Ren'Py The Headmaster [v0.17.2.2] [Altos and Herdone]

[oceanbobo4]

too much money can also (and unfortunately often does) demotivate creators. After releasing one or two updates that weren't huge, they didn't notice a drop in revenue, so they make another one that's not as "productive" as they could have, and the money continues to flow. Of course, we're not talking about you, but there are many such creators.

I think you're misinterpreting the situation with these creators/developers.

Supporters notice that the developer has stopped working, and developers who do this, all of them eventually lose everything they've built.


Some supporters notice immediately, others hold on, hoping for work to resume, but eventually, everyone notices.


I doubt it's money that demotivates them, that's never been my experience. When you pay people more, they work harder. That's almost always the result of good pay. Losing good pay means losing a lot, so people make sure they perform.


And the people who can't perform at that level, they lose the money, they lose the job . . .


When you see people lose good jobs, it's often personal problems, drug use or inability to handle pressure -- and they blow themselves up, all their future gone. You see this happen at university too. People work hard to get into a good university (and pursing a degree that will lead to jobs), then blow themselves up when on their own on campus, can't handle the pressure, can't handle independence responsibly.

That's what we're seeing with some of these developers.

It's not the money that "ruins" them. They have other problems; demons in their life.

Or . . . . they just can't do it.

Like you said, a developer starts with a big bang, and supporters think the developer can continue at that high level of performance, so they fund him, he's happy with the money, and tries to continue, but can't maintain that high level of performance, regresses to the mean, and fails.

One hit wonders in game development.


Same as one hit wonders in music.

These musicians aren't lazy, they aren't demotivated by the money they got for their one hit. They don't WANT to have only one hit. They try to get the second hit. But they just can't maintain that high level of performance.

 

[jayblu]

Any hope that the next update has Emily, Donna, Nina, or the School Nurse?

 

[krwiopalczasty]

I think you're misinterpreting the situation with these creators/developers.

Supporters notice that the developer has stopped working, and developers who do this, all of them eventually lose everything they've built.


Some supporters notice immediately, others hold on, hoping for work to resume, but eventually, everyone notices.


I doubt it's money that demotivates them, that's never been my experience. When you pay people more, they work harder. That's almost always the result of good pay. Losing good pay means losing a lot, so people make sure they perform.


And the people who can't perform at that level, they lose the money, they lose the job . . .


When you see people lose good jobs, it's often personal problems, drug use or inability to handle pressure -- and they blow themselves up, all their future gone. You see this happen at university too. People work hard to get into a good university (and pursing a degree that will lead to jobs), then blow themselves up when on their own on campus, can't handle the pressure, can't handle independence responsibly.

That's what we're seeing with some of these developers.

It's not the money that "ruins" them. They have other problems; demons in their life.

Or . . . . they just can't do it.

Like you said, a developer starts with a big bang, and supporters think the developer can continue at that high level of performance, so they fund him, he's happy with the money, and tries to continue, but can't maintain that high level of performance, regresses to the mean, and fails.

One hit wonders in game development.


Same as one hit wonders in music.

These musicians aren't lazy, they aren't demotivated by the money they got for their one hit. They don't WANT to have only one hit. They try to get the second hit. But they just can't maintain that high level of performance.

first example of a developer who, in my opinion, earns too much in relation to what he offers

You must be registered to see the links

he make over 3k $/m and since 2016, when he released his two best games, it hasn't been the same. I used to support him, but after a few years without a game, I stopped. Then he released Star Channel 34, which was very disappointing, and recently Queen Trainer, in which he again tries to revive his former glory, but also unsuccessfully. So do you think that almost 10 years without releasing something as good as Princess Trainer/Witch Trainer deserves 3,000 a month? I don't give a damn what people spend their money on, but I think that if Akabur lost this stable and high income, he would focus more on game development. You may think differently, but you won't convince me. Money can corrupt and cause a decrease in productivity if it's not tied to results, but is merely passive income.

 

[AltosandHerdone]

first example of a developer who, in my opinion, earns too much in relation to what he offers

You must be registered to see the links

he make over 3k $/m and since 2016, when he released his two best games, it hasn't been the same. I used to support him, but after a few years without a game, I stopped. Then he released Star Channel 34, which was very disappointing, and recently Queen Trainer, in which he again tries to revive his former glory, but also unsuccessfully. So do you think that almost 10 years without releasing something as good as Princess Trainer/Witch Trainer deserves 3,000 a month? I don't give a damn what people spend their money on, but I think that if Akabur lost this stable and high income, he would focus more on game development. You may think differently, but you won't convince me. Money can corrupt and cause a decrease in productivity if it's not tied to results, but is merely passive income.

Akabur is a talented artist and one of my main inspirations for starting my game. A perfect example of the importance of supporting an artist you enjoy. Not just for them, but to encourage others to create art and games as well. So, I thank you for supporting him when you did. If you, and others like you, hadn’t done so then The Headmaster (and maybe some other games) might never have come to be.

That said, you don’t seem to have the best grasp of finances, my friend…

$3,500 a month works out to $42,000 a year (minus currency conversion, Patreon fees and all the rest). For context the average salary in the US is about $63,000 a year. I know Akabur is Russian and the cost of living is lower over there, but it’s still really not that much. I don't know the reasons why he has put out varying quantities (and debatably quality) of work over the years. However, I very much doubt that “making too much money” has had the slightest thing to do with it.

You are arguing that he should be made to struggle financially in order to squeeze more art out of him. Maybe that would work in the short term as he feels stressed out and under pressure to maintain his income. However, in the long term he would simply have to move on to something else, and no one would be inspired to replace him. That way of thinking would lead to the slow death of the entire industry.

 

[krwiopalczasty]

Akabur is a talented artist and one of my main inspirations for starting my game. A perfect example of the importance of supporting an artist you enjoy. Not just for them, but to encourage others to create art and games as well. So, I thank you for supporting him when you did. If you, and others like you, hadn’t done so then The Headmaster (and maybe some other games) might never have come to be.

That said, you don’t seem to have the best grasp of finances, my friend…

$3,500 a month works out to $42,000 a year (minus currency conversion, Patreon fees and all the rest). For context the average salary in the US is about $63,000 a year. I know Akabur is Russian and the cost of living is lower over there, but it’s still really not that much. I don't know the reasons why he has put out varying quantities (and debatably quality) of work over the years. However, I very much doubt that “making too much money” has had the slightest thing to do with it.

You are arguing that he should be made to struggle financially in order to squeeze more art out of him. Maybe that would work in the short term as he feels stressed out and under pressure to maintain his income. However, in the long term he would simply have to move on to something else, and no one would be inspired to replace him. That way of thinking would lead to the slow death of the entire industry.

We can argue, but in the long run it leads nowhere, I don't intend to forcefully change your view on these matters, I simply disagree with your point of view, just like in a "normal" job, pay should reflect results (better results, better pay), I believe that in "creative" professions it should be the same, because the approach of "forced support for creative professions so that they can remain creative" is wrong from the beginning, because it promotes shitty creators who, under the guise of being "creative", make money not from their "art" but from the label of being creative. I'm speaking more generally here, not about akabur per se.

But getting back to him and how you put it, "you don't seem to have the best grasp of finances, my friend..." because I think you've gone a bit overboard here xD The average salary in Russia is $500-600. I don't know what commissions Patreon takes, but even $2,000 a month is four times what the average employee earns. My example with him wasn't entirely to show that he doesn't deserve that money, but rather to respond to the argument about "a creator's income decreasing when they release worse things," which I showed with Akaburs example, is unlikely to happen.

We simply have different approaches to the "business" model of art financing. I believe that people should decide what is good with their wallets, not artificially pump artists because they are "artists." A good artist will always make money with their art, while a weak one should be forgotten because then we have phenomena like a banana stuck to a wall or a guy painting while farting with paint. Do you think such artists should also have passive income independent of their work because it could kill their creativity?

 

[AltosandHerdone]

We can argue, but in the long run it leads nowhere, I don't intend to forcefully change your view on these matters, I simply disagree with your point of view, just like in a "normal" job, pay should reflect results (better results, better pay), I believe that in "creative" professions it should be the same, because the approach of "forced support for creative professions so that they can remain creative" is wrong from the beginning, because it promotes shitty creators who, under the guise of being "creative", make money not from their "art" but from the label of being creative. I'm speaking more generally here, not about akabur per se.

But getting back to him and how you put it, "you don't seem to have the best grasp of finances, my friend..." because I think you've gone a bit overboard here xD The average salary in Russia is $500-600. I don't know what commissions Patreon takes, but even $2,000 a month is four times what the average employee earns. My example with him wasn't entirely to show that he doesn't deserve that money, but rather to respond to the argument about "a creator's income decreasing when they release worse things," which I showed with Akaburs example, is unlikely to happen.

We simply have different approaches to the "business" model of art financing. I believe that people should decide what is good with their wallets, not artificially pump artists because they are "artists." A good artist will always make money with their art, while a weak one should be forgotten because then we have phenomena like a banana stuck to a wall or a guy painting while farting with paint. Do you think such artists should also have passive income independent of their work because it could kill their creativity?

The entire Patreon model is based on people voting with their wallets, far more so than any "normal job". Your assumption that people will support you no matter what is objectively false. You proved that yourself by saying you withdrew support from Akabur because you weren't happy with the amount/quality of his work. The people who continue to support him are not stupid. Their opinion about what constitutes "worse things" just differs from yours.

Anyway, I don't intend to argue with you either. You already stated that nothing will change your mind. I'm just pointing out to any reasonably minded people on this forum (I know there are many out there) that donating to a developer does not reduce the amount or quality of their work; it may go up and down over time for any number of reasons but having a decent, steady income certainly isn't one of them. Advocating for developers to make just enough to get by is advocating for worse standards across the industry and a drying up of the future talent pool.

 

[Rao_fork]

Anyway, I don't intend to argue with you either. You already stated that nothing will change your mind. I'm just pointing out to any reasonably minded people on this forum (I know there are many out there) that donating to a developer does not reduce the amount or quality of their work; it may go up and down over time for any number of reasons but having a decent, steady income certainly isn't one of them. Advocating for developers to make just enough to get by is advocating for worse standards across the industry and a drying up of the future talent pool.

At the notion of the industry dying, I remembered the whole payment processors deal. How did you stay up on itch+patreon and are things still very strict or is it back to normal?

 

[c3p0]

So do you think that almost 10 years without releasing something as good as Princess Trainer/Witch Trainer deserves 3,000 a month?

...just like in a "normal" job, pay should reflect results (better results, better pay),...

And your a fan of better pay for better performance. So, straight basic question how do you measure that?
Eg. for AltosandHerdone. Is better performance more renders, code, pictures per time unit? Faster updates? Less bugs? Better quality?
Also for a normal job, how do you measure performance there? Also do you measure it long term or short term?

How much shall the pay vary with the performance (however that is defined) Min=0, Min=x {where x could be, low, medium or high salary}; Max=y {y>x or y>>x; where y could be low, medium, high or very high}?
Or basic question if someone performance is not good, does that valid that the pay for this person can be below the poverty threshold?

What income would be good for Akubar for in his current state?
Click only after you decided on a number.Poverty threshold, defined by the government, is 15'000 to 24 800 ₽ (around 150 $ to 250 $), median income is 58 191 ₽ (581 $), what most consider far below for a decent life and less than 43 000 ₽ (430 $) is consider as poor - also most think they to need 250 000 ₽ (2 500 $) to be financial secure; source:

You must be registered to see the links

 

[AltosandHerdone]

At the notion of the industry dying, I remembered the whole payment processors deal. How did you stay up on itch+patreon and are things still very strict or is it back to normal?

All NSFW developers were told to turn off donations through Itch in order to continue appearing in any searches; until they can figure out an alternative payment processor. I figured that the extra traffic to my Patreon would be better than the small amount of money I made on that site, so I turned donations off for now. Bit annoying, but other than that I wasnt affected.

 

[sissyseekerxd]

Great game
8/10 imo
nice story, animations, dynamics, dialogues, you can tell that developer is great just by playing a bit. started getting a bit boring in the end so I stopped playing.
thanks dev

 

[raven54]

I think that if Akabur lost this stable and high income, he would focus more on game development.

So you are saying that if your boss shows up one day and tells that your salary is cut in half, your reaction is to offer to do unpaid overtime? You must be any company's dream worker.

 

[telgalad]

Any hope that the next update has Emily, Donna, Nina, or the School Nurse?

From my memories of previous dev posts (I haven't read the last 2) its focusing on finishing the teacher training and the twins story line for the next update.


I have said in the past i think that the Nurse and that one girl (name escapes me currently) thats regularly in the nurses office is a great lead into anal play/punishments. The principal already used an anal plug on her once. Could go further with that, or into medical fetish like gyno/enema etc... The medical exams are something he has started the process of, he even remade the nurses model like a year ago, it will be interesting to see where the game/dev goes with it. Could be that the school sponsors are "worried about damaging punishment's" and request a one off full exam and the principal has to partake in the first one to confirm the nurse is doing it correctly... But that really would be branching out on what the games core has been in the past so probably isnt likely.

 

[krwiopalczasty]

So you are saying that if your boss shows up one day and tells that your salary is cut in half, your reaction is to offer to do unpaid overtime? You must be any company's dream worker.

If my work past few months was just few lines of code yes boss should cut my salary cuz i didnt earned my payment... we dont talk about situation where someone hard working and dont get money for that, we talking about someone who dont do shit or making barely minimum and got alot of money for that cuz "it will kill his creativity"

(...)

I had already written a longer text, but I deleted it. As I said, further discussion is unnecessary because we won't convince each other. You represent the creators' side, and I represent the content consumer. But I have one question for you: do you think we should financially support a poor artist simply because they are an artist and create something? If we don't support such people, it will be bad for the "industry"? because in my opinion this is a very bad approach to the topic...

And your a fan of better pay for better performance. So, straight basic question how do you measure that?
Eg. for AltosandHerdone. Is better performance more renders, code, pictures per time unit? Faster updates? Less bugs? Better quality?
Also for a normal job, how do you measure performance there? Also do you measure it long term or short term?

Every job is measurable, both creative and "normal." Just as you can measure a bricklayer by the amount of work they do, or a hairdresser by the amount of haircuts they give, so can a creator by whether they update regularly, whether they're sufficiently "rich" in content, and whether it's of a sufficiently high standard. Just as you can assess the technique of a painter or a director, you can also assess whether a game developer is sloppy or committed.

basic question if someone performance is not good, does that valid that the pay for this person can be below the poverty threshold?

If an average bricklayer lays 400 bricks a day, and someone lays only 150 and another 700, do you think they should both get the same amount of money or should the more efficient one earn more and the worse one less or lose their job?

What income would be good for Akubar for in his current state?
Click only after you decided on a number.Poverty threshold, defined by the government, is 15'000 to 24 800 ₽ (around 150 $ to 250 $), median income is 58 191 ₽ (581 $), what most consider far below for a decent life and less than 43 000 ₽ (430 $) is consider as poor - also most think they to need 250 000 ₽ (2 500 $) to be financial secure; source:

You must be registered to see the links

You yourself wrote that $2,500 is financial stability. Akabur earns far more than that per month, and in my opinion, his work doesn't deserve it. Long production periods and a relatively low amount of content in the games he publishes after his great success don't justify "above financial stability." Are you asking how much he should earn? I don't know and haven't even considered it because I'm not paying him. I supported him for about three years after he released Princess/Witch Trainer, and after that period, when his work stagnated, I stopped because he simply didn't deserve my money. I preferred to spend it on another creator, like AltosandHerdone. As you can see, several hundred/thousand people think otherwise and continue to support Akabura. I believe such support increases unproductivity and corrupts the creators, who, no matter what they release, will be "rewarded." It's like FIFA fans who buy practically the same game with cosmetic changes every year.


I'm ending this topic because it wasn't my intention to start a firestorm or a major war. I have my opinion that money can corrupt people in situations where they receive it too easily and don't work for it. You may disagree, but that's how the human psyche works: it looks for the simplest solutions. If it can make money without getting too tired, it will strive for that option. Of course, there are people who don't take the easy way out, but unfortunately, there are also those who do. I've seen many games abandoned for a very long time but still collect money from Patreon, etc.

 

[AltosandHerdone]

From my memories of previous dev posts (I haven't read the last 2) its focusing on finishing the teacher training and the twins story line for the next update.


I have said in the past i think that the Nurse and that one girl (name escapes me currently) thats regularly in the nurses office is a great lead into anal play/punishments. The principal already used an anal plug on her once. Could go further with that, or into medical fetish like gyno/enema etc... The medical exams are something he has started the process of, he even remade the nurses model like a year ago, it will be interesting to see where the game/dev goes with it. Could be that the school sponsors are "worried about damaging punishment's" and request a one off full exam and the principal has to partake in the first one to confirm the nurse is doing it correctly... But that really would be branching out on what the games core has been in the past so probably isnt likely.

I am trying to wrap up Chapter 2, so the next update is a little bit of several storylines. I can confirm that Faye will be in it though, and that the headmaster will be sticking things up her butt for both disciplinary and "medical" reasons.

 

[Causa_99]

I am trying to wrap up Chapter 2, so the next update is a little bit of several storylines. I can confirm that Faye will be in it though, and that the headmaster will be sticking things up her butt for both disciplinary and "medical" reasons.

BUTT PLAY YEAAAAHHHH

 

[telgalad]

I am trying to wrap up Chapter 2, so the next update is a little bit of several storylines. I can confirm that Faye will be in it though, and that the headmaster will be sticking things up her butt for both disciplinary and "medical" reasons.

Holy shit i love you!

 

[DavyDaoist]

This will certainly affect spanking

 

[ggrafa]

I am trying to wrap up Chapter 2, so the next update is a little bit of several storylines. I can confirm that Faye will be in it though, and that the headmaster will be sticking things up her butt for both disciplinary and "medical" reasons.

I don't know how this gonna end, maybe some Berserker BS where the author took so long he died.

So I'm posting this in time, before any bullshit happen and frustration gets me.

YOU ARE A FUCKING GENIUS. Keep the awesome work and like always the very nice butt stuff.

Cheers.

 

[grey_shadow]

If an average bricklayer lays 400 bricks a day, and someone lays only 150 and another 700, do you think they should both get the same amount of money or should the more efficient one earn more and the worse one less or lose their job?

Clearly the guy who backs up a truck filled with thousands of bricks and dumps them out into a heap should get even more money because they piled up the most bricks by a huge margin...

Or maybe there are some unstated requirements in play and the quality of the brickwork also matters...

 

[dreamchaser]

So, I have decided to end my 1€/month membership, instead subscribing for 5€ for this month only. This way, I can be the one to post the development update for once. And hopefully, next month, there will be another hero instead.

Development Update 67
What have I been up to since the last development update?
Time does fly sometimes, I can’t believe it’s been a month since my last dev update already. So, what have I been up to since then? Well, I spent a few more days working on Debbie’s content, updating her post punishment options and recording an animation for her and the headmaster. I spent a little more time working on the script for the staff training storyline and adding that into the game’s code. I spent a few days working on boring technical and admin stuff. I made a little progress with the new Android build, although I have put that work to one side for the time being as we are in crunch time and I need to focus on the new update. I spent a few days working on the volleyball scenes, expanding the beach environment (to make space for some exciting future content) as well as trying to solve some long standing technical issues with the water surface (which I did and it looks great!).

The beach environment has been expanded and improved for the coming update
Most of the rest of my time was spent capturing renders and animations for the twins storyline. Quite often I’ll do the first few scenes of the update near the end, that way I can make sure I am keeping the themes consistent and I am properly foreshadowing any twists or surprises later in the story. We are at the point now where I’ve started to fill in some of these gaps from the beginning and I needed a scene for the twins to get in trouble to kick off their punishment system in earnest. What was just a single line in my to-do list a couple of weeks ago saying “the twins get in trouble” is now a 5000 word and 100 render (and counting) scene. Which also happens to be one of the funniest I’ve written. I don’t think I’ve chuckled away to myself quite so much since Emily’s “nudist” scene in the headmaster’s office. Although I am very happy with the new scene and it is a fantastic addition to the update, it definitely hasn’t brought me any closer to getting to any of the endings I had in mind. In fact it’s probably moved my goal posts back a little bit.

The twins have a hilarious surprise in store for the headmaster on the beach
Which I think neatly illustrates the difficulty I have with estimating release schedules. Firstly, I have no idea how long a scene is going to be until I’ve written it, and things often end up being way longer and more involved than I initially planned. Secondly, the amount of time and effort I put into making content is in no way proportional to the amount produced. I can spend a whole week agonising over a relatively short section of dialogue, or I can produce a whole lengthy scene (writing, renders and all) in the same amount of time. Which can be more than a little frustrating, especially with a deadline looming in the near future. Unfortunately, creativity is not something that can be turned on and off when needed. Inspiration comes when it comes and I find it’s usually best to just go along with it.
When is the next update going to be released?
We are approaching my initial estimated release time of mid to late October. I am sure you are all wondering; how close am I to having the update ready? The answer to that is a little complicated.
Currently I have somewhere around 50,000 words of dialogue, about 700 final renders complete and around 120 videos recorded. For comparison version 0.16 on release had a total of about 68,000 words, 1000 renders and 53 videos. So, on that basis, I am a little behind with my rendering and writing but I am already way ahead with the video recording. That said, these numbers are quite misleading. I generally do everything in draft form to begin with and capture most of the final renders at the end of the update cycle. Currently I have an absolute ton of stuff in draft form ready to record. Therefore, my expectation is that by the time I’m finished version 0.17 will be significantly bigger than version 0.16 (at least in terms of images and videos). The question I have to ask myself now is; how much of the content that is in draft form do I need to capture before I feel like the update feels “ready”? And the answer to that question is… It’s difficult to say.
I’ve taken a scatter gun approach to version 0.17 trying to take on a lot of work at the same time (Faye & Nina, the Twins, Debbie, Claire, plus the girls volleyball). So, although I have spent many weeks on each of these characters/storylines, I feel like more is needed for each before I would be happy showing them to everyone. Until I’ve filled in the gaps and played it all through in order, it’s very hard to get a feel for these things. I am hoping to be at a point where I can start Alpha testing within the next few weeks. Once I am at that stage I can figure out how much more content is needed, then I will set a firm release date.
At the moment, I would say that getting the update out by the end of October seems pretty unlikely. The end of November seems much more plausible, but if I’m honest it could be a little longer than that. We are definitely in the final stretch at this point though. I have more than enough content in the works for a huge update. Plus, what I have so far is really high quality and should make up for the long wait.
I will update you all again just as soon as I am feeling confident enough to set a release date. I should also have enough renders ready for a third and final batch of images previews (for patrons in the $10 and above tiers) in the next couple of weeks.