Hi everyone,
first things first. A heartfelt welcome to all new members. Happy to have you and I hope you will enjoy your time with Summer and the bunch. I am currently less active than usual due to a jam-packed schedule, which leaves hardly any room for side content I'm afraid. I apologize and promise that things will go back to normal once version 1.0 has been released. Thank you all for your patience.
As mentioned in the recent Quick Update post, today's news will be a bit longer than usual, but I consider it be an extraordinarily important topic for obvious reasons, so please bear with me. I will make this post available to all members, free and paid, due to its importance.
Now let's talk about the big fat elephant in the room. Yes, I'm talking about the dire situation we adult game devs and players find ourselves in these days due to itch.io's delisting of adult games after having been pressured by payment processors, banks, fringe "activist" groups and whatnots. The situation on Steam seems to be more stable as of now, but we are far from being safe there just yet. It is an ongoing struggle and I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who put the work in, making phone calls, writing emails, increasing our chances towards a positive outcome. You rock!
I'd like to give you some insights into the harsh reality I and many other devs have to deal with ever since this whole shabang started. I will primarily talk about my own situation in order to generate awareness, but it can also be applied to many other devs.
Without the upcoming Steam release on the horizon, I'd be in serious financial trouble right now. Due to the delisting on itch, sales have tanked and are almost non-existent anymore. I'm currently losing roughly $800-$1000 (average monthly income via itch) of the approx. $2500 I have available per month (Patreon, SubscribeStar and itch). The following screenshot of my most recent itch stats will give you an idea of the impact the delisting has.
For many, this would already be an unsustainable endeavour, taking quitting into serious consideration. And I wouldn't blame them from a purely financial standpoint. But Summer In The City has turned from a learning experience into a project of passion for me and I'm not willing to give it up for mere monetary reasons, so don't worry about that. Our Pumpkin will prevail... always.
I am NOT asking for money (at least not for myself), I want to make that absolutely clear. The Steam release will very likely keep me above water for the time being (in the best case it'll shoot me up high into the sky but... let's remain realistic here). I merely want to make people aware of the issues many of our favorite, less fortunate devs are currently struggling with. Even though our "enemies" have only been partially successful, which is bad enough already, there now lies another, more quiet danger ahead: many of our favorite projects running dry.
What I'm trying to say is, don't take our games for granted. Many of us devs invest blood, sweat and tears into our projects, not to mention the financial risk we take in order to provide you with smutty fun stuff. Support the projects you're emotionally attached to or otherwise invested in, if you can afford it. This is more important right now than ever before. Keep sharing promising projects with your fellow smut connoisseurs. Livelihoods are at stake. Seriously! I will be supporting cool projects too with the money I make from Steam. I will share these projects with you too, so expect more promos from here on out. We're all in this together.
Even though there's much, much more I could talk about when it comes to this particular matter, I just wanted to shine some light on this aspect of the situation this time around.
Let's move on to why we're all here in the first place. I sent Summer In The City over to Steam for review on August 1st. I was hoping it would be fully concluded by now, but I received a message two days ago that I have to fix two very minor issues, one of which has already been fixed. I've contacted Steam regarding the other issue since I felt the need for some clarification on how to handle the issue, but haven't heard back yet. It's just a very minor thing though, absolutely nothing to be worried about. I'm very confident that the next review will go through successfully. I was hoping to share the good news with all of you today, but I guess we'll have to wait a tiny bit longer. I'm going to publish another post as soon as it's official.
The development goes well but there's one thing I can tell you for certain: I need a vacation!!! So here's my plan for the time right after the Steam release. I'm going to do some bug fixing and polishing (if necessary) for another week and then I piss right the fuck off for two weeks. Pardon my French. I'm still going to post some cool stuff I've been working. So you're not going to get rid of me completely for those two weeks I'm afraid.
I've learned so much over the past one and a half years ever since I jumped blindly and naively into this amazing journey, but there are still many things I need to improve. Time management and workflow are some things I'm still struggling with. I have so many ideas I'd like to make a reality, I just never seem to have the time. Need to keep my scope reasonable as well as manageable. I'm also pretty spent right now hence the vacation. Gonna charge myself up and jump right into the development of season two as soon as I'm back.
I was originally planning two updates for season two this year, but I'm pretty sure I won't be able to make it without putting myself into an early grave. Okay, I'm exaggerating a bit here, but mental health is indeed something everyone should keep an eye on, no?!
Alright, let's see who actually read all this flippin' stuff. You know how it works, right? Write "Biggus Dickus" in the comments if you read my ramblings.
Thanks everyone for your support and patience. I really need to come up with a cooler send-off, I know. But I mean it! As always, much love! And stay hydrated. It's freakin' hot today, ugh.
Flip
