Others Abandoned SLOOTER [v0.20] [BuxomDev, MonsterBox]

[bitsybobs3]

Slooter-0.20

Spoiler: TORRENT (Windows)

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[BunnygirlBoobies]

What?! How? This game has been in development for about a year, and is comparable to a hobby project in scope. How can they run out of funds. How much expenses do you have?

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"That said, I've been absolutely floored by the last weekend. I never thought SLOOTER would get this much attention. So, a big thank you to everyone who recently discovered or bought the game."

Slooter got more attention than you anticipated. Great, now you should have some extra funds.

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:
"All in all, things are looking good. We have some new level designers on board and every remaining map has someone working on it. Enjoy the update!"

Everything seems fine.

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"I don't know how to handle these slow periods, but I just wanted to let you know the project isn't dead."
" I know adult projects have a reputation for being abandoned early into development or using early access to make a quick buck. I could reassure you by telling you I'm not one of those devs"

Dev, it's been less than one month without updates. Chill.

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"I wish I had better news for you. I can no longer afford to develop SLOOTER. My traffic has dried up over the last few months and recent updates have been unable to bring it back."

You just got the 0.20 version out the door which is a big deal. Take a break, and get another job if you can't make ends meet with Slooter development and work on it when you are able as a hobby project. I don't know how much money you're spending on map makers, voice actresses and artists, but apparently too much, so cut back on expenses. What have you done to drop costs down to levels you can manage? Have you tried making the maps yourself? Do you actually need custom music? Get some advice from an experienced manager, you're essentially running a small software business here with multiple subcontractors. Before you give up, what exactly have you tried doing to keep this project running? A couple of months seems like a very quick decision. At my smaller company, two months is about enough time to go from project kick-off to start of development.

I'm making this post because I care about this game. It's a doom total conversion that's fun to play and I'd like to see it succeed. Seeing abandoned games on this site collecting thousands of dollars every month from patreon pisses me off. This game had comparably frequent updates early on, so I had high hopes for it. Try to get smaller updates out more frequently (two weeks to a month at most), that should steer traffic towards the project and keep you afloat. Of course traffic's going to dry up if you don't release an update in two months. You need frequent updates to keep a project like this in the spotlight. Running a project is hard, there's going to be difficult times.

Based on their update notes alone they were banking on this to be their sole income, which.... if you are an indy dev and you are banking on your first title to make you a liveable income you need to wake up, but yeah. It's also why devs abandon projects and make new ones, they get that initial kick of revenue and then it tapers off and they expect the initial bump to be the recurring income but uh... y'all devs need to take an economics night course.

 

[twinklecake]

Damn, it's dead, huh. Too bad, this was a lot of fun.

 

[shark1111]

hi

 

[lakf]

awww man, this game had sooo much potential...i'm actually hurt T-T. wonder if anyone would pick this project and try to finish it...

 

[noobicious]

looks good from what i can see sadly not into futa much but the gobbo shortstacks are a plus im probably just gana try it out just for the gobbo shortstacks not much else

 

[UnopenedCanofSpoopy]

I thought .19 was the 'final' version? I downloaded .20 and there was like 3 new levels added.

 

[sizzantaclaus]

I thought .19 was the 'final' version? I downloaded .20 and there was like 3 new levels added.

He released .20 then shut the project down not long after

 

[Brazillus]

a Shame , i liked that game

 

[BooDoof]

Expecting $10 for a demo of a demo is pretty nuts, it should have been completely free to drive traffic to his project. $10 is a huge barrier to entry for the average coomer, not to mention the massive amount of DOOM mods out there that are completely free. I think the sad part about a lot of dev's is that they don't spend nearly the amount of time necessary budgeting or making a long term action plans. That or have unrealistic expectations of popularity from looking at massively successful projects, thinking that this is the money ticket to golden town. I hate to break it to them, but your project is likely not going to earn you huge amounts of money. Relying on it to pay your meals is going to make you stressed each and every time you log on to work for a bit, further compounding your insecurity when it doesn't become as popular as you'd like and it becomes an albatross around your neck.

 

[MZZ]

[...]not to mention the massive amount of DOOM mods out there that are completely free.[...]

And there were always kinky mods for Doom. As soon as hacking new textures into the game was possible, the porn at the walls started. (granted, those were quite terrible in quality, but the idea is certainly not Nobel prize level new)
Still shame about this one, art looked nice and the levels aren't bad.

 

[Andvand]

I just wish this dev would put the project on the back-burner, cut costs, get a job, learn to map, and then make a bad-decent map once every month towards project completion. He's got some enemies and weapons in the game already. Advertise the subscribestar! I don't understand why development has to completely shut down. How can other doom modders get so amazing total conversions out for free?

 

[straightshota]

Really the guy was upset that he didn't get any traction or following but that is sort of his own fault. Marketing is a skill, it's about researching potential markets and audiences. There was and still is a demand for an H-doom but with futas, H-doom does not satisfy that market. But how is the market supposed to know that the game exists if it is not marketed? Only 43 or so hits on the /vr/ board of 4chan, most of them news related. But no real effort to market, there was no attempt to shill the game and due to developer blunders (pay for a demo) it ruined most prospects. He could have reached out to some big name artists to give a shout out to his game, he could have done what he could to replicate the original doom's success with a completed episode 1 as shareware, and the rest can be paid for. But he didn't and the guy completely gave up because he was not getting a return on his investment. He is going to try for another game but he should spend some of that cash in a business 101 instead of outsourcing everything.

 

[exemplar]

He is going to try for another game but he should spend some of that cash in a business 101 instead of outsourcing everything.

They don't currently plan to make more games according to the last update on the dev blog. A lot of people in the thread are going "oh why didn't they just do X" but it's not that easy. Indie development is always a big risk. Most projects fail. We just don't see the ones that don't release early builds. Scaling down is not always an option, especially when people have already paid for it. It definitely sucks for people who paid 10 bucks for this, but I do also feel for the dev. The idea of developing a shareware marketing episode can work, but you need to have the economic stability to do that in the first place. Marketing can also be a huge money-hole that doesn't always guarantee a return. I think the map-makers were definitely very skilled and that's part of what elevated this project above the average H-game. But as always way more games fail than succeed.

 

[BooDoof]

[...] A lot of people in the thread are going "oh why didn't they just do X" but it's not that easy. Indie development is always a big risk. Most projects fail. [...]

That's all well and good, but once someone is actually asking for money they have a duty to deliver on said product. I'd be much more generous towards him if he was only asking for patreon/whatever support and having backer builds with a clear delineation between user ownership of an actualized product vs. just supporting development w/o an expectation on a return of a finished product, but charging an upfront (and likely full price) fee for something is begging for more scrutiny. For a lot of very excellent Indie games, $10 is the maximum they'd ever charge for the finished product, let alone an alpha build of something that may never see the light of day. He's setting expectations just from that baseline pricepoint on what lens we're going to be viewing his product with. Just like straightshota mentioned above you, there's far more to game development than just game development.

It's a useful exercise to analyze why certain projects fail and others succeed, to learn from their failures and successes. It's through viewing failure especially that we can see what works and what doesn't, allowing future products (by the original author or by a separate person who just takes note of it) to be more successful because of it. Indie development is hard, yes, but just because it's hard doesn't justify leaving your supporters in the lurch when you can't cut it and decide to quit. Game development is inherently volatile because of the difficulty of the work, from actually making the game to communicating with your staff, to securing funding for it. It, much like being an artist or a youtuber, is not something you should depend on for financing if you're in an unstable position.

In my view, it's only really viable to rely on game development as an income stream if it's already been established, and even then it's a risky proposition. Markets are fickle, products succeed and fail with many, many factors that aren't necessarily even based around the game itself (what other games are already in the market, what the general disposable income of your target demographic is, etc) so some comprehension of economics/business is mandatory in making game development your career.

 

[exemplar]

That's all well and good, but once someone is actually asking for money they have a duty to deliver on said product.[...]

I'm not disputing that. It is a problem that people paid ten bucks and got way less than promised. I do very much feel bad for people who lost money on this, and it is still largely the dev's fault. (Though talking about this on a pirate site has some irony to it.) I'm just saying issues with this project were likely not a quick fix like some comments in the thread make it out to be. As you said, games fail for many reasons, some of which don't even have to do with the game itself. It is a process, and I don't think looking from the outside we necessarily see what could or could not have saved this one.

 

[MZZ]

Well, since it's a doom mod, it's kinda open source anyway. So, who wants to continue?

 

[Weoooo]

It'd be an art issue, right? It'd be hard to go forward without the artist.

 

[MZZ]

would need either the same artist or someone who can draw similar. Clashing art styles are hard on the eyes.

 

[sammo905]

would need either the same artist or someone who can draw similar. Clashing art styles are hard on the eyes.

would probably need someone similar if your working free I think the og artist was paid for it.
anyway if your serious (which I hope you are this project had tons of potential) contact the og artist for pricing or
open up a artist needed thread in the development, unless you can get a gigachad fan from this thread to do it you will
probably have to pay for it.

even then what do you plan to do with the project there's a whole list of things planned that didn't make it
if you plan to complete everything in the og plans from their itch posts you have a lot to do and I wish you luck