who sadly have to see their game die out. It must really suck to see all your hard work go up in flames.
People like to shit on Patreon and Kickstarters but a lot of niche stuff wouldn't be possible without them. Most indie artist/devs dont have the capital to kickstart their projects. Crowdfunding is a good way for them to work on their passion projects without sinking themselves financially.
Sure, some of them milk it but there are plenty of honest projects that rely on what are essentially donations. Rather than a promise, its more of an investment of an idea you want to see come to fruition. Sadly, it doesn't always work out.
People like to shit on Patreon and Kickstarters but a lot of niche stuff wouldn't be possible without them. Most indie artist/devs dont have the capital to kickstart their projects. Crowdfunding is a good way for them to work on their passion projects without sinking themselves financially.
Sure, some of them milk it but there are plenty of honest projects that rely on what are essentially donations. Rather than a promise, its more of an investment of an idea you want to see come to fruition. Sadly, it doesn't always work out.
- Sep 4, 2017
- 1,046
- 2,163
It's always the same thing, people always look at the top 1% earner but the reality is that it's night impossible to make a living out of developing an hentai game.
It looks like they made at best 1600 $ on Patreon which is ridiculous for a team, even if living in a not so rich country.
This can't be your daily job, but it's adding another kind of problems when making an H game become a side job.
It looks like they made at best 1600 $ on Patreon which is ridiculous for a team, even if living in a not so rich country.
This can't be your daily job, but it's adding another kind of problems when making an H game become a side job.
- Oct 13, 2018
- 29
- 39
They really "lost the case" on this one