- May 8, 2019
- 110
- 79
Well... When paywalls have been added, it worked immediately. Previous updates didn't increase income at all.Change that "Paywalls" text to "Regular updates", then it'll be more representative.
- Thread starter TitDang
- Start date
- May 1, 2017
- 218
- 371
You're acting like paywalls are the be all end all of increasing support. Matter of fact, before this game, which added the paywalls mind you, there were very irregular updates with little communication. Barely any attempts to market it as well, if nobody knows of your game, nobody will support it either.
The paywall did one unquestionably positive thing for the campaign, even if most of it was bad pr. People talked about it.
Nevertheless, since Tit became better at getting the word out and improved his art, I'm doubtful that the same thing wouldn't have happened without the whole paywalling as well.
Basically all I'm saying is, communication is key, not the paywalling.
The paywall did one unquestionably positive thing for the campaign, even if most of it was bad pr. People talked about it.
Nevertheless, since Tit became better at getting the word out and improved his art, I'm doubtful that the same thing wouldn't have happened without the whole paywalling as well.
Basically all I'm saying is, communication is key, not the paywalling.
- May 8, 2019
- 110
- 79
PR was the same - same subreddits and f95.
You can't give a lot of updates or communication if you don't have enough money to work on the game full-time.
You are saying "just make stable updates". But you can't until you don't have some money at the start. Vicious circle.
Paywalls gave us that chance from the first update. Immediately. Even more - they gave us a chance to engage more artists and other professional co-workers to create our game.
In the first version of Luna, even the translation was done with Google translate, because we hadn't enough money to hire a professional translator.
Now we have a team of professionals to create our game. Without that, it's impossible to make stable updates one or two times a month.
- May 1, 2017
- 218
- 371
Under communication and "regular updates" I don't mean new versions of the game every month. First off I mean advertising it on platforms actively, not just once at the beginning. At least until it becomes well known, then it's less necessary since word of mouth does the work for you.
Second I mean making a post about something every week, maybe more than once on patreon or your platform of choice. Just talking and making a post costs you nothing. Radio silence on the other hand deters potential supporters, while it also discourages people already supporting as well.
I get it why you're being defensive, but the paywall isn't the only thing that changed upon this game's release.
Second I mean making a post about something every week, maybe more than once on patreon or your platform of choice. Just talking and making a post costs you nothing. Radio silence on the other hand deters potential supporters, while it also discourages people already supporting as well.
I get it why you're being defensive, but the paywall isn't the only thing that changed upon this game's release.
- May 8, 2019
- 110
- 79
As i said, advertising was the same. We didn’t change amount of posts on different subreddits and F95 (i’m talking about our first releases: v0.1 and v0.2)
- Apr 11, 2018
- 64
- 428
Since you are not the first who remembered the previous game, let's take a closer look at what you are talking about.
Midforest was on active development since Jan 2018 till May-Jun 2019. A year and a half! All this time I posted pretty often every month and made an update regularly every quarter, a total of 5 updates. The only exception is summer 2019. On the one hand, I did even more than now: experimented with animations, made a trailer, tried week progress posts, did more work-in-progress art posts, streams, etc. If you take a peek on my Patreon feed you could count there were around 75 posts dedicated to Midforest and around 80 dedicated to Luna in the Tavern approximately in the same amount of time. Barely it is a real difference in communication.
When you are talking about bad marketing in truth you are comparing a project that was distributing for more than a year around the internet on many websites and a single paywalled version of a new game without any demo that got only one post in several subreddits. I mean all versions of Midforest and 0.1 version of Luna that tripled donations in three weeks.
You are right - the paywall isn't the only thing that changed. Now we can afford teamwork which means more content, more updates, more experiments, and even more growth as a result. Luna v0.1 changed everything.
- May 1, 2017
- 218
- 371
I have the time, might as well.
To make it clear, I'm only talking about the quality of communication here, not release cycles. It's also not meant as a personal attack. So please don't take offense by it. I disagree with your methods, but I do understand your reasoning behind it, so other than some prickling, I truly don't have anything against you.
"When you are talking about bad marketing in truth you are comparing a project that was distributing for more than a year around the internet on many websites and a single paywalled version of a new game without any demo that got only one post in several subreddits. I mean all versions of Midforest and 0.1 version of Luna that tripled donations in three weeks."
No, I am not. I'm talking about the way you handled communication on other platforms during it. Even with searching around you barely made a few posts here and there when a version dropped. The way this works is that until people know about the game you have to spread the word more actively, meaning more time investment. You clearly didn't invest more time into advertising Midforest than Luna. Now with Luna you don't even have to since the word already got out. Either way, I don't blame you for not doing it better during Midforest, it's certainly not easy to do.
.............................................................................................................
First, your post. You are counting every single post as equally valuable, which heavily skews the numbers.
Let's establish that double posting releases or the same image sequence separately doesn't make them a new update post. I'm less harsh with polls since they increase engagement, but they still basically count as one thing. One-two liner posts are also not exactly comperable to 90% of the posts you wrote during Luna.
This is fine once or twice with more informative ones surrounding them, but not 4-5 in a row.
I hope you agree that this doesn't hold a candle to your current format.
Timeline from the first release of Midforest
January: 3
February: 3
March: 4
April: 4
Up until release you had the well done longer posts, but most of it is just art/screenshots/memes without much text if any at all.
May: 4 (Not counting the double post of the patreon/public game release)
June: 5 (3 of those are polls/result posts)
July: 6 (11 if we count the different versions of the art. 3 versions of undressing for Lyralei, 4 for Luna, basically 2 posts spread out.)
Other than those there's 2 posts that have some substance.
August: 1
The report.
September: 6
Only 1 having more than 1-2 lines of text, that's the monthly progress report.
October: 1
The progress report.
November: 4 (Not counting the double post of the game release)
It sure seems like you had the creative passion in the first couple of months, but you lost it somewhere along the way. Money troubles or just getting disouraged, I don't know.
Here's the huge divide though. I guess you became unsatisfied with how things were standing and started to take more time to write posts or maybe your passion reignited for the game
Dec: 4
These are fine, they're not just a few lines. Progress towards your current way of writing them.
January: 2
Looking even better, started with the dual language posts as well. More informative. Plus points all around.
February: 5 (3 of those are polls, not counting double post once again.)
You're keeping up the trend of being more informative.
March: 3
They're good as well.
After March you basically went MIA from giving information, only posting releases, one or two art and 2 polls. This kept up until Luna announcement. I assume you felt like it was too late for Midforest and it would be better to just start fresh. So basically Luna preproduction.
April: 3 (2 of those are polls. Not counting the triple post for the release. Also not counting the public release post on May.)
May: 2
June: 0
July: 1
August: 2
You triple posted releases again, there's the walkthrough which is kind of different, but it's still the release
September: 0
The only thing you posted was the 1$ release and the public so basically nothing new.
In total with polls only counting as 1 per month: 58 With polls counting full: 63 in a period from Jan to next year September. So 1 year and 9 months.
Bear in mind that I counted the 1-2 liner posts as well, which makes up more than 1/3 of the posts.
In other words a third of these posts don't even compare to about 90% of the Luna posts.
There were also 2 very inactive periods, one after the launch passion died down and one at the end. So the activity is not even.
....................................................................................................................................
In October Luna starts.
October: 4
They're long and informative.
November: 4 (3 is art, but they are not duplicates like with the undressing, so they count.)
December: 9 (You basically started using the tier releases as progress reports as well, so these get counted.)
January: 9 (5 of which are polls.)
February: 4 (Not going to count the 1 liner public release.)
March: 2
April: 4
May: 6 (3 of which are polls.)
June: 2
July: 4
August: 5
September: 4
October: 3
November: 2
December: 4
January: 2
February: 6 (3 of which are polls.)
March: 6 (2 of which are polls.)
That's a total of (with polls counting only 1 per month): 71 With polls counting full: 80 in a period from October till March of the year after the next one. Which is 1 year and 6 months.
That's considerably more compared to Midforest even without accounting for the quality improvement of those posts. Also I counted 3 more months to Midforest's lifespan which you left hanging in the air, but even if you only count until June, you only lose 3 posts. So 55 to 71 in 1 year and 6 months.
Some observations.
-Being informative and giving needed feedback is true for almost all of your Luna posts. Contrary to how a lot of the Midforest posts looked like.
-The result/progress report posts are punctual following the same release interval for Luna, unlike Midforest, which were sporadic at best.
-You were active with Midforest at first even if a lot of those posts say nothing with an image or a few lines, the reports notwithstanding, you put effort into those.
-It shows that you experimented with weekly report posts as in December, but I assume the lukewarm reception discouraged you from continuing with them.
-After that you started to use the Luna format posts, that were not just single lines and actually had something to say. You were on the right track.
-You also started posting more frequently, I assume you got excited about the game again and wanted it to be a success.
-You kept that up for 3 months, then poof basically nothing at worst and the bare minimum at best for 5 months. Most of this is Luna preproduction most likely.
-This of course took a complete 180 once you started off Luna, and you clearly took the time to write those posts and try to interact.
Point is, your communication has improved a lot and trying to prove that you did a good job during Midforest so vehemently does a disservice to your own growth. We all make mistakes.
Anyway you did make the game more lax with the feedback you got so that's a positive in my book. Good luck, just stay away from marketing with negative backlash. It doesn't always work.
To make it clear, I'm only talking about the quality of communication here, not release cycles. It's also not meant as a personal attack. So please don't take offense by it. I disagree with your methods, but I do understand your reasoning behind it, so other than some prickling, I truly don't have anything against you.
"When you are talking about bad marketing in truth you are comparing a project that was distributing for more than a year around the internet on many websites and a single paywalled version of a new game without any demo that got only one post in several subreddits. I mean all versions of Midforest and 0.1 version of Luna that tripled donations in three weeks."
No, I am not. I'm talking about the way you handled communication on other platforms during it. Even with searching around you barely made a few posts here and there when a version dropped. The way this works is that until people know about the game you have to spread the word more actively, meaning more time investment. You clearly didn't invest more time into advertising Midforest than Luna. Now with Luna you don't even have to since the word already got out. Either way, I don't blame you for not doing it better during Midforest, it's certainly not easy to do.
.............................................................................................................
First, your post. You are counting every single post as equally valuable, which heavily skews the numbers.
Let's establish that double posting releases or the same image sequence separately doesn't make them a new update post. I'm less harsh with polls since they increase engagement, but they still basically count as one thing. One-two liner posts are also not exactly comperable to 90% of the posts you wrote during Luna.
This is fine once or twice with more informative ones surrounding them, but not 4-5 in a row.
I hope you agree that this doesn't hold a candle to your current format.
Timeline from the first release of Midforest
January: 3
February: 3
March: 4
April: 4
Up until release you had the well done longer posts, but most of it is just art/screenshots/memes without much text if any at all.
May: 4 (Not counting the double post of the patreon/public game release)
June: 5 (3 of those are polls/result posts)
July: 6 (11 if we count the different versions of the art. 3 versions of undressing for Lyralei, 4 for Luna, basically 2 posts spread out.)
Other than those there's 2 posts that have some substance.
August: 1
The report.
September: 6
Only 1 having more than 1-2 lines of text, that's the monthly progress report.
October: 1
The progress report.
November: 4 (Not counting the double post of the game release)
It sure seems like you had the creative passion in the first couple of months, but you lost it somewhere along the way. Money troubles or just getting disouraged, I don't know.
Here's the huge divide though. I guess you became unsatisfied with how things were standing and started to take more time to write posts or maybe your passion reignited for the game
Dec: 4
These are fine, they're not just a few lines. Progress towards your current way of writing them.
January: 2
Looking even better, started with the dual language posts as well. More informative. Plus points all around.
February: 5 (3 of those are polls, not counting double post once again.)
You're keeping up the trend of being more informative.
March: 3
They're good as well.
After March you basically went MIA from giving information, only posting releases, one or two art and 2 polls. This kept up until Luna announcement. I assume you felt like it was too late for Midforest and it would be better to just start fresh. So basically Luna preproduction.
April: 3 (2 of those are polls. Not counting the triple post for the release. Also not counting the public release post on May.)
May: 2
June: 0
July: 1
August: 2
You triple posted releases again, there's the walkthrough which is kind of different, but it's still the release
September: 0
The only thing you posted was the 1$ release and the public so basically nothing new.
In total with polls only counting as 1 per month: 58 With polls counting full: 63 in a period from Jan to next year September. So 1 year and 9 months.
Bear in mind that I counted the 1-2 liner posts as well, which makes up more than 1/3 of the posts.
In other words a third of these posts don't even compare to about 90% of the Luna posts.
There were also 2 very inactive periods, one after the launch passion died down and one at the end. So the activity is not even.
....................................................................................................................................
In October Luna starts.
October: 4
They're long and informative.
November: 4 (3 is art, but they are not duplicates like with the undressing, so they count.)
December: 9 (You basically started using the tier releases as progress reports as well, so these get counted.)
January: 9 (5 of which are polls.)
February: 4 (Not going to count the 1 liner public release.)
March: 2
April: 4
May: 6 (3 of which are polls.)
June: 2
July: 4
August: 5
September: 4
October: 3
November: 2
December: 4
January: 2
February: 6 (3 of which are polls.)
March: 6 (2 of which are polls.)
That's a total of (with polls counting only 1 per month): 71 With polls counting full: 80 in a period from October till March of the year after the next one. Which is 1 year and 6 months.
That's considerably more compared to Midforest even without accounting for the quality improvement of those posts. Also I counted 3 more months to Midforest's lifespan which you left hanging in the air, but even if you only count until June, you only lose 3 posts. So 55 to 71 in 1 year and 6 months.
Some observations.
-Being informative and giving needed feedback is true for almost all of your Luna posts. Contrary to how a lot of the Midforest posts looked like.
-The result/progress report posts are punctual following the same release interval for Luna, unlike Midforest, which were sporadic at best.
-You were active with Midforest at first even if a lot of those posts say nothing with an image or a few lines, the reports notwithstanding, you put effort into those.
-It shows that you experimented with weekly report posts as in December, but I assume the lukewarm reception discouraged you from continuing with them.
-After that you started to use the Luna format posts, that were not just single lines and actually had something to say. You were on the right track.
-You also started posting more frequently, I assume you got excited about the game again and wanted it to be a success.
-You kept that up for 3 months, then poof basically nothing at worst and the bare minimum at best for 5 months. Most of this is Luna preproduction most likely.
-This of course took a complete 180 once you started off Luna, and you clearly took the time to write those posts and try to interact.
Point is, your communication has improved a lot and trying to prove that you did a good job during Midforest so vehemently does a disservice to your own growth. We all make mistakes.
Anyway you did make the game more lax with the feedback you got so that's a positive in my book. Good luck, just stay away from marketing with negative backlash. It doesn't always work.
Last edited:
- Apr 11, 2018
- 64
- 428
- Jul 9, 2020
- 82
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and all about that, I kinda like need an answer since I saw them in the gallery, if the new content that is currently locked in Luna in the Tavern, that I suppose is 0.14 update, if it will remain for patrons only or it will be as usual? I'm following this game since 0.3 I think and I thought that I got how the thing is working...
- Apr 11, 2018
- 64
- 428
- Jul 9, 2020
- 82
- 41
walkthrough should be free honestly ive been playing for hours now while jacking off hoping to get a scene that i wanted but havent gotten it until now
The point of a free version is to attach the player into your monetization and entice him through a positive reinforcement to buy the full version. What does this game is, shows a pretty nice picture, people say oh nice going to play it, the free version is an absolute kick in the balls, not only it gatekeeps content but also funcionality which already describes how greedy the dev is, you're not selling a comodity, you're selling an escape of an horrible system. People who are buying this legitimaly, are only buying it for the art, at this point you should probably stop to sell it as a game and make a site on gumroad or something like that where you can sell your art or animations, because if you're keep selling it like this, probably going to lose people and the ones that are curious are going to see that guy who recorded the scenes and watch it in other platforms, instead of playing the game.
Just an insight from someone who works in app monetization (mostly games), the ways are no that hard, dev is here and knows this forum, probably saw already enough completly free games that make a lot of money, with different ways of monetization, but again it all comes down on your user experience, people actually pay for that (and don't get the we don't have time to do this without money, people really take their time to wait on something they like), people happy, money in; one can easily see, people are not that happy here, you're losing a lot of money on those people.
Also I saw one dude saying the mac version is buggy, just say to him that you're looking or working into it (even if thats not your priority or going to do that, which you should) and apologize for that experience then suggest to play it online, saying "just play online" is a tone deaf response that you hear from every shitty customer service gives pretty bad image and also makes you to lose money in some way. I'm seeing this game as good example of how a pretty good concept (good art, very polished UI, good script) is losing a ton of money being either greedy or not realizing clear mistakes. Nothing against the dev, I usually respect the people who put their time to make these kind of products, but it amazes me how much money these guys are losing.
Just an insight from someone who works in app monetization (mostly games), the ways are no that hard, dev is here and knows this forum, probably saw already enough completly free games that make a lot of money, with different ways of monetization, but again it all comes down on your user experience, people actually pay for that (and don't get the we don't have time to do this without money, people really take their time to wait on something they like), people happy, money in; one can easily see, people are not that happy here, you're losing a lot of money on those people.
Also I saw one dude saying the mac version is buggy, just say to him that you're looking or working into it (even if thats not your priority or going to do that, which you should) and apologize for that experience then suggest to play it online, saying "just play online" is a tone deaf response that you hear from every shitty customer service gives pretty bad image and also makes you to lose money in some way. I'm seeing this game as good example of how a pretty good concept (good art, very polished UI, good script) is losing a ton of money being either greedy or not realizing clear mistakes. Nothing against the dev, I usually respect the people who put their time to make these kind of products, but it amazes me how much money these guys are losing.
Payed for some of content to try it to see if it was worth it, after I got locked from trying to go F2P, trying to through it without the quote on quote guide is impossible unless you want to spend literal hours on it, or make a better guide for it for everyone here.
Anyway I'm not here to talk about that just here to rate the experience I had. First of all the save system is pretty awful and clunky in comparison to some, and honestly that's what your going to be trying to slog through with the game since it's not a game, and more of a VN with tons of bad ends. The "walkthrough," your locked out of is some half baked advice that makes you question why you decided to pay for it. That with more paywalls I didn't notice at the start makes it hard to justify giving the dev money.
As for the porn Luna is probably the most interestingly, and colorfully designed charachter, and consequently has the best porn. Unless you really want to see just another elf have sex for some reason, not that they aren't fun characters just not the best for lewd stuff. Art is good, I've seen better, and more creative but this is up there for what it is. If you like the way Luna looks maybe throw a couple down play some, skip some chapters and watch her get banged, and then ditch this game, and the patereon.
In terms of potential that I saw this one is a pass on the investment side, or on supporting the dev. I don't mind being forced to spend money, but I want actual good shit if I do.
Anyway I'm not here to talk about that just here to rate the experience I had. First of all the save system is pretty awful and clunky in comparison to some, and honestly that's what your going to be trying to slog through with the game since it's not a game, and more of a VN with tons of bad ends. The "walkthrough," your locked out of is some half baked advice that makes you question why you decided to pay for it. That with more paywalls I didn't notice at the start makes it hard to justify giving the dev money.
As for the porn Luna is probably the most interestingly, and colorfully designed charachter, and consequently has the best porn. Unless you really want to see just another elf have sex for some reason, not that they aren't fun characters just not the best for lewd stuff. Art is good, I've seen better, and more creative but this is up there for what it is. If you like the way Luna looks maybe throw a couple down play some, skip some chapters and watch her get banged, and then ditch this game, and the patereon.
In terms of potential that I saw this one is a pass on the investment side, or on supporting the dev. I don't mind being forced to spend money, but I want actual good shit if I do.
- Aug 25, 2020
- 264
- 469
Monetizing porn games now? I get patreon stuff, but this bullshit? What’s next loot boxes? Pay to Win/Fap, wait that already what your doing. What are they trying to be EA of Fap games. Get the fuck out of here.
- Sep 21, 2018
- 975
- 2,140
is for stuff like this i escaped to the one place that hasnt been corrupted by captalism... F95ZONE
- Aug 25, 2020
- 264
- 469
