Why didn't he give Patrons the 0.8 alpha?
See, i get that you are somewhat upset, because something you enjoyed suddenly stoped delivering. And im talking about the Game that you enjoyed that delivered joy to you.
And i can also see that not everyone out there knows what Mental health issues mean, and what for an Impact they can have on your life. Even tho i have to say, the amount of people dealing with mental health issues increases at an alarming rate (to the point were i personaly wonder why our society still acts as if its some rare thing that was heared of). Anyway, i can tell you from own expierence, if what the Dev wrote is true, he was probably at some point happy that he got out of bed and managed to get some food in his body on a daily basis, and maybe used the shower once a week (and thats optimistic). If you have a mental breakdown for whatever reason, and you hit rock bottom. Trust me you think about stuff like talking to your friends, going outside, well even releasing a release of a game you work on. But you might as well think about climbing on top of the Everest in your swimshorts, because thats as likely to happen as anything else. And because you basically stop doing ANYTHING, you start to feel guilty. Then you feel guilty because you didnt talk to your friends for 2/4/6 weeks, and the guilt grows, and the mountain gets higher and higher and higher. To the point were you are scared of talking to your friends because you think they are angry with you, when in fact real friends are not angry, but worried about your wellbeing, and will be happy to hear from you. Sure some will act weird, but not everyone can deal with a situation like this as "good" as others.
Anyway, what im trying to say is the following, patients is something that we almost completely lost as Humand beings. Amazon didnt deliver the next day? SCANDAL, tar and feahter them!!! And so on, we comunicate trough the internet at the speed of light, we are not really made for that. We want immediate responses, immediate results, immediate fixes, but in the end we focus so much on it that we tend to forget that its just a game we talk about, no more, no less.
If the Dev as he wrote, now is in Proffesional hands that help him to climb back on top of his Mountain, the least we can do, is have respect that he actually told the Public about it (thats already a HUGE step), and then be patient and wish him the best.
The problem with this is that in the past 90% of the predictions proved to be on point, that's why people tend to jump to this conclusion instead of giving someone the benefit of the doubt and since Slipknot we all know people = shit, that's why everyone assumes the worst.
I don't support him or anyone on patreon since at least half the devs untrustworthy scumbags and the whole concept of patreon is bullshit, but if he is indeed recovering from something severe there is no need to bash him for anything. Speaking the truth about the whole thing so others might be warned beforehand is something totally different though and to stop taking money from people for basically nothing would be the decent way to deal with the situation, especially if someone feels soooooo bad about it in the first place.
You assumption is pretty biased and subjective, Patreon is in regards to People like the Dev of this game, the smaller brother of a Startup. He the Dev has an Idea about Product X that he thinks is needed/wanted, he produces a Prototype/a Demo and shows it to the Public. Now he needs to live somewhere and maybe even eat at some point, so to make this Vision become reality he needs Financial support. Now through Patreon, you can should you like his Product, support him with some Money.
Now if you have some money to spare, you lets say give him 20$ for a month. If 50 others do the same he gets around 1000$ that Month, i dont know how much a month costs where you live, but when i would get 1000$ from Patreon i would still work a half day Job so i can Pay my stuff. Now nothing in life goes as planned, so the first month might be great for the dev and he gets a lot of stuff done, but the second or third is shit and you cancel, so do maybe 20 others because they are dissapointed.
That means the dev suddenly misses 600$ to pay rent or stuff, while still having to deliver something good, otherwise he mightt miss 800$ next month because even more cancel. Now this is where the spiral can begin, the dev now if he has some spare money, might go on for a month or two and work hard on the game and delivers something the people enjoy, and maybe gets more people on patreon to pay him something. But after like 2-3 months of no change, he will have to look for a fulltime job or lose his appartment/house, and we ignore here for a moment that a dev might as well have family which inculdes kids and stuff. If you have that, you wont take a lot of unnesessary risks. But in the end our Dev gets a Fulltime job, can again pay his rent, but the game, the vision slowly fades away.
Whats left? a couple of people who complain on forums what a scumbag the dev is and that they KNEW IT FROM THE BEGINING (funny enough, they knew it but still payed him money.. talk about throwing money out the window.. not something someone who is apparently as smart as they claim to be, would do).
However, in the end no one was forced to pay a single cent to anyone, some people wanted to support a game Dev, because they liked his game. But just because you support someone, which means you payed money for it. Does not mean that there is any contract that says : I have the right to receive a finished product. But we are raised that way arent we? If you study you get (good) grades, if you work you get payed, and if you pay for something you therefore (demand) expect to get something to show around.
Now the Kicker, to some Degree Patreon is like Startups, a investment risk. Roughly 90% of all Startups fail, but people who work in the Investment business, are very well aware of those risks, and still take them, because there is also a potential for a HUGE gain. Now sure when you pay a Dev for an erotic game, there is probably zero chance that you end up Rich at some point, and rather you can jerk of a couple of times. But thats why you also did not invest 10k-100k$ but maybe 5-100$ , however the big difference is, that people invest in patreon and are shocked by the fact that the project failed, even tho it is obvious that there is risk involved. And then they get angry, for whatever reason.
And last but not least, you only very rarely hear successful stories, we live in the age of fear/anger/hate/dumbshitwhatsoever.
If someone payed a guy on patreon 5$ and that guy stops doing whatever he did, you will find a Reddit thread about it, thats as safe of a bet as that the Sun rises in the morning. But almost no one ever writes something when something works, because.. well that was expected AT LEAST!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111111oneoneone
