I think the solution would be to
create smaller updates like every three months (or so), so the fans would see some work done and (most importantly) this developer can
deliver the results.
Otherwise, writing (and re-writing) scripts and then endless rendering and then the final result is (after spending one year doing one update) many people simply lost interest and moved on to other games.
I've seen many games coming with the
smaller but
regular updates and few years later - several hundreds Patreon supporters (from initial 10-20 after the first release). And I don't even know how many supporters on other platforms they have.
Here is a good example -
https://f95zone.to/threads/academy-live-v0-07-3-alpha-passhonq.169917/, which started about
15 months ago (with 2-3 months update cycle)
This is from my memory and the numbers are from Patreon site only:
After two releases - about 20 patrons,
After the third release - about 40 patrons
Next release - about 80 patrons
And I checked a few days ago - 334 patrons.
The secret is simple - t
he developer needs to work to deliver some actions (plus periodically check the game thread and reply to people), so the fans see that you are going to stay and finish the game. The old times (with the numbers like BADIK) are long gone now.
While other developers create a big initial splash (waiting for 500 supportes to jump in right away). Look at
Dreamlink (
https://f95zone.to/threads/dreamlink-v0-2-public-noctus-games.189873/) - good start, then nothing and now it is officially dead.
