Patreon is the worst enemy of all adult game players

[tanstaafl]

I believe Patreon is not exacerbating issues with games and software. I think players and users with their sense of entitlement and their lack of knowledge and experience in software and game creation are the biggest issue. They don't know what is involved. All they know is what they want and that they want it now and they blame developers, in general, and Patreon for them not getting what they want when they want it.

I don't think Patreon is exacerbating any problems. I think players not understanding what they are subscribing to or what Patreon and the subscription system is about is the problem.

Subscribing means you like what the creator is doing. Just like when you go to the museum and drop a donation into their well before you leave - you like what their are doing. If you don't like what they are doing... don't drop a dime and head out.

Patreon is not the problem. Patreon is not the enemy.
Developers are not the problem. Developers are not the enemy.

I'm not sure you are aware of the issue I am referring to honestly. It's not a scam or anything dishonest, though that is fairly common on all platforms like Patreon. It's the replacement of delivering finished games with the delivering of delivering incomplete, buggy, "we'll fix it later as you pay and play" games that are becoming incredibly common in triple A games, to say nothing of little bitty hobby or indie developers.

It's establishing in people's minds that it's just normal for games to be shit or incomplete at first.

Yes, I absolutely agree that Patreon gives people a way to get income, to establish themselves when they never would have before. But here's a hard truth, that only matters to people on the fringes. Like us, who frequent an adult game piracy site. In the bigger picture it hurts the industry as a whole more than it helps it. Just look up the SaaS and Gaas articles that have been coming out for years, the videos that are in the hundreds exploring the issue, etc.

I'll take a look at Royal Road. As an instructor of English, anything that advances an author's chance, legitimately, to publish and earn a living is always interesting. I am currently on Substack and work with small publishing houses.

I enjoy the site, though learning how to find the gems takes a minute, but it's worth it.

 

[DuniX]

I think players and users with their sense of entitlement and their lack of knowledge and experience in software and game creation are the biggest issue.

Have you looked at the state of Steam Indie Games?
Patreon is paradise compared to that.
And it's pretty much inevitable that Indie Devs will migrate to Patreon, porn or no porn.
Once that happens you will see what real competition is.

People think the good things will last forever and it will be forever a land of milk and honey.
But as Kickstarter has demonstrated things can change.
In the real world extinction happens all the time and only the fittest will survive.

 

[Count Morado]

If you want a platform that I think that is doing it right and actually elevating creators (writers in this case) without exacerbating an already existing issue, look at Royal Road.

I quickly reviewed the site. I don't see where it is good for authors? They don't get a cut of any membership fees paid to the site, they don't get advertising dollars (unless I missed something). It doesn't appear like they have the ability to monetize their works within the site.

The pro is that their content is hosted on a site that has other content hosted on it. It appears searchable and may recommend content based upon a reader's history?

It appears Royal Road is taking all the $$$ in but not sharing with the actual content creators. Unless I missed something.

Here is where I would recommend Substack over Royal Road.

It's the replacement of delivering finished games with the delivering of delivering incomplete, buggy, "we'll fix it later as you pay and play" games that are becoming incredibly common in triple A games, to say nothing of little bitty hobby or indie developers.

I get your argument. I got it since nearly the first post you made about it. I think you are completely missing the point... that's all.

They are games in development. Of course they are incomplete and buggy. That's the whole point of Patreon - for creators to get paid while they are creating. It's the patronage model. Hence, "Patreon." It's not replacing, it's "enhancing" by offering players the ability to play something - in development - that they may never have had a chance to ever play before while offering creators some $$$ to pay their bills. The creators get something the average joe cannot do, to build a community of support and to hopefully bring in a few bucks to offset their time and expenses. Otherwise they either need to get a huge bank loan, or investment capitalists, or save a lot of money over the years --- something only a very small percentage of the population can do. Patreon makes creation possible to more people.

It's not the "Gutenberg Press" - but it does lower the cost of getting into the industry down to the average person. Like how the digital camera, digital video, photoshop, premiere pro, and other tools have democratized creation out of the hands of a very privileged and/or lucky few into the hands of everyone around us.

And if a creator says "we'll fix it later as you pay and play" that is a bad creator and you should not subscribe.

In the bigger picture it hurts the industry as a whole more than it helps it. Just look up the SaaS and Gaas articles that have been coming out for years, the videos that are in the thousands exploring the issue, etc.

I disagree.

Primarily, Patreon is not a SaaS/GaaS issue. Because that isn't what is being done on Patreon. It's not "Games as a service" .... Its Games in development. Pure and simple. That's different than a released game as a service. You're mixing apples and oranges. Anyone who aligns SaaS/Gaas to Patreon is mixing their fruits.

While I do have problems with some SaaS/GaaS - such as recurring fees if we want to keep running Photoshop/Premiere Pro, etc .... That isn't what is going on with Patreon - unless you can point out to me a significant number of developers using it in that fashion.

If a developer has a completed game and requires people to subscribe to get the game and keep subscribing in order to keep playing the game - sure that's a developer using it for GaaS.

Every developer I have seen either gives their game that is in development away for free to everyone - no subscription required - or offers access to the latest version of their in development game for people to enjoy as a membership tier benefit for 1 month's subscription. They download it and play that version for as long and as often as they want with no further fees involved. Now, if they want to download an updated in development version, they may have to subscribe again - or download it free from the developer if that developer offers free for everyone. That's NOT GaaS.

Have you looked at the state of Steam Indie Games?
Patreon is paradise compared to that.
And it's pretty much inevitable that Indie Devs will migrate to Patreon, porn or no porn.
Once that happens you will see what real competition is.

People think the good things will last forever and it will be forever a land of milk and honey.
But as Kickstarter has demonstrated things can change.
In the real world extinction happens all the time and only the fittest will survive.

$100 USD per month or less for the average adult game developer even after 4 years on the site is "paradise?" yeah, if you believe that, I got a bridge to sell you.

80% of adult game developers on Patreon bring in less than $12,000 per year (after Patreon's cut, but before credit card fees, transactions, etc).

That's not paradise.

 

[morphnet]

It's the replacement of delivering finished games with the delivering of delivering incomplete, buggy, "we'll fix it later as you pay and play" games that are becoming incredibly common in triple A games, to say nothing of little bitty hobby or indie developers.

I'm sorry but I have to jump in here, "It's the replacement of delivering finished games with the delivering of delivering incomplete, buggy" we are talking about indie / hobby porn game devs, when did they first deliver full working games and when did that get "replaced" with incomplete buggy?

It's establishing in people's minds that it's just normal for games to be shit or incomplete at first.

"shit" is a broad term can you narrow that down? and when was it established in the minds of indie / hobby developers that it's normal to release full complete game and when did that change and they started thinking and delivering incomplete ones?

In the bigger picture it hurts the industry as a whole more than it helps it. Just look up the SaaS and Gaas articles that have been coming out for years, the videos that are in the hundreds exploring the issue, etc.

Can you elaborate and link some of those articles?

 

[tanstaafl]

I'm sorry but I have to jump in here, "It's the replacement of delivering finished games with the delivering of delivering incomplete, buggy" we are talking about indie / hobby porn game devs, when did they first deliver full working games and when did that get "replaced" with incomplete buggy?

"shit" is a broad term can you narrow that down? and when was it established in the minds of indie / hobby developers that it's normal to release full complete game and when did that change and they started thinking and delivering incomplete ones?

I'm old enough to remember when nearly 100% of games available to people, porn or otherwise, was released as a complete product. Nothing less was accepted. Were all games bug free? Of course not, but buggy games

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to be forgotten entirely. To people in their twenties or thirties they may not remember this time at all, but to me it is the majority of my time gaming.

As things progressed, so did the development of games, it became possible for indie and hobbyists to release games for profit, but even these games were usually complete. It wasn't until...I want to say 2007ish with the advent of smart phones and mobile apps that it started to shift over to start resembling the modern landscape with chapter based releases, and pay per dev time.

It's also at this time that we started to see cash grabs and GaaS start to make a rise. Why? Because people got used to getting crap from the jump and then paying as they waited for it to get better. Patreon fits this mindset just fine and results in a lot of "Well it's 10 minutes of game right now, but..." or "Well, the dialogue seems to be written by a 15 year old that just got hit repeatedly in the head, but..."

Can you elaborate and link some of those articles?

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(neutral explanation with pros and cons)

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(also neutral, but more optimistic)

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(exhaustion sets in)

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(decidedly against)

 

[anne O'nymous]

The guy I quoted literally said Asian games have inferior writing

The guy you quoted (who is me), literally said that Asian games have simplest stories and never addressed their writing in the post you quoted. If you felt offended and have read "simplest" as "inferior", it's a you problem...

He also said "In a way, this tell a lot about the cultural difference" so don't tell me this doesn't mean to denote cultural background of the devs.

Please, keep the context:
"In Asian games, the characters are way more stereotypical than on the Western scene, and they rarely evolve ; what a character is at the start of the game, is what she'll be at the end of it. In a way, this tell a lot about the cultural difference ; when it come to seduction, the mind matters more than the appearance."

Unlike what your post want to express, this do not address the writing of the game. The cultural difference being in what the players want; Asian players tend to give the priority to the personality, while "none Asian" players tend to give the priority to how the girls looks like.

Be also noted that the post you quote is more than 2 years old...

 

[anne O'nymous]

[sorry for the double post]

I personally believe whatever cons patreon/substar may or may not have, the benefits they give far outweigh them.

And the problem only lie in the mind of those who can't understand that human beings are free to do whatever they want and to spend their money the way they want.

It's not because they are greedy and selfish, that everyone have to be like them. Some consider that they can spare few bucks every month, for a given period of time, as reward, encouragement, or thanks, for a dev who, to their eyes, deserve it.
And why the fucking fuck, someone would have something to say against this? Their spouse, if they think that this money could be spend in a better way, yeah, but they are the only person on Earth that can have a say regarding this.
Everyone else doing it is just a wanabe controlling bitch who can't stand that people do not share their views and want to impose their own opinions on everyone's mind.

 

[TheMagicalGurl]

When I expect payment for my labor according to OP:

 

[MarshmallowCasserole]

As things progressed, so did the development of games, it became possible for indie and hobbyists to release games for profit, but even these games were usually complete. It wasn't until...I want to say 2007ish with the advent of smart phones and mobile apps that it started to shift over to start resembling the modern landscape with chapter based releases, and pay per dev time.

I really think consumer perception has nothing to do with games as a service. Remember, videogames started one bite of gameplay per quarter, and if that's not a service then I don't know what is. Then later there was WoW, and slightly before it EQ, RO, UO, to name a few. These games were undeniably a service.

No, games as a service was always an outgrowth of broadband proliferation. There was a small window of time where physical ROM distribution was miles ahead of downloading from internet. That's when shipping a 100% functional ROM was almost the only way to sell games. But even then there were patches. I remember patching my games, downloading new exe's via modem, and hey, at least on one occasion save files were borked, officially so. Still, a game had to be at least somewhat playable from a clean ROM install because there was no guarantee that a user would have free internet access.

But we're in a different age now. Downloading a game is fast and fundamentally more convenient, and most important, it's ubiquitous.

The pressure to get the product to the market ASAP was always there. It's just today you can expect 100% of your customers be able to patch your shitty release with a day 0 patch. They have the infrastructure that handles all that with relative ease, where before they largely didn't.

It's also at this time that we started to see cash grabs and GaaS start to make a rise. Why? Because people got used to getting crap from the jump and then paying as they waited for it to get better. Patreon fits this mindset just fine and results in a lot of "Well it's 10 minutes of game right now, but..." or "Well, the dialogue seems to be written by a 15 year old that just got hit repeatedly in the head, but..."

Here's the thing: Patreon was not created with gamedev in mind. It was created with more traditional art in mind, and that's where its major revenue share lies. For a traditional creator, who does create art pieces regularly, Patreon works extremely well, because the billing cadence is more in line with content release cadence. Monthly art packs, weekly podcasts, this sort of thing, and monthly billing. Hell, there's even a per-release billing scheme. It's still just a few minutes of content per month. "Well, it's 10 minutes of content," without any buts, here's your $5, mr. creator, have a productive month.

Unfortunately some content is just harder to serialize. It was already mentioned above that a lot of classical literature was in fact first released chapter by chapter, in pulpy journals. But a novel is a linear and static work, it is possible to plan the major plot and character development points from inception. It is theoretically possible to do that in a game, but realistically the branching and interactive components make it too hard. There's no good solution, if you plan your game from the start, you'll very unlikely to get a new genre-defining title. If you don't plan from the start, then any crowdfunding comes with perverse incentives to milk the simple fools that trusted you. No legal liability does that.

 

[morphnet]

I'm old enough to remember when nearly 100% of games available to people, porn or otherwise, was released as a complete product.

Ok first of all, WE (me included) need to stop blurring the lines and referencing normal (sfw) games (indie to AAA) and porn games in the same breathe and pretending they are on the same playing field. Second, I'm old enough to remember a time before video games, which means WE (you and I) are old enough to know the difference between games developed by a company and games developed by an individual or small team of indie / hobby developers.

Your statement was

I'm not sure you are aware of the issue I am referring to honestly. It's not a scam or anything dishonest, though that is fairly common on all platforms like Patreon. It's the replacement of delivering finished games with the delivering of delivering incomplete, buggy, "we'll fix it later as you pay and play" games that are becoming incredibly common in triple A games, to say nothing of little bitty hobby or indie developers.

Replacement refers to the replacing of one thing with another. In order to replace one thing with another, both have to exist at the same time. Complete, full, almost bug free games were a thing of the past LONG before patreon even opened their doors.

Also, while I don't think you are doing it on purpose, you are giving a very rosy outlook for full completed games while not in any way sharing the same downsides you are sharing about releasing as updates.

Releasing full, complete games has many downsides,

When the game was not received well many studio's found themselves indebt, some were forced to close.
When some game were well received, the studio was bought and many developers lost their jobs.
Some studios were bought just for a popular / profitable franchise and then it was handed off to others inhouse and many lost their jobs.
Having little to no reputation, if the first game flops, there are very few willing to get the second etc. and try it, meaning a lot of money is invested in creating a game where the developer / s, studio, already have a bad name and there is a high chance they won't make it back.
as well as MANY other pitfalls being glossed over.

So the replacement ship has sailed long ago, the models being used now have been (for better or worse) accepted and embraced by the general gaming community for a long time now.

Nothing less was accepted.

At the time nothing else was released, so claiming "was accepted" is untrue, we can also see it is untrue because when other thing were released they were accepted. Early on, gamers (serious and casual) had a chance to talk with their money and tell ALL developers / studios / companies that they did not and would not accept anything less than full, complete, almost bug free games and they didn't. They accepted the change, they moaned abit in corners while emptying their wallets.

Were all games bug free? Of course not, but buggy games

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to be forgotten entirely.

That or became cult classics, try give the full picture.

As things progressed, so did the development of games, it became possible for indie and hobbyists to release games for profit, but even these games were usually complete.

Are you sure about that? Are you 100% sure "for profit" is a fair way to put it? How many actually made a profit? Being able to do something and actually achieving it are two different things. For every minecraft how many lost all their own money they invested in their game?

it wasn't until...I want to say 2007ish with the advent of smart phones and mobile apps that it started to shift over to start resembling the modern landscape with chapter based releases, and pay per dev time.

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1997

In September 1997, Ultima Online launched and opened the first game servers to the public.[27] Upon release, Ultima Online proved popular, reaching 100,000 paying subscribers within six months, causing severe lag problems.

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2001

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2002

The game was a subscription-based online multiplayer version of the 2000 Maxis game

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2004

It's also at this time that we started to see cash grabs and GaaS start to make a rise.

See above, your information is incorrect by 6-9 years.

Why? Because people got used to getting crap from the jump and then paying as they waited for it to get better.

In order for people to "get used to" they would have had to have that experience for awhile, the next generation would have to have missed out on the previous models used and they would have had to have accepted the new model from the start.

Patreon fits this mindset just fine and results in a lot of "Well it's 10 minutes of game right now, but..." or "Well, the dialogue seems to be written by a 15 year old that just got hit repeatedly in the head, but..."

Patreon is servicing the market as it is today, people don't run businesses on nostalgia. If patreon ONLY accepted creators creating full, complete creations they would NEVER have become successful, would not have the reputation they do today and hundreds of thousands of people would have lost out.

Judging from your replies, at least some of your memories are through rose tinted nostalgia. That's how it works, we remember the late nights and the fun times and completely forget how crushing it was to hear black isle had gone out of business, the frustration of BOD in the middle of a winning streak in quake, the tolerance we had (our generation) when in the middle of a 3 hour run our last bot got stuck on rocks in unreal.

It's fine even good to fondly remember the old days but nostalgia has no place when discussing facts.

Porn game dev's are not on an even playing field with normal game dev's
Patreon now accepts NSFW content but was not started or designed for it and all it's own difficulties.
There is NO system in existence that is perfect, any system can be taken advantage of but there are MANY more honest content creators than there are dishonest ones, patreon gives people all the tools and freedom of choice they need in what to do with their money and how to deal with fraud.
Most people complaining about patreon DO NOT support the dev they are unhappy with, some even openly and proudly admitting it.
The reason complaining people have to use extreme examples like "finding jesus" is because there are so few dev's actually taking advantage of the system.
Porn indie / hobby dev's do not have the financial backing or avenues to get backing that normal game dev's do.
Porn indie / hobby do not have the same exposure or audiences that normal game dev's do.

The idea patreon is making things worse just because a small group is taking advantage of their system makes no sense. If it was at least a moderate to large group that sentiment might hold some water.

it's like saying "1000 cars pasted 10 were speeding so the traffic police and cameras aren't working"

Over 7800 dev's on patreon and maybe 100 taking advantage (and that's me being generous) and that proves patreon is making things worse? what about the 7700 dev's who aren't taking advantage?

I also had a whole section typed out for the articles you posted but all that really needs to be said there is Gaas and Saas have nothing to do with patreon or indie / hobby porn game dev's.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I really think consumer perception has nothing to do with games as a service. Remember, videogames started one bite of gameplay per quarter, and if that's not a service then I don't know what is.

Strictly speaking, video games started before this, with the good (hmm) old console with pong and other basic black and white game. Without forgetting the mandatory shooting game and it's frustrating mechanism since you had to precisely hit the white part for the captor to count it, and it to be in a not too curved part of the TV screen for the ray to be caught by the said captor.
Yet you're not wrong. Arcade machines is what make games evolve and become popular.

No, games as a service was always an outgrowth of broadband proliferation.

"Games" and "always" are precisely the words. Because it don't limits to video games, and goes back far in history. I'm too lazy to find references, but it shouldn't be hard to find some explaining how middle age fairs had attractions where you can have some entertainment against a buck or two.
After all,

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, that still can be found here and there nowadays, date back from the 17th century and surely don't come from nowhere. Talking about it, it's modern age versions are pachinko and pinball. Two games as service that appeared in the early 1900's for one, and in the 30's for the other, slowly replacing Bagatelle.

 

[Insomnimaniac Games]

When I expect payment for my labor according to OP:

That's what I felt like doing to myself when I was getting yelled at from all sides to make a higher-tier sub.

 

[thatisthecase]

The guy you quoted (who is me), literally said that Asian games have simplest stories and never addressed their writing in the post you quoted. If you felt offended and have read "simplest" as "inferior", it's a you problem...

You literally said " The Asian scene is the poorest in terms of writing and character development. It goes for the adult gaming scene at the opposite of what happen for the comics scene, Asian are far behind in terms of final quality."

Ah yes "poorest in terms of writing and character development" and "Asian are far behind in terms of final quality" certainly do not have anything to do with the quality of the writing. Come on man, we all know what words mean. Why can't you even own up to your own post?

Also the fact that you think they have simple plots shows that you've played nothing but RPG maker trash

 

[tanstaafl]

Are you sure about that? Are you 100% sure "for profit" is a fair way to put it?

It was more a play on the expression "for fun and profit", but you're right it wasn't all for profit, sometimes it was devs trying to make a name for themselves so they could get hired by companies...and THEN make a profit

[lots of links snip]

See above, your information is incorrect by 6-9 years.

No, it's not. It was around that time that GaaS and others really started to gain momentum. MMORPGs were the new kid on the block and games like Ultima Online, Everquest, and the like had minimal impact other than as inspirations to the rest of the gaming industry. Everquest, which was by far the largest MMORPG until WoW came around only had what would be called a disappointing amount of subscribers total by the time WoW came out (it's had more by now, 21 years later, ), then of course, WoW did come out and it shattered expectations, hitting millions. It was then and only then that we saw an explosion of similar. Thus I went with 2007 to pair it with the explosion of mobile GaaS games. I could have added "give or take a year or two" but I was lazy.

Edit: Yes I remember games like Asherons Call, DAoC, Earth and Beyond, Anarchy Online, and several others that tried between Everquest and WoW, but there weren't very many, and most of them didn't last long at all, though most of them have special places in many people's memories, it could NOT be called an explosion...perhaps a slight bump. The good news?

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is still going fairly strong. I play it every now and then still.

Judging from your replies, at least some of your memories are through rose tinted nostalgia. That's how it works, we remember the late nights and the fun times and completely forget how crushing it was to hear black isle had gone out of business, the frustration of BOD in the middle of a winning streak in quake, the tolerance we had (our generation) when in the middle of a 3 hour run our last bot got stuck on rocks in unreal.

It's fine even good to fondly remember the old days but nostalgia has no place when discussing facts.

There is no rose tinted nostalgia. Prior to the changes in game dev that I'm talking about independent companies that weren't subsidiaries of larger companies made games that worked or they disappeared...or they were bought out by EA or Ubisoft, heh...which is basically still disappearing.

 

[Insomnimaniac Games]

Prior to the changes in game dev that I'm talking about companies made games that worked or they disappeared

I don't know, Bethesda games are pretty broken.

 

[tanstaafl]

I don't know, Bethesda games are pretty broken.

I KNOW! Ugh...there's always that one company that gets away with it. They're like the ICSTOR of AAA games.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Why can't you even own up to your own post?

Oh, I can, but you see there's this thing: Not only I'm not self absorbed to the point to pass my time reading again and again what I wrote, but I also have a life and things more interesting to keep in memory that what I wrote.

So, my bad, I did actually addressed the writing in that two years old post...

 

[morphnet]

It was more a play on the expression "for fun on profit", but you're right it wasn't all for profit, sometimes it was devs trying to make a name for themselves so they could get hired by companies...and THEN make a profit

You're still not acknowledging all the dev and studios that went out of business using the release full games model though.

No, it's not. It was around that time that GaaS and others really started to gain momentum. MMORPGs were the new kid on the block and games like Ultima Online, Everquest, and the like had minimal impact other than as inspirations.

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From runescape 2001 to eve online 2003 to second life 2003 to WOW 2004 and all those in between, plus the expansions to games etc. clearly shows it started long before 2007. Really started is counted when subscriptions, expansion and putting real cash into games after purchasing the base game became the norm and that was long before 2007.

It was then and only then that we saw an explosion of similar. Thus I went with 2007 to pair it with the explosion of mobile GaaS games. I could have added "give or take a year or two" but I was lazy.

How do you categorize an explosion? and since when did explosion equal normalization or setting "the standard"?

Edit: Yes I remember games like Asherons Call, DAoC, Earth and Beyond, Anarchy Online, and several others that tried between Everquest and WoW, but there weren't very many, and most of them didn't last long at all, though most of them have special places in many people's memories, it could NOT be called an explosion...perhaps a slight bump.

The ones that did fail, did NOT fail because of their business model, they failed because people didn't enjoy them, moved on to new things, left or joined friends in other games etc. Also an "explosion" doesn't start something, it ONLY happens after companies have seen the idea works and is accepted. After that it's a gamble on the game itself.

There is no rose tinted nostalgia. Prior to the changes in game dev that I'm talking about companies made games that worked or they disappeared...or they were bought out by EA or Ubisoft, heh...which is basically still disappearing.

I'm not going to dig through all the old games I know I'll leave this one example and you can judge for yourself if indeed you real aren't seeing through rose tinted nostalgia?

Hexen 1995

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[tanstaafl]

Hexen 1995

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Hexen is a bad example of this. You seem to be conflating "online game" with the GaaS model. Hexen, and Heretic, were pay once, then play online games...like Unreal and Counterstrike. These were NOT GaaS model games until much later when they added cash shops to buy nifty daggers.

Side note: Hexen was fun as fuck.

 

[tanstaafl]

[snip]

You are thinking that because a game existed and it was online that it fit the GaaS model. This isn't the case. MMORPGs were the forerunners of the model and they did start the explosion, but as I said, it wasn't until WoW that it really picked up steam. But then it kept picking up steam. I mean...

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and it's not a good outlook for us simple gamers. And let's not ignore this statement I made, which you addressed, but not the main point of the statement.

It was then and only then that we saw an explosion of similar. Thus I went with 2007 to pair it with the explosion of mobile GaaS games. I could have added "give or take a year or two" but I was lazy.

The main point of the statement is that between WoW's first expansion Burning Crusade in 2007 (when it REALLY hit the high numbers of subscribers) and the mobile wave of apps is when the explosion of GaaS games really started.

Edit: And the year 2007 is quite literally the least important part of what I'm trying to say overall and it's the main hang up people have. Frustrating.

Edit_Again: And to address your question of what I think an explosion is, I think it's a significant increase in overall percentage in comparison to other game for profit models.