Suggestion for a better way to support developers

[privitude]

The Problem

Ideally, if we can afford it, we should all be supporting the development of the games we play. But if you’re anything like me, you’ve gotten a little sick of the predictable cycle of

• Developer begins new game. It shows lots of promise, and he’s excited about working on it.
• You donate and the updates come regularly for six months
• The updates slow to a crawl
• Th developer announces “he’s taking a break for ‘health reasons’” or just disappears all together.

The problem, as I see it, is that the Patreon system not only provides not motivation to release timely updates, it actually rewards a certain amount of slowness, because if you can get people to donate monthly, then release an update quarterly, your income is effectively more stable. I’ve come up with a better way. If the following seems confusing, don’t worry, I’ll provide an example at the end.

The "Banking" Method

• Establish how much you think is a fair monthly rate to support a developer
• Establish what you think is a reasonable expectation for delivery of updates. This can be a static time period, but I suggest varying it depending on the complexity of the game.
• Establish how long a developer can go between updates before you think “OK, either this guy is gone or this project is just a scam.”
• Every month, set aside the amount you decided in step 1, up to the amount of time established in step 2
• When the developer updates, donate the money you set aside, and let them know you’ll donate again the next time they release an update.
• If the developer exceeds the length established in step 3, just take the money back. Go buy yourself something nice. If you want, you can give them another chance by re-starting the clock when they release next.

So, let’s do an example. Let’s say I want to support Dr. Armana, Sexual Therapist. A fantastic game. If you haven’t played it, go do so. Some of the best writing ever. I decide that I would support this game at a rate of $5/month, and I would expect an update every 4 months. After 8 months, I’d kind of give up. So our parameters are set.

So RomanHume releases an update, and the clock starts. I put $5 away. I do the same thing a month from now. If he releases an update in two months (that’s too quick, I know), I donate $10, and the clock starts over. If he releases an update in 4 months, I donate $20. When the 5th month rolls around, I just hang on to the money. Not adding anymore. If he exceed 8 months, I spend the $20 on a Pizza or something.

When I donate, I include a donation message that says

Thanks for the update! I’ll be back to donate more when you release your next update!

What Does This Do?

Well, by not donating until an update is released, the developer is motivated to release. Because they know that they’re not getting paid until they do, and they’re potentially getting paid a lot when they do so.

By not letting the “bank” grow beyond (step 1*step 2) the developer is motivated to keep a regular schedule. The longer he goes between quality updates, the more he starts to lose money.

By including step 4, you money is never completely wasted. It will still suck if you donate to a project that just gets dropped completely; but at least you’re not in a situation where you spend $50-$100 without ever getting an update.

Why It's Admittedly Not a Perfect System

When a developer only gets paid on release day, it motivates them to push out updates, even if that means rushing something. Obviously that's not ideal.

That said, most of these games are listed as being in "beta" stages. That's supposed to mean that it's in a testing phase. It's not that hard to put up update/patch/change logs including a "known issues" section. They could even release simple bug-fix patches between full updates. Honestly, I think it would foster a stronger sense of trust between developer and user, if it was more obvious that progress was being made.

 

[Jofur]

I might be wrong, but doesn't Patreon allow creators to set "pay per update" rather than monthly? I've seen a few YouTube channels do it at least. I think the harder thing is more about convincing creators to choose the option that is more consumer friendly but(most likely) makes them less money.

 

[Agent HK47]

I might be wrong, but doesn't Patreon allow creators to set "pay per update" rather than monthly? I've seen a few YouTube channels do it at least. I think the harder thing is more about convincing creators to choose the option that is more consumer friendly but(most likely) makes them less money.

Indeed it does. But as you point out, it doesn't make them nearly as much money. Say a developer works hard for 3 months to get an update out, but with PPU (Pay Per Update) they would make a third of what they would have made, if they just charged monthly, even though they worked hard all those 3 months. Why wouldn't they want to be paid more for their work?

The tricky parts comes when developers slow down their updates, or just seems to lose interest completely, but still charges monthly. This system indeed seems to favor the slow/lazy devs, but in the end it IS up to the consumer to decide if they are gonna pay them or not. You could simply wait until the game is finished, and THEN pay the dev whatever donation you think they have earned.

In the end, everything is a matter of choice.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Well, by not donating until an update is released, the developer is motivated to release.

And what about those who are motivated, but also need times to release something that is effectively good ?

Quality need time and, to take only one example, an extreme one, yes Heavy Five need six months to be updated. But every six months you have an update with more than 10.000 renders (animations included), for near to 10 hours of content ; way more if you follow more than one route. Half of the finished games available don't not even reach this amount of renders.
Of course, there's those who clearly abuse of the system, but honestly I count games like Family Affair among them. And your method would in fact create more situations like this one ; small frequent updates of average (or bellow) quality rushed in the sole intent to get the money.
Because it's what would happen for many games ; "Fuck, I haven't finished this scene, but the deadline is for tomorrow. Well, they'll have to do with what I already have, I need this money". And this will especially apply to the "not this successful" games, because it's those authors who really need the few bucks they get from Patreon. And obviously, this would only lead to less patrons, because their game would become more and more shitty. But those small authors aren't the one who abuse the system. It's the 5% who earn more than US$5.000/month who potentially do it.
And obviously, the biggest abuser wouldn't care a single second if people were using your system. Take Icstor by example, since he's the one who apparently raise the most anger against his name. He earn probably around

You must be registered to see the links

/month. Even if he was getting the money only twice a year, and even with your system, he would earn what ? US$ 80.000/year, probably more. How many among us, who have to go to works every day, earn this much ? Your system would make him earn less, but well, in his shoes I wouldn't really care. I'm 50yo, my children now live their life, and it would make me earn 68.000€/year. It's near to four time the average salary here, and I can assure you that you live a more than decent life with this.

And that's why, from my point of view, Patreon model is the best compromise between the desire of the public and the needs of the author. You'll pay if you think that the author deserve it, whatever how fast or slow can be the updates, and not when you think he deserve it.
If people think that Icstor deserve this money, why should have I something to say ? It's their money and their decision, I don't have a say on this. There's people who think he's abusing ? And so what ? If they think this and still give him their money, they are just stupid. And if they don't give him their money, then it's not their concern, dot.

 

[privitude]

Indeed it does. But as you point out, it doesn't make them nearly as much money. Say a developer works hard for 3 months to get an update out, but with PPU (Pay Per Update) they would make a third of what they would have made, if they just charged monthly, even though they worked hard all those 3 months. Why wouldn't they want to be paid more for their work?

Which makes plenty of sense from the producer standpoint. And if we could always trust the producer; monthly is a better system. But the ratio of projects that end up burning people to projects that complete - particularly in the context of games on this site - is so out of whack that the system is falling apart.

You could simply wait until the game is finished, and THEN pay the dev whatever donation you think they have earned.

I thought about that, as well. The problem there is that if a game is going to take a few years to develop, it's going to be hard to keep a developer motivated when money's not coming in, and they have no idea if they'll make anything when it does.

 

[Agent HK47]

The problem there is that if a game is going to take a few years to develop, it's going to be hard to keep a developer motivated when money's not coming in, and they have no idea if they'll make anything when it does.

I think anne O'nymous gave the best answer.

And that's why, from my point of view, Patreon model is the best compromise between the desire of the public and the needs of the author. You'll pay if you think that the author deserve it, whatever how fast or slow can be the updates, and not when you think he deserve it.

As I mentioned in my above post, in the end, everything boils down to personal choice. You can pay the developers on patreon or not. It doesn't get much more simple than that.

 

[privitude]

And what about those who are motivated, but also need times to release something that is effectively good ?

Quality need time and, to take only one example, an extreme one, yes Heavy Five need six months to be updated. But every six months you have an update with more than 10.000 renders (animations included), for near to 10 hours of content ; way more if you follow more than one route. Half of the finished games available don't not even reach this amount of renders.

That's why step 2 of my proposed system includes this:

• Establish what you think is a reasonable expectation for delivery of updates. This can be a static time period, but I suggest varying it depending on the complexity of the game.

You're right, some games need more time than others. Summertime Saga isn't going to get released bi-monthly. It's just not. But DarkCookie has been consistently (if slowly) cranking out large, ultra-high quality updates for years. So you may want to set his expectation delivery for six months, and his "this has become a scam" period for 12-13 months. You can keep different bank periods for different developers. The system is entirely up to your discretion as far as what you think is appropriate.

Of course, there's those who clearly abuse of the system, but honestly I count games like Family Affair among them. And your method would in fact create more situations like this one ; small frequent updates of average (or bellow) quality rushed in the sole intent to get the money.

First of all, if a developer under the current system is pushing out crap updates, people aren't going to support them. That doesn't need to change here. Remember, this isn't an automated system that can't tell if an update is good or bad. You don't pay until you've played what they're releasing. And if what you play is garbage, you don't have to support it at all.

Because it's what would happen for many games ; "Fuck, I haven't finished this scene, but the deadline is for tomorrow. Well, they'll have to do with what I already have, I need this money".

What deadline? No one's giving them an ultimatum date. Odds are every patron is going to have different thresholds decided on. Some are going to give them six weeks. Some will give them six months.

And this will especially apply to the "not this successful" games, because it's those authors who really need the few bucks they get from Patreon. And obviously, this would only lead to less patrons, because their game would become more and more shitty. But those small authors aren't the one who abuse the system. It's the 5% who earn more than US$5.000/month who potentially do it.

I disagree for multiple reasons. First of all, I think that this would actually see an increase in income for these developers. Right now, a new developer has to deal with the baggage of every other developer. There are people who see their game but aren't willing to donate at all because they've been burned one too many times. They don't trust the developer to deliver without just disappearing. I think if players knew that they would only be paying when and if they got an update; and that even then they wouldn't be paying an unreasonable ammount, they'd be a lot more likely to do so.

And obviously, the biggest abuser wouldn't care a single second if people were using your system. Take Icstor by example, since he's the one who apparently raise the most anger against his name. He earn probably around

You must be registered to see the links

/month. Even if he was getting the money only twice a year, and even with your system, he would earn what ? US$ 80.000/year, probably more. How many among us, who have to go to works every day, earn this much ? Your system would make him earn less, but well, in his shoes I wouldn't really care. I'm 50yo, my children now live their life, and it would make me earn 68.000€/year. It's near to four time the average salary here, and I can assure you that you live a more than decent life with this.

First of all, if you think six months is a reasonable time frame for his updates, and he manages to keep that schedule, then fine. Why is that a problem? You pay $30/update, which is the same ammount you would be paying if you were his Patreon. If he delays and takes 7 months? You pay $30/update, and he eats the cost of the delay.

Second, you realize that the $80,000/year does not go straight to his pocket, right? Patreon takes a significant chunk of your money in

You must be registered to see the links

. For $80k, I'd imagine you're losing about 10K. So he'd be making $70K

As for comparing that to what the typical worker makes? Do not compare the salary a company pays you at a 1:1 level to what you make as a one-man business. The latter is 1,000% harder and considerably more expensive. Every piece of equipment, every consumable, every penny of overhead is your responsibility. Sure, it's all tax-deductible, but that does not offset as much as you might thing. And God help you if you live in the US and have to find health insurance without an employer. $70,000/year for the self-employed is closer to a $50,000 a year salary.

And that's why, from my point of view, Patreon model is the best compromise between the desire of the public and the needs of the author. You'll pay if you think that the author deserve it, whatever how fast or slow can be the updates, and not when you think he deserve it.

The trouble is that you wind up paying people you think deserve it...and then they just disappear. What's worse, half the time you don't even realize they're gone until six or seven months later when they've run off with the cash you gave them to fund the next update that's never going to arrive.

 

[privitude]

As I mentioned in my above post, in the end, everything boils down to personal choice. You can pay the developers on patreon or not. It doesn't get much more simple than that.

Except a lot of people are avoiding that because that system has a problems that this system alleviates.

 

[anne O'nymous]

First of all, if a developer under the current system is pushing out crap updates, people aren't going to support them.

Never heard about Slonique, right ? He don't

You must be registered to see the links

, and always had strong variations regarding the support he get, but it's been now five years that he release pushed crap updates, rush the ending of a game when he get bored, and all, and he still earn near to US$ 1.000/month.

The fact is that people will do what they want, accordingly to their own vision and perspective. What you see as crap, they can see it as interesting. What you see as milking, they can see it as acceptable delay. And so on.

And if what you play is garbage, you don't have to support it at all.

Breaking news: It's already the case right now ; and it also apply if you think that an author is milking.

In fact, this answer also apply to your system. People haven't waited for your thread to use the possibility they have to lower their tiers or cancel their pledge.

I disagree for multiple reasons. First of all, I think that this would actually see an increase in income for these developers. Right now, a new developer has to deal with the baggage of every other developer.

Tell this to

You must be registered to see the links

, who started, one and half year ago, by directly earning US$ 5.000/month, and now earn more than US$ 20.000/month for a game that is totally average.

I think if players knew that they would only be paying when and if they got an update; and that even then they wouldn't be paying an unreasonable ammount, they'd be a lot more likely to do so.

And you're just wrong.

I talked about Braindrop, the author of WVM, lets talk about

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, the authors of Corrupted Kingdoms. The game started two months later, have really regular updates (more or less every two weeks), and its quality is way above. Everything match your book... Yet they earn three times less that Braindrop, who now release an update every now and then without this delay leading to an increase of the quality.

People don't pledge because the game is good, because the update is regular, or any criteria you can think about. They pledge because they like the game and want to support the author. It's not their mind that make them open the wallet, it's their heart, dot.

The trouble is that you wind up paying people you think deserve it...and then they just disappear. What's worse, half the time you don't even realize they're gone until six or seven months later when they've run off with the cash you gave them to fund the next update that's never going to arrive.

And so ? This is a totally ridiculous thinking ; "Oh no, I'll not pledge for you, because perhaps that your next update will be shitty, perhaps even that one day you'll disappear".
I'm thinking about Chatterbox right now... Who, according to your thinking process, shouldn't have earn this much money because he had the total indecency to die. I don't know what happened after the news, but I'm sure that many people learning this thought about continuing their pledge some more, to help his family pass through those hard times, as a thanks for everything he did.
And the same apply for all those who decided to quit because of health issues, family issues and all. Hey, what was the name of this dev who lost almost everything because of a hurricane ?

But the fact is that people don't pledge because the author will deserve it in the future, but because he deserved it in the past. And the day he'll stop deserving it, to their eyes, eventually because he disappeared, they'll just stop pledging.
Everything else is just bullshit excuses that ones use to justify the fact that they don't pledge. But expecting them to pledge if the system was different is stupid. They would just jump to another bullshit excuse.

 

[The Green Knight]

This method also means a Dev who devotes a ton of time to their game, and say makes an update every 3 months... gets paid every 3 months.

Dunno about you, but I can't pay my bills in quarterly installments, they want them monthly. PPU encourages smaller updates more frequently and will less content.

At the end of the day, if you're unhappy with how a Dev works, don't support them.
However this whole things seems to point the finger at new Devs being the problem...

If you want to look at Milkers, go and search by game and filter by likes.
There's a game that has just released an update of 400 renders that has taken over $100,000 in donations and released nothing else in nearly 2 years, that's less than 2 renders a day for over 100k a year...

There's another game that has been going for like 4 years getting similar 100,000+ funding who produces the exact same quality of render and exact same game play as 2017.

The problems with Patreon come far more when the developer gets big.

 

[privitude]

Never heard about Slonique, right ? He don't

You must be registered to see the links

, and always had strong variations regarding the support he get, but it's been now five years that he release pushed crap updates, rush the ending of a game when he get bored, and all, and he still earn near to US$ 1.000/month.

Know why? Because people play his games, pledge a few bucks, and then forget that they've done so. He gets away with their money because they've forgotten to to cancel.

That doesn't happen with the banking system. With my system, those people would figure out that the game they've been pledging to support isn't getting updated, and would stop banking money and paying him.

The fact is that people will do what they want, accordingly to their own vision and perspective.

And whether or not a person wants to do something is based on multiple factors; one of which is whether or not the idea ever occurs to them. Therefore, suggesting the idea, as I have here, allows people to consider it and then decide if they want to or not.

What you see as crap, they can see it as interesting.

And? If you think its crap, don't support it. If you think it's great, do support it. This isn't complicated.

What you see as crap, they can see it as interesting. What you see as milking, they can see it as acceptable delay. And so on.

Again, this is why I said:

Establish what **you think** is a reasonable expectation for delivery of updates. This can be a static time period, but I suggest varying it depending on the complexity of the game.

This system is based entirely on the individual's own expectations. If you think that 4 months is too long, set the threshold for 2 month. If you think 8 months is reasonable, set the threshold at that. "Different people see things differently" is not something that needs to be explained here. That's already factored in.

Breaking news: It's already the case right now

That is literally what I said in the paragraph you took that quote from.

and it also apply if you think that an author is milking.

Yes, except - again - people play his games, pledge a few bucks, and then forget that they've done so. He gets away with their money because they've forgotten to to cancel. In other words, it doesn't occur to them that they're being milked because they don't remember that they're being charged.

That doesn't happen with the banking system. With my system, those people would figure out that the game they've been pledging to support isn't getting updated, and would stop banking money and paying him.

In fact, this answer also apply to your system. People haven't waited for your thread to use the possibility they have to lower their tiers or cancel their pledge.

How do you know? A lot of people have talked about their frustrations with pledging to people who have ran off with their money. They want to support developers and project, but they don't want to be taken advantage of. This is an opportunity for them to do the former without worrying about the latter.

Tell this to

You must be registered to see the links

, who started, one and half year ago, by directly earning US$ 5.000/month, and now earn more than US$ 20.000/month for a game that is totally average.

What was it you said earlier in this post?

What you see as crap, they can see it as interesting.

What you see as "totally average" his supporters probably see as a great game worth supporting.

And you're just wrong.

You don't know that.

I talked about Braindrop, the author of WVM, lets talk about

You must be registered to see the links

, the authors of Corrupted Kingdoms. The game started two months later, have really regular updates (more or less every two weeks), and its quality is way above. Everything match your book... Yet they earn three times less that Braindrop, who now release an update every now and then without this delay leading to an increase of the quality.

People don't pledge because the game is good, because the update is regular, or any criteria you can think about. They pledge because they like the game and want to support the author. It's not their mind that make them open the wallet, it's their heart, dot.

You think Corrupted Kingdoms' quality is way above. I see anime game. I don't like anime. I see another fantasy setting. I'm not a fan of fantasy settings in adult games. I see pregnancy. I don't like pregnancy. I see monster girls. I don't like monster girls.

I find it ironic that at the beginning of your comment, you're high on telling me about how people have different opinions, and how what I think sucks they may like; and here you are talking about how you can't understand why the game you like isn't seeing the amount of support as this other game that you don't like.

Allow me to solve the mystery for you: there's room for both games, but clearly plenty of people disagree with your assessment and think WVM is better.

"My book" as you refer to it, takes into account preference and perception of quality. When I say "decide how much you would support the developer for" obviously if you think one game is way better than the other, you're going to be more likely to want to pay more.

And so ? This is a totally ridiculous thinking ; "Oh no, I'll not pledge for you, because perhaps that your next update will be shitty, perhaps even that one day you'll disappear".

It's less "I won't pay you" and more "I'll pay you when you produce." In case you're not aware, that was the original concept of Patreon. When it started, there was no pay-per-month option. You set a maximum monthly budget, and then the producer got paid for each video/game/song/whatever that they released.

The problem, of course, is that producers started churning out trailers and previews, and Patreon paid them for those. The execution was flawed, but the concept was solid, and that concept is what this idea is based on.

I'm thinking about Chatterbox right now... Who, according to your thinking process, shouldn't have earn this much money because he had the total indecency to die. I don't know what happened after the news, but I'm sure that many people learning this thought about continuing their pledge some more, to help his family pass through those hard times, as a thanks for everything he did.

...OK? And? What part of my system prevents anyone who learns of the death of a developer from donating to help his family? For that matter, your example is kind of irrelevant. The system I came up with is for supporting someone working on a game without getting fleeced. If the person is dead and you want to donate to their family, it's not really the same thing, is it?

But the fact is that people don't pledge because the author will deserve it in the future, but because he deserved it in the past.

That's straight-up ridiculous, and the evidence of how ridiculous that is is plastered all over the "bitch about ICSTOR" thread. Hell, the fact that thread even exists is evidence of it. When Milfy City was being updated fairly regularly, how many people playing it do you think didn't believe it was deserving of support? None of them. Damn near everyone who played that game loved it, wanted more, and hoped that it was well supports so that they'd get more.

Fast forward to a year and a half with no updates, and there are so many people who thought "he deserved it in the past" as you say, but were now furious because of how much money he'd fleeced from people that they had to split the original game thread into two and make a special admin post telling people not to talk about it in the original thread.

What happened? Simple. The former patron who were angry were pissed because the reason they were supporting him was because they wanted more updates. They didn't give him 6/8/12/18 months of payments just to say "thanks for that stuff you put out over a year ago."

And the day he'll stop deserving it, to their eyes, eventually because he disappeared, they'll just stop pledging.

Two major flaws with this argument:

1. It's based entirely on them remembering that they've pledged, and realizing they haven't seen an update in forever.

2. "the day he'll stop deserving it, to their eyes" as you describe it, will mean that they'd already given him a load of money that they'll never get back. Which, in turn, means that the next time they're tempted to support a new developer, they may not do so, because they'll remember feeling screwed over.

 

[privitude]

This method also means a Dev who devotes a ton of time to their game, and say makes an update every 3 months... gets paid every 3 months.

Dunno about you, but I can't pay my bills in quarterly installments, they want them monthly.

It's the same thing. Plenty of people get paid this way. You just have to learn how to budget.

Monthly

• You have to pay $1250/month in rent and are automatically deducted from your account.
• Your other typical bills amount $500/month and are automatically deducted from your account.
• Your take-home is $3,000/month for your work.
• You have $1250 left, and if you're wise you probably want to split that into weekly chunks so that you don't over-spend the first week or two and find yourself in trouble in the 3rd of 4th week.

Quarterly

• You have to pay $1250/month in rent and are automatically deducted from your account.
• Your other typical bills amount $500/month and are automatically deducted from your account.
• Your take-home is $9,000/quarter for your work.
• You keep $5,250 set aside to ensure that you have $1750/month for those automatic bill deductions.
• You have $3,750 left, and if you're wise you probably want to split that into weekly chunks so you don't over-spend early and find yourself in trouble later.

There are quite a few lines of work that are like this. And I can tell you from first-hand experience, when you're running your own one-man business, odds are very good that your money is going to ebb and flow. I once made ten grand in a month and didn't see another penny of income for the next ten weeks. Budgeting is part of the game.

At the end of the day, if you're unhappy with how a Dev works, don't support them.

The trouble with this is that it's not like your typical retail game scenario. If I love Bioware, I can buy the next Mass Effect. If I hate them, I can skip it. I get the game if pay. No game = no money lost. No problem. With supporting devs on Patreon, if it's different. If it's Feb. 2018 and I'm playing Milfy City, I'm going to be impressed and want to give money to ICSTOR for making such a great game. Fast forward two years, though; and I've been giving this guy $5-$10 a month and I haven't seen hide nor hair of a game update in eight months.

Sure, I can go with "just don't support them" but if my pledge was $10/month? I'm now out $80 for nothing! The community as a whole is out five digits as they slowly decide to "just don't support them." That sucks. That shouldn't be a thing anyone has to worry about.

If you want to look at Milkers, go and search by game and filter by likes.
There's a game that has just released an update of 400 renders that has taken over $100,000 in donations and released nothing else in nearly 2 years, that's less than 2 renders a day for over 100k a year...

The trouble with this is that you don't know that's going to be the case until it's too late and the dev has already milked their patrons for thousands of dollars without ROI.

 

[privitude]

One way to support a developer is by respecting their artistic integrity, what I mean to say by this is that many people on this forum are overtly negative about choices developers make in their games and a fan favourite in this regard is "NTR".

Example:
https://f95zone.to/threads/home-prisoner-episode-1-beta-inqel-interactive.89348

This game has been recently released, the tags have NTR in them even though there's no NTR-content as of yet but it at least serves as a warning for those that don't like it. The thread however was subsequently dumpster-trucked by the anti-NTR crowd hating on the dev for this choice and/or the lack of clarity whether it's avoidable or not.

The developer has mentioned he's open for feedback and will decide how he will develop the game further accordingly.

This is just one of the many examples that I believe is the reason that some developers just lose interest, as the negativity on this forum alone is simply dreadful, that I can only imagine the hate they get on Discord/Twitter/Patreon or other social communities.

What...what does any of this have to do with anything in this thread?

 

[anne O'nymous]

Because people play his games, pledge a few bucks, and then forget that they've done so. He gets away with their money because they've forgotten to to cancel.

Yes, except - again - people play his games, pledge a few bucks, and then forget that they've done so. He gets away with their money because they've forgotten to to cancel.

In other words, it doesn't occur to them that they're being milked because they don't remember that they're being charged.

Two major flaws with this argument:

1. It's based entirely on them remembering that they've pledged, and realizing they haven't seen an update in forever.

So, according to you, and you must be 100% convinced about this since you said it four times, those persons can't remember that they pledge for this or that author, and apparently also never check their bank account or question the debits they see there.

But in the same time, you expect the same persons to remember that it's the time of the month where they have to remember all the games they want to support, judge their advancement accordingly to their memory of what the author did during the month, then remember how much they decided to give, and adjust this amount accordingly to their judgment, before putting this money aside. And finally, they have to remember to check the patreon page to see if there's finally an update and the time came for them to remember how much they put aside and give this money to the author.

What they can not remember:

• For what game they pledge.

What they'll have no pain to remember:

• All the games they want to pledge for ;
• Everything regarding the game in order to judge if the delay worth it or not ;
• How much they decided to give last month ;
• To regularly check if the game have been updated ;
• How much they put aside for this game since the last update.

Where is the coherence exactly ? You defend you idea with arguments that goes against it and totally invalidate its interest.

I find it ironic that at the beginning of your comment, you're high on telling me about how people have different opinions, and how what I think sucks they may like; and here you are talking about how you can't understand why the game you like isn't seeing the amount of support as this other game that you don't like.

Don't find it ironic, it's all in your head.
I compared the quality of the two games, what have absolutely nothing to do with me liking one or the other.
In terms of quality, Corrupted Kingdom is far above WVM, but I don't play it, while I play WVM each time a full day update is released. This for the exact same reason that there's people who support Slonique, they find his games entertaining enough.

 

[privitude]

So, according to you, and you must be 100% convinced about this since you said it four times, those persons can't remember that they pledge for this or that author, and apparently also never check their bank account or question the debits they see there.

1. We're no longer in the days of primarily paying for things in cash and occasionally using a check, then balancing our check books. Unless there's a huge discrepency (the account is a couple hundred bucks less than they thought it would be) most people do not review every single purchase that they make and confirm it's correct. Combine this with the commonality of subscription services and it's actually pretty well documented that people forgetting they're subscribed to services happens constantly.
   You must be registered to see the links
   . That's over a hundred million people just in my country alone.
2. Patreon does not itemize their debits. If you're like me and you support multiple people, you get a single charge for the combine total, which just says "Patreon." Nothing says "Patreon - [name of disappeared dev]
3. ICSTOR was making 5 figures per month after not releasing an update for a year and a half. You seriously think that many people were making a conscious decision to support that? 100% guarantee that a lot of those people didn't even remember they were still pledging.

But in the same time, you expect the same persons to remember that it's the time of the month where they have to remember all the games they want to support, judge their advancement accordingly to their memory of what the author did during the month, then remember how much they decided to give, and adjust this amount accordingly to their judgment, before putting this money aside.

No. You're over-complicating things for no reason. Once a month, you have a "Patreon Day." You look at who you're following, you set aside a few bucks for the list of people you want to support. When one of those people release an update, you pay them.

And finally, they have to remember to check the patreon page to see if there's finally an update and the time came for them to remember how much they put aside and give this money to the author.

...or you can just use emailed updates. Or follow the thread here. There's a hundred ways of tracking that and getting reminders very easily.

Don't find it ironic, it's all in your head.

I compared the quality of the two games, what have absolutely nothing to do with me liking one or the other.
In terms of quality, Corrupted Kingdom is far above WVM, but I don't play it, while I play WVM each time a full day update is released. This for the exact same reason that there's people who support Slonique, they find his games entertaining enough.

It's not "all in my head." You just did it again. The "quality" of Corrupted Kingdom is entirely subjective! You think it's a high-quality game. I think it's crap. Plenty of other people think WVM is of far better quality. You are literally making a personal judgement call on what you think is a higher quality game, after lecturing me about people's opinions.

 

[Carrera]

I support a -lot- of games,,, AFTER THEY'RE FINISHED.

If you want money, finish your fucking game, stop milking it for all it's worth, fix the bugs in a timely manner and timely is the majority's idea of timely not yours.

Crowd funding is a plague, so is Early Access.

 

[おい！]

 

[anne O'nymous]

ICSTOR was making 5 figures per month after not releasing an update for a year and a half. You seriously think that many people were making a conscious decision to support that? 100% guarantee that a lot of those people didn't even remember they were still pledging.

In addition to the fact that you are totally missing the point, look at the evolution of his

You must be registered to see the links

. There's the usual drop at the start of the month, a drop that all creators have, but every month he's also getting new patrons.
The curve also prove you wrong, people know how to unsubscribe. Last year, he lost around 2.000 patrons. Near to a third of his base thought that he wasn't deserving it anymore. Then this year, because of the real lack of updates, he is loosing between 1.000 and 2.000 patrons each month, but in the same time, despite this real lack of updates, he is getting near to the same amount of new patrons.

Firstly it mean that, unlike what you said, people remember that they pledge, and can decide that he don't deserve it anymore.
Secondly, even assuming that a third of his patrons do not remember that they pledge for him, and removing the new patrons, it sill left near to 2.000 persons that pledge knowingly, thinking that he deserve their money for a least one more month.
Thirdly, it mean that each month, there's between 1.000 and 2.000 persons who decide that he deserve some of their money, while knowing that he released nothing since a long time, and will probably release nothing this month.

No. You're over-complicating things for no reason. Once a month, you have a "Patreon Day." You look at who you're following, you set aside a few bucks for the list of people you want to support. When one of those people release an update, you pay them.

What still imply that you'll remember that you've to do that, you'll remember how much you initially decided to give to each of them, and you'll remember how much you put aside for each of them. This while being totally unable to remember that you pledge for him...
The problem stay the same even with less steps. You are expecting from them something that you are claiming as being above their capabilities: remembering.

The "quality" of Corrupted Kingdom is entirely subjective!

Well, I pity you if you aren't able to discard your own taste will judging the quality of something.
This said, it change nothing to the fact that is was all in your head. Your initial assertion is that it's my favorite game among the two. If it was true, it would be the game I play, not the one I don't play.

 

[RomanHume]

The Problem

Ideally, if we can afford it, we should all be supporting the development of the games we play. But if you’re anything like me, you’ve gotten a little sick of the predictable cycle of

• Developer begins new game. It shows lots of promise, and he’s excited about working on it.
• You donate and the updates come regularly for six months
• The updates slow to a crawl
• Th developer announces “he’s taking a break for ‘health reasons’” or just disappears all together.

The problem, as I see it, is that the Patreon system not only provides not motivation to release timely updates, it actually rewards a certain amount of slowness, because if you can get people to donate monthly, then release an update quarterly, your income is effectively more stable. I’ve come up with a better way. If the following seems confusing, don’t worry, I’ll provide an example at the end.

The "Banking" Method

• Establish how much you think is a fair monthly rate to support a developer
• Establish what you think is a reasonable expectation for delivery of updates. This can be a static time period, but I suggest varying it depending on the complexity of the game.
• Establish how long a developer can go between updates before you think “OK, either this guy is gone or this project is just a scam.”
• Every month, set aside the amount you decided in step 1, up to the amount of time established in step 2
• When the developer updates, donate the money you set aside, and let them know you’ll donate again the next time they release an update.
• If the developer exceeds the length established in step 3, just take the money back. Go buy yourself something nice. If you want, you can give them another chance by re-starting the clock when they release next.

So, let’s do an example. Let’s say I want to support Dr. Armana, Sexual Therapist. A fantastic game. If you haven’t played it, go do so. Some of the best writing ever. I decide that I would support this game at a rate of $5/month, and I would expect an update every 4 months. After 8 months, I’d kind of give up. So our parameters are set.

So RomanHume releases an update, and the clock starts. I put $5 away. I do the same thing a month from now. If he releases an update in two months (that’s too quick, I know), I donate $10, and the clock starts over. If he releases an update in 4 months, I donate $20. When the 5th month rolls around, I just hang on to the money. Not adding anymore. If he exceed 8 months, I spend the $20 on a Pizza or something.

When I donate, I include a donation message that says

Thanks for the update! I’ll be back to donate more when you release your next update!

What Does This Do?

Well, by not donating until an update is released, the developer is motivated to release. Because they know that they’re not getting paid until they do, and they’re potentially getting paid a lot when they do so.

By not letting the “bank” grow beyond (step 1*step 2) the developer is motivated to keep a regular schedule. The longer he goes between quality updates, the more he starts to lose money.

By including step 4, you money is never completely wasted. It will still suck if you donate to a project that just gets dropped completely; but at least you’re not in a situation where you spend $50-$100 without ever getting an update.

Why It's Admittedly Not a Perfect System

When a developer only gets paid on release day, it motivates them to push out updates, even if that means rushing something. Obviously that's not ideal.

That said, most of these games are listed as being in "beta" stages. That's supposed to mean that it's in a testing phase. It's not that hard to put up update/patch/change logs including a "known issues" section. They could even release simple bug-fix patches between full updates. Honestly, I think it would foster a stronger sense of trust between developer and user, if it was more obvious that progress was being made.

Wow. Ok. Well since I was taken as the case study, I guess I get to respond. Fair enough. Let's talk some numbers!

I first just want to update this list so that it properly reflects me.

• Developer begins new game. It shows lots of promise, and he’s excited about working on it.
• You donate and the updates come regularly for six months
• The updates slow to a crawl because the developer starts getting good and now he's writing longer chapters in excess of 35,000 words and his image count is over 1300 images for an update.
• The developer's full time job demands some over time which is kind of fair since he works from home and regularly steals time from his regular job to work on his game and so he has to dip out for a month to play catch up with the real job before announcing he's back and ready to kick some more ass.

Alright, now that we've cleared that up. Let's talk about the flaw of your plan.

At it's peak, during the 'good months' right after a release, my game makes just over $1k. You can verify this on Graphtreon because my numbers are published publicly because I'm not trying to jam anyone up.

Now, usually it's between $800 and $950, but let's play with the big number of $1k. (And I won't get nit-picky and point out the chunk of that Patreon takes.)

So, let's say I didn't have the regular job and I was just jamming away on this game for 40 hours a week.

$1,000 / 40 hours a week / 4 weeks in a month = $6.25 an hour!

Now that's assuming I keep 100% of the earnings and don't have to pay Patreon, or taxes, or pay for assets, or pay for hardware or licensing for Marvelous Designer, Photoshop and Substance.

Now to be fair, last month I probably only got to log in about 10 hours a week on the game while sitting around airports and flying to and fro for the other job. So that month IF I had made $1k, which I didn't, and IF, I kept 100% of the earnings, I would have made around $25 a hour. Which is still $8 less than the average 3D modeler makes.

Now, many months I only get to log about 20 to 25 hours on the game per week. So in those months IF, I kept 100% of $1,000, I'd be pulling in $10 an hour. Meaning I'd still do better flipping burgers out a drive thru window.

Finally, on the months that we're close to a release, like when Cassie's release dropped back in February, I was pushing close to 60 hours a week because I was also working on Saturday and Sunday which I generally don't do. So near the end of a release, IF I'm making $1,000 and keeping 100% of it, I'm making less than $5 an hour to produce this game.

That's right, I'd pull in HALF of what an average parking attendant in Florida makes. Assuming I was always making $1k a month (which I'm not) and assuming I get to keep 100% of it and don't have expenses.


The Patreon income is what keeps this game going by paying for assets and software licenses. Without that, I'd have throw in the towel a long time ago.

In light of which I'd say I'm an exceptionally goddamned motivated developer for having kept this up for 2 years on such a tiny pittance. Because generally I like to think that my free time is worth more than $5 and hour. And don't forget that $1k is the high mark. The majority of my time spent developing has earned me less than a guy getting paid to dip french fries in animal fat.



So your plan to offer me 1/8 of what the guy at Taco Bell is making in order to "motivate me" is going to fall flat on its ass.

Them's is just the ekonimics of the thang.
Thanks for coming out.

 

[Hadley]

Thats a terrible system. I never paid more than 10$ to any Dev. What I want are finished Games, so Devs should try to make the best possible Game and then release it (on Steam). Games can make a shit ton of money on Steam if they are more than generic garbage and that should be the motivation here.

Devs should not act any different than any Indie-Dev. I dont get why Adult-Games have these weird thing of "support". Fucking create a Game and publish it (in EA) on Steam. If its good, it will make money.