- Nov 20, 2018
- 12,013
- 17,817
Yes, but I know of other developers who also do monthly releases . . . and people complain about how short they are. Someone will always complain. If you appreciate a creator's work, you can choose to support the creator. If you don't, you can choose to support someone else.
I think one of the biggest problems is that many people unfortunately don't even remotely understand the point of platforms like Patreon or Subscribestar. If you subscribe on a platform like those, you are not paying for a product. Yes, you get something in return when the creator has it ready, but you're actually paying to support the person during the process of making their creation. Except for what they can manage to find for free, game developers usually have to pay for their own resources — development tools (Photoshop, DAZ, etc.), visual assets, sounds / music, etc. — plus sacrifice their free time away from other real-life activities (often obligations). If they do not earn enough money, a lot of their time gets swallowed up by a job, which can even often require overtime... so they have even less free time to work on their creations.
Payments during months when nothing is released are a show of support to the creator. That might be used to buy resources instead of paying from their own limited funds, but it could also be just used as motivation. If you're working really hard on a game, for example, and practically nobody supports you in your efforts, it can be very disheartening. But because so many people mistakenly think they are buying a product (they absolutely are not), they feel entitled to things that might not be possible or reasonable for the creator (which might include a monthly release).
So support developers or don't, but each person's situation is different from everyone else's. You should never have any particular expectations from an honest developer other than that they are doing what they can with what they have. (I say honest, because obviously if someone is clearly scamming supporters, that's another matter entirely.) If you don't believe a specific creator or agree with how they do things, of course I would expect you to refuse to support them. But for reference, I support some creators who update monthly, some who update every 2 or 3 months, and some who take over a year to update. But in each case, I have good reason to believe they are working as best they can within their own circumstance.
