Thank you for commenting.
Maybe was not good enough getting my point through in my post. My apologies. English is not my native tongue and one single comment was maybe not enough.
My point was - you don't need to pour a ton of capital into your first game. Your first forray into the gaming world does not have to be Citizen Kane. Spend some time to create a solid experience and show people what you are capeable of. If you really need funds - you could start a kickstarter or whatever. This is not an insurmountable problem. The 0.01s look overwhelmingly like cashgrabs and only a fraction ever gets finished.
I don't know how you define "strongest". Are these the games that brings in the most money or offer the best gaming experience? I'm not saying the episodes approach never work - but it takes a lot of management skill to pull of. Another thing sorely lacking in wegs. The vast amount of games a solo-projects from people with close to zero development experience. Some of them are talented writers or artists but it takes so much more to pull of a successful development cycle with constant updates without loosing the overarching perspective.
What you end up with is the current state of affairs. Never ending projects with frequent but miniscule updates taking the overall experience nowhere. It feels like many devs are hampered as they constantly have to satisfy the cravings of the patreons. There is never time to optimize the GUI or fix broken code because people want content. That is after all what you promised them. And thus you can't deliver an update without exactly that. That is why we see rushed sex and broken mechanics. Oh and my favourite pet peeve - new characters. If you ever run out of ideas just throw in some new piece of meat. That should buy you some time.
You are a developer yourself - how do you tackle these obstacles? What would be the ultimate environment for you to work in?
Let me repeat myself. You do not have the slightest understanding of the WEG market unless you understand capital.
What does it take to make a "polished" first release?
Art/Renders
User Interface
Sound/Music
Gameplay Design
Writing
Coding
Can you do all six of those? I don't know many people who can. You can fudge it in some areas. Pick up free music via public domain.
Renders seem easier at first glance, but they can quite hard, and even harder if you don't have an expensive rig for them.
A polished demo with one hour of gameplay? The kind you're decrying the lack of? That can run you anywhere from 5k-20k easily, depending on how much of the above skillset you have.
Also no, most folks can't write polished porn stories either. It's a skillset that takes years to develop.
Truth is, the way that most people "show their skills" isn't by themselves. It takes a team. And a team takes capital.
Now, you suggested kickstarter? But, how much do you think you'll bring in via kickstarter without a demo? Without lots of sample art? Without name brand recognition?
Do you think you could slap together a Kickstarter right now and make 5k overnight? I'm an experienced game writer and designer with a half-decade of industry contacts, and the prospect of a Kickstarter is one I find challenging.
Oh, and don't forget marketing and production skills. Do you have the technologic and filmographic skills to make an enticing game trailer? How about marketing it?
Of course not. That's *nonsense*.
Game development in the modern era is almost entirely a team sport. And teams take capital. Capital we can't raise easily on the front end.
So, what most folks who want to get started do is they make a crappy, low quality, alpha. They don't spend a lot. They use whatever pre-existing skill base they have.
...AND THAT'S THE TEST. Can they market that Alpha? Are people intirested in what they can do? If so, then they'll slowly build up a Patreon following over time so they can develop those resources. To build and pay a team.
That's why there are so many "crappy" alphas. Because they aren't really a full game at all. They're a pitch to the consumer.