Im pretty disappointed so far. years of development and a whole team working with a million and a half budget. Seems like a big mismanagement to me. Me and a friend of mine are working on a game, in which you are free to roam and explore a whole area, have different npc's, day and night activities and exploration. on top of that a coop machanic we are working on for randoms to take the spot as an observer of the main female lead and even participate. All this in Unreal engine with great graphics, dlss and raytracing. With that amount of money and more then 2 people working on the project i wouldnt be proud with my productivity and output. I work in this industry since 2013 and have been part of a few mayor games up to this point, so maybe im to harsh with these folks. In my oppinion most of the Patreon and Kickstarter Project are unneccesary slow just to be sure to grab the last bit of money for the least amount of work. I dont know when our project will start on Patreon. We still have some work to do and we both have full time jobs and partners who need their share of our time. But when we start, i will show these people what can be achieved per month with some time management and a good structure.
I was always surprised by the division between general game development and porn game development. The standards that are upheld for each one differ so much that you cant expect a good game (gameplay, UI, progression, etc) in the porn side (there are exceptions ofc, but very few and far between, and mostly on the simplistic side).
And the reality of developing in each side is way different, the things that ppl let fly for a porn game would bankrupt a regular indie dev.
For the most part people forget that skills dont transfer, just because you are good at drawing or animating doesnt mean you´ll be a good game developer. 99% of big porn games, a good chunk patreon scams or the like, are artists thinking that they can develop a game because "how hard could it be?", they dream of making one or because they are way over their head thinking with their artists ego. Reality hits when the scope gets out of hand, they realize how time consuming the process is or how hard it can be and, since they are used to work solo as artists, when the hands in the project are not nearly enough to make progress/organize/put a game together they go silent, take a break because X while still collecting the montlhy income -because the flow doesnt stop since the supporters go with a blindness that the likes of AAA devs would dream and salivate-
Game development is not easy.
Sadly i dont think you, or anyone for that matter, can "show these people what can be achieved"/how it should be done, for the very simple reason that its profitable to half ass or scam, there are no consequences, no punishment for not delivering (or delivering a small part of whats promised), so why not underdeliver for long periods to max profit?
Marketing can save or kill a normal game, but in the porn game scene only the marketing matters, not even the product does.
PS: sorry for the long ish rant but im always close to bring the discussion between game development (wich interests me) vs porn game development
Its simply insane for me that ppl would pay way more and for longer for these than for a regular game AND NOT COMPLAIN about the lack of quality and all the bs these artists throw to excuse themselves in front of their costumers. Its the dream of saying fuck off to your boss, not work, and be paid in full and allowed to continue "working".