First off thanks for taking the time to "bant". As a developer yourself you would understand the complexities on trying to deliver a
NEW update and product every 2 months. As well as a developer yourself you would easily be able to figure out how delaying a build
does not provide us with extra money (
we get money every month, even on months we don't release anything).
Let me break it down for you (well for others mostly).
We get
more support following a build than before, in fact we get much more support if we release a build on the end of the month then the beginning of the next. Why? well we have an extra week of the new build out there that brings in more support (you following?)
So our biggest support months are the month following a build! We're on upfront so after a build is released those numbers grow.
Nov release
New / Increase / Deleted / Decreased / Total
View attachment 578725
Our
slowest month, is actually the release month! We get the highest level of pledges deleted, lowest amount of new pledges. Why? Well because a new build has been out for a month now!
People will gladly skip a month in order to grab the build the
next day. But due to Bonus packs being released this month we do see the highest amount of pledge increases (this offsets the loss in $5.00 subs for the month) but it flucuates with what character is in the Bonus pack.
Dec Stats
New / Increase / Deleted / Decreased / Total
View attachment 578726
So how would we actually "
maintain' monthly donations. Simply we would release in the middle of the month like every other dev (maybe even you do this). We would delay the bug fix to fall on the next month (in the beginning, like the majority of other devs) in order to push the build out to more people again (Following?). This scheme would allow us to capitalize on 2 weeks of post build upfront billing, then allow us to continue they hype with a bug fix the following month. Our slow month would only consist of 2 weeks.
But guess what we do? We release at the end of the month or the first week following. Allowing people to skip all of the release month (remember when I told you about the deleted pledges and not as many new pledges?). and pledge up again when the build releases.
I do realize patron is a shit platform for this type of stuff (god we have been over this like 10k x in the last 5 years remember Breeding Season prime example why). But not until mid last year has another viable option opened up for developers, that being Steam. We want to finish SU, and getting much closer to that goal this year is the objective. Then we can move towards releasing games full and complete and get off this nightmarish schedule.