The games they are a fleeing or is it fleecing?

[crusherg]

I have noticed a lot of abandoned games in here. What sucks is that some of them are pretty good and really need to continue.
Yet they don't. Perhaps the developer gets tired and bored with their game and want to move on to another or that there not getting
fundage back from their Patreon page to which they need to continue to upgrade their games or etc. Either way it sucks for the players because
it leaves them high and dry and disappointed(hmmm...just like sex)when they play the game and find out that's it...no continuation of the game or nothing!
It kind puts that idea in the mind that the creator was just looking for a fast Patreon buck and just like the wild west they got their gold and got the heck out of
dodge. Think about this....30,000 a month(300g's per year) and all you have to do is update your game 3 times a year if possible. Now I know there is more to it
then just updating the story and such like equipment, programming and etc. but 30g's damn! What job out there offers that? Certainly not Mcds!
So if you creaters out there are listening.....finish the game at least if not for the player for yourself and who knows maybe new inspiration may come of
it. Leave no regret! Or that saying that your parents used to tell you all the time...don't start what you can't finish!

 

[215303j]

Meh. Are you actually paying for anything yourself? If not, you don't have the right to complain.

Most of the time, devs start this as a hobby or maybe as a second job. If it's a second job, it needs to bring in sufficient money. If for some reason, it doesn't, then it's time to abandon the game. If it is as a hobby, well, people do get stuck, bored or life just gets in the way.

The only reasons when people have the right to complain about games being abandoned are:
1) They are actually financially supporting the dev, via patreon or otherwise
and
2) The dev is actually making enough to be able continue.

Remember that even if you are supporting on patreon, nobody is guaranteeing a finished game. That's just not how it works.
If you can't deal with this, then I suggest to search for "completed" games only.

 

[c3p0]

1. Not of all most adult games have less than 30G per months, see:
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   1. Also even if you earn 30G it depens on how big your staff is. 30G for Central Europa is not that much. If you use some of it for hard times foresight, pay all a normal salary and so on, I think 4 addtional to yourself would be possible. If you're in another part of the world this could be a lot.
2. Patrons don't buy a game and they don't buy a product, they support a developer. Most times it comes with goodies, but this is not mandatory
3. Most of them comes with a (great) idea. Then they used a lot of their free time and release their first version. And not all of them will have success. So they give up because:
   1. it is harder than they have thought
   2. they don't like the criticism
   3. the game don't earn as much as the like
   4. stress (Patrons demanding a regular release cycle can be stressfull alone and in combination with RL troubles even more)
   5. change of TOS in their distributing platform or even without change of TOS demand to change the game from them

And it is to differ between games that are new & abandoned and older ones that are abandoned.

The rest is already pointed out by Thialf.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Most of them comes with a (great) idea. Then they used a lot of their free time and release their first version. And not all of them will have success. So they give up because:

1. it is harder than they have think before
2. they don't like the criticism
3. the game don't earn as much as the like
4. stress (Patrons demanding a regular release cycle can be stressfull alone and in combination with RL troubles even more)
5. change of TOS in their distributing platform or even without change of TOS demand to change the game from them

There's also the personal issues. At least one dev :

• had to face the (long and painful) illness of a child ;
• have been kicked out of his home because he couldn't pay the rent anymore ;
• have been kicked our of his home by his girlfriend (was it is wife ?) when she discovered that he was an adult game author ;
• have suffered from big hurricane in Puerto Rico (he's back now if I remember correctly) ;
• faced the death of his best friend in a car crash they were in ;
• faced the death of a parent.

[Note: Don't ask, I'll not name a single one of them. It's their personal life, we know what happened, but they did it out of courtesy, not because it's our concern. If you recognize them, good for you, else it doesn't matter, right ?]

They are humans like everyone of us, and they face as much hard times than we do. Yes, like OP said it's sometimes sad that a game become abandoned, but sometimes this sadness is nothing in comparison of the reason...
Hell, statistically speaking, there's even at least one game that is now abandoned because of its author death.

 

[c3p0]

...

• have suffered from big hurricane in Puerto Rico (he's back now if I remember correctly) ;

....
Hell, statistically speaking, there's even at least one game that is now abandoned because of its author death.

If it the same dev I have know, he should be back, but the situation isn't near normal...

And in addition to this some of the devs health as good as it is normal as this also is an option before camping under a bridge...
So if their health tack a turn for the worse, the game isn't their top priority (or shoudn't be)

Latest statement: Is this a fact or only a statistic statement?

 

[anne O'nymous]

Later statement: Is this a fact or only a statistic statement?

In my mind it's only a statistic statement, but who know about the reality ?

I mean, if your husband/wife/father/mother/best friend die, searching for his/her patreon login and writing an announce is far to be your priority. This assuming that you know that (s)he was an adult games author and that people cared about it. If it's a well know author truthful with his relative, perhaps that we would hear about it. Same if it's a team and they are really connected, but else he will just disappear and none of us will never know why.

 

[HopesGaming]

Less then 1% makes 30k a month. And many of those got that number for being the first one in the market. Back when the market was new and no competition. Nowadays there are so many games being released on a daily basis.

In reality, it's mostly people overestimating patreon and lack of understanding of how it actually works.
New devs included.
There is so much talk about easy money and milking that many new devs go into this thinking it will be easy.
They copy paste the popular template (incest, fast sex, no real render work as it needs to be as fast as possible)
Release the game and is baffled that they only have a couple of patrons in the first 1-2 months.
Another fact is that only a margin (single digit percentile) of the player base will patron.
Which means you have a shitton of players demand you to do well and release on time but only a few patrons that can support the stress involved in it.

They do not care if this is simply a hobby for you - they want it to be released in the same schedule as the top 1% earned games that do this fulltime.
They do not care for your personal life or health issues - they want nonstop working. Or you're milking the 5 patrons according to it.
Hell, I had my first delay due to a health issue. And a guy wanted the on hold tag and for me to lose my patreon earnings.
(Notice nowadays these guys are in the minority and not everyone is like this, but those people exist)

This will then give immense pressure and stress to the hobby dev. Not only did he/she/it fail his wild imagination of a big earned game due to the way people talk about patron but now also have to work on this almost full time.
They buckle under and abandon the game.

But like everything in life, the view of patreon and adult market is slowly changing as this marked is not as new as it was 2 years ago.
More devs are being active with the community and sharing their thoughts and experience. More people are being devs themselves and gaining experience and sharing. And people are learning how it really is. And becoming more understanding.

 

[c3p0]

...
They do not care if this is simply a hobby for you - they want it to be released in the same schedule as the top 1% earned games that do this fulltime.
They do not care for your personal life or health issues - they want nonstop working. Or you're milking the 5 patrons according to it.
Hell, I had my first delay due to a health issue. And a guy wanted the on hold tag and for me to lose my patreon earnings.
(Notice nowadays these guys are in the minority and not everyone is like this, but those people exist)
...

I'm sure almost everyone know one dev that has missed his own dead-line. Even if they announce it before and state the reason for this (as more content or health issue) at least one complains about it.

If you support someone you have plenty options in this case:

• you can understand his reason and don't let the missed dead-line bother you
• you can pull the plug
• you can complain, I would recommend you first prove that you support him. What you or the dev do with this I don't know
  
• you can set out your payment for this period and support him again after this issue

From the devs I support no one was gone MIA by choice. Those who were gone MIA there was always a personal major tragedy behind it.

Also I can't hear the phrase "the dev milking his patrons". If someone don't like what he gets from his money then pull the plug. But no dev can milk you because you can always pull the plug as a supporter.

 

[Akamari]

Also I can't hear the phrase "the dev milking his patrons". If someone don't like what he gets from his money then pull the plug. But no dev can milk you because you can always pull the plug as a supporter.

Right.. If I facepalmed everytime I read about "milking", my face would be all red. Every patron has full control of their pledges. They can quit and rejoin anytime.

No one has any right to complain about what others do with their money. I always find the term more insulting towards the patrons rather than the devs.

 

[Flecc]

Milking , I am sure their are a few that do but i also think a vast majority are honest and games have failed due to reasons that have been posted above .

having supported a few devs over the years i have only hit one that hasn't come to completion of the project i have supported

As said above by
Akamari
as a patreon you are in control you can leave at any time .


You will only get milked if you allow it .a heavy dollop of common sense is all that is needed to save yourself from unscrupulous Devs .As above a very small minority in my opinion

 

[crusherg]

Thanks for all your replies! I like to play games and its tough to see a game that you like go abandoned no matter what happen with the creator or developer. Also I wasn't complaining about how much the developer or creator makes off of Patreon in fact if they are killing it that's frickin awesome! I just hate it when good games go unfinished though and you see them on the retreads and you play them and then you see the word abandoned right after you play it....suddenly disappointment comes over you. Again I will look for the completed games first before the abandoned ones.

 

[crusherg]

Thanks for all your replies! I like to play games and its tough to see a game that you like go abandoned no matter what happen with the creator or developer. Also I wasn't complaining about how much the developer or creator makes off of Patreon in fact if they are killing it that's frickin awesome! I just hate it when good games go unfinished though and you see them on the retreads and you play them and then you see the word abandoned right after you play it....suddenly disappointment comes over you. Again I will look for the completed games first before the abandoned ones.

 

[c3p0]

Thanks for all your replies! I like to play games and its tough to see a game that you like go abandoned no matter what happen with the creator or developer. Also I wasn't complaining about how much the developer or creator makes off of Patreon in fact if they are killing it that's frickin awesome! I just hate it when good games go unfinished though and you see them on the retreads and you play them and then you see the word abandoned right after you play it....suddenly disappointment comes over you. Again I will look for the completed games first before the abandoned ones.

This comes with the development model. In the SFW gaming industry the whole development process is was behind a curtain and only a few games was shown near the end of their development cycle to the press or customers.
So for one game title that was released more than one was developed and even more than we know were cancelled.

In this game development scene it is the other way around. We see almost all games since their beginning and can follow them as they grow. But we also see all the all the onestthat were abandoned for various reasons. Sure it is nothing we like to see, but we've little options here.
We can only support a dev and be modest. We can't force a dev to develop a game to fit our own preference and even less force him to go on regardless of his own problems.

 

[anne O'nymous]

No one has any right to complain about what others do with their money. I always find the term more insulting towards the patrons rather than the devs.

Clearly. When they write that "this dev's milking", what I personally read is more something like, "look at all those too stupid patrons".
Like you said, it's their money, but I'll go further, it's also their expectations. There's dev's who, from my own point of view that I have and that is only mine, abuse of the situation. But who am I to say that their patrons are effectively abused ?
Perhaps that there's something else behind the game, a secret site that you can access only if you are patrons and that is updated. Ok, I exaggerate, but take Oni by example. He release an update of his game once in a while. But he's an artist before being a game maker, while his game advance slowly, he continue to make beautiful numerical piece of art. And that's an enough reason to pledge.
There's also people who don't care about the delay because they think that the game is good. It's not because myself think that the game is average, that they are wrong to think this way.
And what about the guys that did so much in the past, like Akabur by example. Alright, the do (almost) nothing now, but is it a reason to stop pledging ? "You entertained me for years, but now that you stopped you can starve, I don't care", is it that ?
There's so many reason to pledge. It's not because I wouldn't do it that the ones who do it are wrong.

 

[Domiek]

There's a common misconception in this community where people seem to mix two ideas that are polar opposites.

1) The devs who are here to make a quick buck don't actually make a quick buck. They put out a few updates with a mediocre product and after a few months abandon the game. These devs commonly make under 100$ a month before calling it quits.

2) The devs who create a product that gains them support in the form of $1000 or more a month are putting in a lot of hours and effort to create their game. Again, there is no quick buck being made here.

Using myself as an example. I live in the states. I'm blessed to have the support of 150 patrons and a game thats generally well received. I would make more money working a couple days a week at McDonalds then I do working on my game. There is no "quick buck". Considering monthly deadlines, every single one of my other hobbies have been abandoned and personal relationships strained because nearly all of my free time outside of my day job and sleeping is spent on making the game.

Obviously there will always be exceptions to the rule. I'm sure there are a handful of succesful devs who do indeed milk the system.

I know it sucks when a game is abandoned but I actually think it's a good thing. Those who enter this dev hobby looking for money will be quickly disappointed and leave. Those who do it out of love for the craft will stay. It's no coincidence that in the past year we've had amazing devs like Philly, Hopes and Pink set the bar high. We as a community have higher expecations for what games are worth playing than we did a year ago. Those who are doing it for all the wrong reasons are getting thinned out faster than ever.

 

[Kthulian]

I know it sucks when a game is abandoned but I actually think it's a good thing. Those who enter this dev hobby looking for money will be quickly disappointed and leave. Those who do it out of love for the craft will stay. It's no coincidence that in the past year we've had amazing devs like Philly, Hopes and Pink set the bar high. We as a community have higher expecations for what games are worth playing than we did a year ago. Those who are doing it for all the wrong reasons are getting thinned out faster than ever.

I couldn't agree more, if you don't like what you are doing then you are doomed to fail, if you do it because you like to do it, then it doesn't matter if you make money or not, obviously the dream is to be able to live doing your passion. But being able to live to do your passion is also good.