That is a lot to read, I'll toss some feedback back.
For starters there is more than one road to success, and success is not the same thing to all people. Different people have different goals. This developer Juicyful had a 1st goal of $100, and after several months and releasing 2 different games... It just never hit that mark and its heart breaking. One or two or a small handful of loyal supporters could have kept this project alive.
Additionally, it would take a lot of discipline and resources to do as you suggested, and it would also be very dishonest. (Sounds sketchy to have multiple full games developed completely and released in parts ahead of time in pieces to artifically boost your production speed.) Developing for a few years, and having all that work in the hole making 0 money ahead of time is high risk high reward. That strategy would pretty much guarentee 0 dollars for a long long time as well as it takes a long time to make a game and you suggest multiple games.
Also, Exposure on pirate sites doesn't necessarily translate to instant money or to much money, and by all means is a doubled edged sword in many ways. If ten thousand people pirate your game it doesn't mean any of them are gonna toss you even a single dollar. It reminds me of an old video about pirating from the 90s... It's
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. Those developers had it EASY back then. For starters it was mostly
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companies complaining. Not so much
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developers. They were complaining that 50% of the copies of the game were pirated copies of the game. 99.9% of adult games are pirated copies from indie developers not getting a check from some AAA company.
Although f95 and other sites do offer help to developers they also kicks them in the teeth. I think the biggest thing is probably the leaking of games very soon after release. Suppose you have a certain patroon reward to release at a certain time before anyone else. Often this will be like an early buggy version as well. A lot of devs miss out on money because it is so easy to pirate most games on day 1 of release.
I appreciate the feedback. There's a lot to upack here, so I'll take it bit by bit to make it easier to digest.
For starters there is more than one road to success, and success is not the same thing to all people. Different people have different goals.
I agree. Though if the goal is to make money, you HAVE to have a solid plan & the needed prep work & pay your dues to get noticed & develop a fanbase to get that income stream flowing.
This developer Juicyful had a 1st goal of $100, and after several months and releasing 2 different games... It just never hit that mark and its heart breaking. One or two or a small handful of loyal supporters could have kept this project alive.
Again, I agree that it's heartbreaking, however the detail you're overlooking is he released 2 ABANDONED games. I understand that he tried for months but the reality is, it takes a LOT of time & marketing yourself to get the momentum you need to get the income flowing. Yes, he stagnated at under $100 for months. That sucks. But you & I both know that abandoning a game is often the death knell for a creator. We both know this site is jam PACKED with games created by devs that are looking for a quick payday, whom slap together a quick 0.1 & bail if the cash pipeline isn't flowing to their liking. & this happens SO much, that when some devs HAVE to abandon their game because their life circumstances prevent them from being able to continue with it, they are presumed to be another cash grab scammer by the majority in the court of public opinion. These are indisputable FACTS. So you have to realize that for most of these people, including the would be possible patrons, when they see 1 game started, then abandoned early on, then another one started, What they see in their mind is "Oh, we got another Slonique or Bright Sun Studios here", Presume it as a scammer looking for a cash grab as they start, abandon, wash rinse repeat like SO many creators on here do. By bailing out & abandoning the games, he sealed his own fate. The best thing he could have done for himself was to knuckle under & finish at least one of them with whatever assets he could get because the best thing ANY creator can do to generate interest is demonstrate that they can FINISH a project. That goes a LONG way in this community.
Additionally, it would take a lot of discipline and resources to do as you suggested
Yeah. it would. That's how working for yourself & selling your art / talent is. You seem to be under the impression that this is like a regular job where you show up, put in the hours & people line up to pay you. It isn't. Go back to the example I gave about Jack Black. Again, his first on screen role was in 1984. Who knows how much free or barely paid theater work he had to do, as well as networking to even get to that point, & was still another 16 YEARS before he got a starring role in High Fidelity in 2000. YEAH. It takes a LOT of time, discipline, work & effort. That's how running a business works. Look at youtubers or instagram models. They have to diligently churn out consistent content for FREE for months, sometimes YEARS to grow their fanbase before they can even monetize their content. & then they are STILL making pennies until they grow big enough to start making real money. Look at conventional businesses like running a restaurant. Most restaurants have to plan ahead & have enough money saved up to live for 3 years on savings when they first open because they will be operating at a loss for at least their first year & likely won't start turning enough of a profit to support themselves until about 3 years in.
The reality is, if you're trying to make income off your talent as a game maker, just like with any business, you HAVE to be ready to put in a fuck ton of time, effort & work, knowing that you won't see a dime from it for a LONG time. This is a massively oversaturated, niche demographic, full of creators that abandon their projects halfway in or barely after starting, on top of the vast majority of the consumer base being non paying pirates. meanwhile, you, (not you specifically, but you know what I mean), are a new creator bringing your own game to the table. You're a no name nobody with no observable track record, aside from the 0.1 that you've released that 90% of the customer base is expecting will be abandoned within a few months. Does this sound like the kind of setting where people will line up yelling "Shut up & take my money!" REALLY? Noooo. You HAVE to PROVE yourself by having that PORTFOLIO. Once you have a couple of completed games, even if they aren't perfect, under your belt, The simple fact that you finished a fucking game alone builds a lot of credit. So when you move on to your next project, more people are willing to support it, because you've already demonstrated that you're not the kind to abandon games. This is important to be aware of.
and it would also be very dishonest. (Sounds sketchy to have multiple full games developed completely and released in parts ahead of time in pieces to artifically boost your production speed.)
I'm sorry if I come off sounding abrasive here, because I genuinely do not have any issue with you, & I do appreciate good respectable discussion, but I won't lie, this comment is extremely frustrating because, to me, it seems to display a significant lack of understanding of not only business, but also the community & medium we are working with here.
Look, like I said before, as a brand spanking new creator, you're a no name nobody until you make a name for yourself. Even if you have spectacular renders & good plot, if it's your first game, you're gonna have to crank out a LOT of updates & a lot of content before enough people are comfortable enough to contribute a couple bucks a month. Most successful creators fall under 2 categories. They either A, start making good money after they've finished at least 1 game, or they start their career with enough money of their own to afford all the assets they need to create a high quality game from the start, & they have the time & dedication to pump out enough consistent updates to draw enough attention for enough people to say "Yeah, I'll toss in a buck a month to support this & make sure it continues" & they can afford to make that initial investment to make the money on the back end. If you need the supporters money to afford the assets you need for the quality of the game you want to make, then you have to face the reality that you're going to have to prove to the community that you're not a pump & dump scammer before they will even consider giving you any money. It's just the reality of things.
So no, it's NOT dishonest, nor sketchy. It's called preparation. It's called developing your portfolio. It's called planning ahead. First of all, we both know that when you're a broke new creator with no income from your game & regular job that you're having to work, giving you very little free time to set aside to work on your game, it's a lot harder & takes a lot more time to make a game. When you're making enough from your supporters to work on the game full time, it's a lot easier to crank out content faster. That's reality. Not only that, but when you're brand new, you're under a lot more scrutiny because everyone is expecting you to pump & dump. So everyone is waiting & watching to see what you'll do.
So if you only write, code & render the 0.1 of your first game, then release it, then start working on writing, coding & rendering the 0.2 while wondering "Y no moniez yet?" You're going to get discouraged, burned out, overwhelmed by the workload, because you're working hard, not smart, JUST like this creator did, & give up, relegating yourself to "another pump & dump scammer" in the court of public opinion, making any future efforts even MORE difficult because you already have the stigma from that first game branded on you.
However, if you have 2 short games already completed, then when you release the first part, every time you consistently post an update once a month, you are demonstrating that you are consistent, dedicated & that you are going to deliver a complete game. This attracts the kind of attention that you WANT. This is also why it's a good idea to write out your first big game before you upload anything, in fact it would be a good idea to code it all too. Because THAT way, one you start uploading your first game, in the months between updates of the already finished product, since the big project game is already written & coded, all you have to do is create the renders for it. If you're disciplined, diligent & consistent with it, over the 10 to 12 months you spend releasing your first 2 games, you'll have your first BIG game mostly, if not completely finished. Then you can start posting uploads of that game & start work on writing the next one. If you play it smart, by the time you finish posting the second starter game, you should have enough coming in to afford most of the assets you need for your first main project. By the time you're halfway through it, you're an established creator in the middle of a highly desired big game, with 2 completed games to your credit, so you'll have a substantially larger following. By the time you get to your second big game, (4th game total), well if you're working smart, you'll be half, if not mostly done with it by the time you release the completed 1st big game. But even if you still have a lot of work to do & need more time between updates, the support base won't be as fickle & skittish because they will already know by your track record that you finish games & will deliver the content. Having a history of completed games creates that NEEDED credibility that converts some of the pirates to supporters. This SHOULD be common sense to someone that is a creator themselves.
Developing for a few years, and having all that work in the hole making 0 money ahead of time is high risk high reward. That strategy would pretty much guarentee 0 dollars for a long long time as well as it takes a long time to make a game and you suggest multiple games.
Hi. Welcome to the adult game community. You must be new here.
Again, this is a niche, oversaturated market with an extremely high percentage of abandoned games, most of which are pump & dump scams. Trying to make money AT ALL in this market is high risk, modest to highish reward. I mean trying to make real money here is like a high school kid on the football team banking his whole future on making it in the NFL. Even in the most ideal circumstances, the odds are stacked against you. THAT is why you have to be smart, disciplined, put in the work & understand that you have to demonstrate THROUGH your body of work that you're worth their money. & having completed games to your credit does a LOT more to earn that credit than a 0.1 or 0.2 of a decent or even good game, because it proves you're not a pump & dump scammer that's going to leave the fans blue balled. THAT is how you earn their trust, & with that, their money.
I'm just going to respond to the rest off it with this. Do you SERIOSULY think that the patrons that creators make their money from are REALLY a different group of people than the ones on sites like these? Like there's some other community of porn game fans out there that AREN'T on this site & are out looking for new creators to open their wallets to? Where, pray tell, are the people from this "other" community even finding out about these creators & games from? Do you presume that these wealthy Patrons have this sort of telepathy where the instant Jimmy Jims posts the 0.1 of his very first game on his Patreon, these people receive a telepathic message of "Jimmy Jims just created a new game! Here's his URL to check it out & give him your money". Well if so, let me correct that myth. No. That's not how it works. These pirates in this community, & others like it ARE the patrons & supporters. Communities like this are where their games are broadcasted to the adult game community, as these are the hubs of this community. Site's like this is how we discover that these games & these creators even EXIST. You can't get supporters if they don't know that you or your game even exists, do you understand? Now yes, you're right. 99% are going to pirate the game for free, no matter what. So if your goal is $2000 a month, you need to get your game in front of at least 200,000 people.
I mean, listen. I know I may have come off kinda snarky & dickish here, & I'm not meaning to be a dick, but come on man. Unless your point was "Making games & making money from them is hard & a lot of work, so it's better to just make a 0.1, maybe an update or 2, & if the money doesn't start coming in, just give up", I don't see how any of your feedback refutes any of my argument. Yes, it's a lot of hard work that requires a lot of discipline, time & effort without any guarantee. That's life. I mean hell, Look at normal work. If you want a good job, What's the first thing you need to do? Well spend most of your childhood from kindergarten up through the end of high school getting a basic education. Well hey, after high school, you get a good job right? Nope, then you PAY a fuck ton of money to go to college. Ok, well after paying the college, they give you a degree right? NOPE. You have to spend YEARS learning & proving you know the material. Well then surely after that you get a good job right? NOPE, you either move on to an unpaid internship, or start out at an entry level job in your industry that pays barely above minimum wage to get work experience. Then after a few years of that, you might get a few steps up, & then maybe by the time you're in your 30's or 40's you might get that high paying cushy job. This is a hard industry to make money in because it's customer base is a bunch of cheap ass pirates that are difficult to convince to pay anything, & doubly difficult since they get burned all the time by abandoned games. So my proposed methodology is clearly the most effective way for a new creator to position themselves for success.