So, I'll do this once because anyone coming to the defense of this game is not arguing in good faith.
What is this? It's like you're saying that no one else has a valid opinion or can talk about what you're saying even when you're flat out wrong/lying?
Perspective:
- Creator makes $60k a month off this game from Patreon.
Sure. As of yesterday monthly total hit $60K which is the first time they've come close to that amount. Through this development cycle for 19.0, all the previous months were low to mid $50Ks. Which is a shit ton of money, most everyone agrees.
- Works on the art solo since launch Aug 2016 + staff for coding added the past year.
They've had staff for dialogue, art, coding, with more than one person in these roles since at least version 10.0. This hasn't been a one man show for a very long time.
- Since launch in Aug 2016, made $1mil in 3 years.
Yeah they've collected Patreon "fees" of a million $ since launch. As per above, this is a lot of money.
The update schedule 'stabilised' to how it is, every 3-5 months, 2 years ago. Taking longer despite making more money, 'not a grift' lol.
This is certainly misrepresentation on your part. Releases 11.0 and 11.6 took 9 weeks, 12.1 and 12.6 took 11 weeks, 13.1 took 8 weeks, and 14.1 and 14.3 took 9 weeks. All of these releases were half the size or less than the ones we have gotten since, and were worse in quality (mostly due to improved animations, but there were other improvements). When they started working on 15.0 they announced they were going to make the development cycles twice as long, but at the same time release twice as much content. This was obvious right off the bat, as the teacher update was massive compared to previous individual updates. Can you tell me how working at the same pace, yet more efficient, is grifting?
1) The creator has total control over how the money is spent. Pocketing it and taking longer to release updates is grifting the system.
I don't know if you misread my comment or are being willfully obtuse with your response. I said Patreon creators have no control on how much money comes in, I didn't say anything about not how they spend it. There's no caps on Patreon donations as far as I know. What are you expecting from them? "Oh, we've reached 2000 Patreons now, we don't want your money anymore."
It's like they are street buskers playing music in a subway, they just take whatever money people are dropping in their bucket and keep on playing their music. The only difference is the scale.
2) I'm sure the $60k a month in Patreon money has nothing to do with it.
It was free Month 1 when they made $343, and it's been free every month since, so it's pretty clear that how much money they are given each month had nothing to do with them releasing it for free.
3) If we're talking 4-5 months between updates the past 2 years and the game released at 0.1 when the Patreon went up, that's an update every month for the first year then slowing to once every 4ish months once over $15k a month was rolling in. 'not grifting'
Again, see my comment above. They've increased the length of time between releases, but also increased the amount of content. In the end, we're getting the same ratio of content as before, and arguably better quality.
4) Artists stream for free all the time, what king of a justification even is this? Sharing your process with fans isn't a luxury, it's a smart way to connect with fans and get valuable feedback/constructive criticism FOR FREE.
When I said you could literally watch the artist work, it was a reference to the transparency of the work process. You can literally see the speed at which he works, and by virtue of him doing it most days of the week, you can see that it's not like DC is sitting around twiddling his thumbs.
If this isn't a grift, what has the creator done different since establishing the update schedule 2 years ago? The monthly has quadrupled, so if you can't update any faster... maybe start another game? Make use of the fans money instead of pocketing it with nothing to show for it.
That doesn't make any sense. Just because the month $ have increased, it doesn't mean he can draw any faster. Sure the dialogue writer, the posers and the coders can work on other games, but how is that useful when there's no art for the game.
It's 100% a grift, the update model hasn't changed in 2 years and the income since has quadrupled. The payment system is not at fault, the creator has the responsibility to spend the money and has chosen to simply pocket it all. This is up to the Patreon's to reward/punish, and clearly horny is getting in the way of punishment. Guess the creator doesn't have much of a conscience regarding the situation either. In this case, Patreon forcing audits would be the only solution.
What's this responsibility you refer to? They had a bunch of "stretch goals" and as far as I know when each of the levels was met, they hired at least one new person:
$10,000 goal (Music and coding)
$15,000 goal (Extra Help Lvl 1)
$20,000 goal (Extra Help Lvl 2)
$25,000 goal (Extra Help Lvl 3)
DC also even followed through of the $30,000 goal which was to do one of his streams nude. He did it one night while wearing a rubber horse head.
That gets to the crux of the issue. The creator of SS is doing nothing for all the extra money coming in, same way a pyramid scheme rewards the person at the top the most for doing absolutely nothing past starting the scheme in the first place.
FFS, you clearly don't understand what a pyramid scheme is. Each layer in a pyramid scheme makes money off the larger base below it. Outside of DC, who is making money off SS besides him and his EEs? I sure as fuck am not making money off the game. Are you?
Hopefully at some point Patreon will be required to audit projects so there is some semblance of transparency where the money is actually going, so runaway grift's like SS can be reigned in. Because based upon the response from some users here, Patreon's aren't likely to demand accountability for SS anytime soon.
After they cleaned up the incest, they aren't breaking any Patreon rules, so why on Earth would Patreon audit them?? Here's Patreon's TOS link, feel free to bring up any items that SS is not adhering to.
You must be registered to see the links