VN Ren'Py Abandoned The Theater of Sinners [v0.3 ALPHA 1] [JustXThings]

[TimoF965]

and the reason is completely different?

I think it is not that popular because some men don't like to take the submissive-, being the one that gets fucked-perspective so they are afraid of playing a female mc. Or they can realte more to the male view.
For me, I like the chance of perspective.

But there is one other thing to a game in female perspective. For it to be more than "I am a slut, fuck me", to feature a real female (yet horny) perspective, you have to be able to view the world with the eyes of a woman. And because more man are in porn and programming, there are more male developers. They do have to have more "writing talent" than female developers because for the males, the chance of pespective is necessary on to of writing a good story.

This is one point that also makes Theater of Sinners standing out: A solid female but also horny perspective!

The developer of this game didn't want to commit to what he was doing.

Oh my, he created half of a game literally for free, a masterpiece, and you say he did not commit? No, he just did not like the selling part of it, the customers relation. But he did more for me than a buch of those steam-talking developers that post twice a day but have a crappy game.

Worst of all, there was no other way to find out anything about him.

Worst of this? Oh no, give the man some privacy! I don't care if he is black or white, Putin himself of Hillary Clinton, as long a s the game is good. I don't need some influencer, I need a developer and writer.

Maybe if they had opened a successful patreon the game wouldn't be abandoned.

For real? This game on Patreon? Banned the second he loads it up. "Oh, sex withouth a mutual agreement, blackmailing, ... BANNED!" Patreon sucks for being so prude and woke.

 

[Buletti]

Not saying this dev would necessarily have stuck around if they had a patreon, but it might have helped. If your passion project is also covering your rent, that's just one more reason to keep going.

If you set a precedent that devs can get paid for barely putting out anything, more and more devs are going to coast along barely putting out anything. If everyone put a freeze on their payments the instant a dev stopped giving their a-game, there'd be a real fire under their ass. Instead, 80% of the projects on this site are in development hell because you can make thousands of dollars putting out a few renders a year. Everyone gets less content and less bang for their buck.

The road from horse armor dlc to our modern $80, battlepass, pay-to-win, legal gambling, gacha hellscape was paved with poor financial discipline.

Might be true for the AAA industry, but surely not for AVNs that are a niche in a niche and mostly passion projects by the devs. There are not 80% of the games here that are making thousands with only a few renders a year. To say that is simply wrong. The VNs that earn considerable amounts of cash are very transparent and make it VERY clear to their Patreons why some updates might take longer. If the Patreons still supporting even with a year without updates it's because they feel the dev deserves it.

 

[Sum Gi]

Might be true for the AAA industry, but surely not for AVNs that are a niche in a niche and mostly passion projects by the devs. There are not 80% of the games here that are making thousands with only a few renders a year. To say that is simply wrong. The VNs that earn considerable amounts of cash are very transparent and make it VERY clear to their Patreons why some updates might take longer. If the Patreons still supporting even with a year without updates it's because they feel the dev deserves it.

I'd wager the majority of the people who continue supporting AWOL devs aren't doing so out of some conscious act of grand charity, they just straight up forgot they were even subbed. That's half the reason subscription models were pioneered to begin with.

If you want proof of what I said before just look at the output of the Japanese market. That is also a niche within a niche, but which until recently avoided the subscription model. And what do you see? Countless more actually finished products and a development speed that completely laps western devs. You might be less of a fan of the content they choose, but their work ethic puts the western market to shame, and its a product of the different financial incentives involved. The only upside of the subscription model is the promise of potential greatness by giving devs the chance to hack away at one project for years, but in practice this is almost never realized.

 

[Buletti]

I'd wager the majority of the people who continue supporting AWOL devs aren't doing so out of some conscious act of grand charity, they just straight up forgot they were even subbed. That's half the reason subscription models were pioneered to begin with.

If you want proof of what I said before just look at the output of the Japanese market. That is also a niche within a niche, but which until recently avoided the subscription model. And what do you see? Countless more actually finished products and a development speed that completely laps western devs. You might be less of a fan of the content they choose, but their work ethic puts the western market to shame, and its a product of the different financial incentives involved. The only upside of the subscription model is the promise of potential greatness by giving devs the chance to hack away at one project for years, but in practice this is almost never realized.

I do not think at all that the higher success rate of japanese productions has anything to do with the payment model. Instead it is, as you mentioned yourself, because of the work ethics and mindset of their culture.
I also don't think it is possible to generalise why people keep supporting a dev.

I still do not see the AVN that rakes in big money WITHOUT a dev giving detailed devlogs and continuing Patreon perks. Without these things, the majority of people cancel their subscribtion pretty quickly.

 

[dolfe67]

Without these things, the majority of people cancel their subscribtion pretty quickly.

Wrong. The hardest thing is to gather the supporters but once you have a sufficient fan base you can ease your efforts. There are several examples of dev not producing anything for years and still having quite a lot of supporters.

 

[Buletti]

Wrong. The hardest thing is to gather the supporters but once you have a sufficient fan base you can ease your efforts. There are several examples of dev not producing anything for years and still having quite a lot of supporters.

Feel free to enlighten me then.

 

[tannerjd2007]

Wrong. The hardest thing is to gather the supporters but once you have a sufficient fan base you can ease your efforts. There are several examples of dev not producing anything for years and still having quite a lot of supporters.

Exactly.. can name several, one in particular, Damaged Coda (creater of The Office) how many times did we watch him sit there for months, then finally go ANNOUNCEMENT! yeah I haven't done crap for awhile so I'll be pausing payments this month lol only to restart the payment and go right back to doing nothing lol maybe makes 1 release a year now if that.. games pretty much abandoned yet people still throwing money at him.

 

[Buletti]

Exactly.. can name several, one in particular, Damaged Coda (creater of The Office) how many times did we watch him sit there for months, then finally go ANNOUNCEMENT! yeah I haven't done crap for awhile so I'll be pausing payments this month lol only to restart the payment and go right back to doing nothing lol maybe makes 1 release a year now if that.. games pretty much abandoned yet people still throwing money at him.

Last update was 26.09.2025. So not really that long ago...

But I am not here to argue for the sake of it.

Let's just say you did not convince me that the subscription model has anything to do with a devs output and I did not convince you that it is not bad if people support devs with a longer lead time and then leave it here.

What I REALLY would love to see is this one to continue...

 

[tannerjd2007]

Last update was 26.09.2025. So not really that long ago...

But I am not here to argue for the sake of it.

Let's just say you did not convince me that the subscription model has anything to do with a devs output and I did not convince you that it is not bad if people support devs with a longer lead time and then leave it here.

What I REALLY would love to see is this one to continue...

his last update according to his patreon where he is taking this money, was supposedly close to being ready in march and it was barely 10 minutes of content added lol... his last update before that was maybe oct 2024... the difference im trying to point out is when he started he was literally pumping out updates almost once a month, but once he crossed the 1500 per month threshold, its like he just died, i called it out almost 2 years ago when i canceled my sub... this dev has always said its for free and at his pleasure so yeah it sucks, but im not going to place him in the same box with these guys who are taking money.

 

[Sum Gi]

I do not think at all that the higher success rate of japanese productions has anything to do with the payment model.

Really? You think the method by which people are paid for their work has nothing to do with the end result? Do you even hear yourself?

 

[Tonni777]

You won’t understand the problems of an indie porn game developer, since you yourself have hardly done anything similar.
He does not have a cosmic budget and a huge team.
He lives not in a vacuum, but in our crazy world.
Minor everyday problems can greatly affect his plans.
And no one excludes the usual burnout from long-term work on a project.
You burn out to ashes, and if you are not a Phoenix, you are unlikely to be reborn to work.
There is a good book Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry by Jason Schreier. You can read it to have at least the slightest idea of what game production is. And how many problems there are.

 

[Birdnman993]

I don't know why we keep going back to a topic that has nothing to do with anything; the man didn't ask for anything in return for doing this, so he didn't need it to survive; he only did it because he liked it or found it entertaining, something you do without commitment or obligation, which he could give up whenever he wanted without any repercussions, and that's what happened: he gave it up and left us wanting more.

Talking so much about this game again has made me very sad. I'm going to play it again out of spite. T_T