- Jul 22, 2018
- 26
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Welcome Aboard the Controversy Thread!Yes, you are alone, like in everything else.
No matter the initial expectations, when a creator on patreon surpasses the goal they themseleves have set up by a magnitude of 2, 3 or even more times, I say there's no excuse in releases/updates continuing in the same slow pace, let alone slowing down as it happens to many, many patreon projects.As long as the creator and the patrons are on the same page as to how fast the game is developing, I'd think it's up to each individual to decide for themselves what they'd consider to be fast or slow.
That and also some devs losing their staff to COVID like Ape Studios (rip).I would say this. Lockdowns, prices going up, having to work from home, not being able to live free, worry about your own health, your friends and family health etc... there are multiple reasons that are affecting the game development in general at the moment.
There is very much a limit to what money can do to speed. If your patrons don't want you to commission extra writing, for example, it doesn't really matter if you're making $5 a month or $50,000, writing speed will be capped at about the same either way.No matter the initial expectations, when a creator on patreon surpasses the goal they themseleves have set up by a magnitude of 2, 3 or even more times, I say there's no excuse in releases/updates continuing in the same slow pace, let alone slowing down as it happens to many, many patreon projects.
Yes, because Patreon do not develop games. The games on Patreon are developed by game developers.Title says it all. Am i the only one that feels this way?
Yes, you would think there would be at least some devs (especially newbies) who create short AVNs to learn the skills as you said, but most of them seem to go for Tolstoy epics. If I were a new dev I would start out creating small (in scope and duration) games...the AVN equivalent of the short story. You're better able to learn the craft and experience all three stages of the game development process. There is less of a chance of getting burned out on a story and abandoning it when you keep it tight.I think in large part the problem is organization and not having an end date set. I think too many games have a story that is too complicated, and a scope that is too broad. Personally speaking, I think a first time developer is best off telling a very tight story that only lasts a few months. Build a fanbase, improve your skills, and don't over-commit. Once a developer gets some experience, I really think that most are best off with a development cycle of 30-60 days for each new update, and no more than 18 total updates. As a general rule, once a game begins to push 2 years of development I feel like they lose steam.
But yes, supporting games via Patreon is the wild west right now- you never really know what to expect.
That's a fair point many misses. Overall games quality improved over the years compared to 2016 etc., but most are still developed by single dev. Higher quality (which often overlooked) == longer development time.That's because most developers try to improve the quality of content from update to update, Even if it's a small improvement or adding something new to the game it will take more time for the release compared to previous updates.
For example if you played the latest episode of BaDik you will notice that in previous ep. brawler minigames it was just still images but from this new ep it will be animated and that's not it there's plenty more new things which has been added in the game apart from continuation of it's story. We might think that these are subtle changes but trust me it takes extra time to do it not to mention if the developer is new to something and wants to add in his game then he has to learn it from scratch which takes additional time. So let's not be ignorant about these things.
I'm of the opinion that if you're a new developer, and you're making big strides in your abilities, you should do one/or both of the following:That's because most developers try to improve the quality of content from update to update, Even if it's a small improvement or adding something new to the game it will take more time for the release compared to previous updates.
For example if you played the latest episode of BaDik you will notice that in previous ep. brawler minigames it was just still images but from this new ep it will be animated and that's not it there's plenty more new things which has been added in the game apart from continuation of it's story. We might think that these are subtle changes but trust me it takes extra time to do it not to mention if the developer is new to something and wants to add in his game then he has to learn it from scratch which takes additional time. So let's not be ignorant about these things.
Games made without patreon indeed tend to be faster, albeit it's true too that the failures and games that never see the sun are never seen and that they tend to be a smaller size compared to patreon ones (even more to see the returns they actually have to sell the product, so the motivation is much bigger compared to patreon on that point).Is it actually true? Are games without Patreon developed faster?
I feel like so many devs fuck themselves over this. That messy code isn't a issue right now, but a lot of times down the line it usually comes back to be a big issue.However the biggest issue that many new developers tend to have is having 0 idea of what they are doing and even less planification about their game, that's why many new developers tend to remake/recode... cause they did many mistakes at an earlier point that later on have no idea how to solve it because of how chaotic it became.