I am not going to say anything other than what's already been said about your decision. However, I will say this: if you want a bigger audience for your new game, you are missing out by not making it a school harem. It's what most of your new target audience will want, and it's the first thing they will ask for.
As some people have said in this thread, if this was all about money, I'd be making an AI NTR Phone game.
Contrary to what some of you might believe, I still want to produce something I'm passionate about. I just want to produce something I'm passionate about while also producing a commercially viable project. A school harem is a commercially viable project, but it's not something I'm passionate about.
I am not going to say anything other than what's already been said about your decision. However, I will say this: if you want a bigger audience for your new game, you are missing out by not making it a school harem.
As some people have said in this thread, if this was all about money, I'd be making an AI NTR Phone game.
Contrary to what some of you might believe, I still want to produce something I'm passionate about. I just want to produce something I'm passionate about while also producing a commercially viable project. A school harem is a commercially viable project, but it's not something I'm passionate about.
It's not going to be a BaD clone. But as I said in my above post, I'm going to let the game speak for itself when it gets released.
My guy, if your college dating simulator doesn’t have sex, then it’s not going to make money yet again.
If it does have plenty of sex, it’s a BaDIK clone and just another college game.
If you try and add any heavy/deep themes like suicide and shit, you might as well stop making it right now.
My guy, if your college dating simulator doesn’t have sex, then it’s not going to make money yet again.
If it does have plenty of sex, it’s a BaDIK clone and just another college game.
If you try and add any heavy/deep themes like suicide and shit, you might as well stop making it right now.
But thats the thing, he never even tried to earn money with ToS or to make it economically viable. Not just the patreon setup, his dev decision leaned towards his own passion and fullfilment instead of appeasing usual avn demands (like how he went with softcore).
This was basically my point on patreon. Just try and........ monetise ToS? It already has a popular following. it's a good story. The groundwork has well and truly been laid. He's well along the road to having a successful AVN. Those are the core foundations that the vast majority of devs fail to even manage.
It's an absolutely bizarre decision and i'd love to know what real world discussions he's been having that have brought this about.
I didn't want to put ToS on hold, but due to the reasons outlined in my Patreon posts, I couldn't go forward with it unless it became more of a hobby project. I understand some people believe I could've continued with ToS and still tried to go full-time, but I thought a lot about that and came to the conclusion that isn't viable.
Since you offered up discussing, why not wrap up the story with literally 1-2 updates and then carry on? Then you'd frame this as "I wrapped it up quicker than I originally wanted to because it wasn't quite commercially viable but here's my new project! It's going to be great" and you'd have the benefit of everyone trusting your commitment, word and ability to follow through. It feels respectful and appreciative of the support you got thus far, and I think it would translate into starting your next game with some goodwill from those people so that you're not building a whole community from scratch again.
Since you offered up discussing, why not wrap up the story with literally 1-2 updates and then carry on? Then you'd frame this as "I wrapped it up quicker than I originally wanted to because it wasn't quite commercially viable but here's my new project! It's going to be great" and you'd have the benefit of everyone trusting your commitment, word and ability to follow through. It feels respectful and appreciative of the support you got thus far, and I think it would translate into starting your next game with some goodwill from those people so that you're not building a whole community from scratch again.
As some people have said in this thread, if this was all about money, I'd be making an AI NTR Phone game.
Contrary to what some of you might believe, I still want to produce something I'm passionate about. I just want to produce something I'm passionate about while also producing a commercially viable project. A school harem is a commercially viable project, but it's not something I'm passionate about.
It's not going to be a BaD clone. But as I said in my above post, I'm going to let the game speak for itself when it gets released.
No matter what, at the end of the day, you've proven yourself to be a flake. I have no objections to what projects you do, but when you start a project, you should finish it unless you're simply unable to. I can forgive a dev with health issues or one who's had computer failures... But you had none of that. You've started projects, gotten bored, and dropped them. I could never invest my money into someone who's just a flake. I would urge you to rethink your decision and at least finish this project before starting your next one.
This kind of reminds me of MadKing and his game situation and it didn't end well for him.
I played this game only up to 2nd or 3rd update, but from what I remember it was supposed to be a trilogy with shorter individual games and different protagonists in the same world. How much time would you need to at least finish first part of trilogy? It might help with negativity somewhat.
This was basically my point on patreon. Just try and........ monetise ToS? It already has a popular following. it's a good story. The groundwork has well and truly been laid. He's well along the road to having a successful AVN. Those are the core foundations that the vast majority of devs fail to even manage.
It's an absolutely bizarre decision and i'd love to know what real world discussions he's been having that have brought this about.
I had this extensive conversation with many others - both other developers and some close fans. And some of them agreed with you. But after going though the steps that would involve, I couldn't convince myself that it would work out. So in the interest of being open and transparent, I'll step out my full thought process on this one. Some of you may disagree with it, that's fine, but I think it'll help to understand how I reached this decision.
There's no secret that porn is a massive billion dollar industry. Sex appeal is the driving factor in sales behind AVNs. And to clarify, sex appeal isn't just about how many lewd scenes a developer can cram into 30 minutes of game-play. It's about the build-up, the renders towards the build-up and finally, the pay-off. It was obvious the pay-off in Tides wasn't good enough based on the reception to Ch. 3. There are a number of factors to it, but the soft-core nature was a major one. However, there was nothing I couldn't improve and work on.
Since you offered up discussing, why not wrap up the story with literally 1-2 updates and then carry on? Then you'd frame this as "I wrapped it up quicker than I originally wanted to because it wasn't quite commercially viable but here's my new project! It's going to be great" and you'd have the benefit of everyone trusting your commitment, word and ability to follow through. It feels respectful and appreciative of the support you got thus far, and I think it would translate into starting your next game with some goodwill from those people so that you're not building a whole community from scratch again.
I have a year and a bit until I'd be entering the workforce full-time and dedicating far less time towards AVN Development. If I were to finish up Tides with 1 or 2 updates, then that would take up most, if not all of that year, and I doubt it'd be enough to be reasonably confident that AVN Development will work out as a full-time job.
However, there's also so much that needs to happen in Tides before the main conflict is wrapped up. Wrapping it up in 1 or 2 updates just wouldn't work and it'd kill the quality of the project.
I had this extensive conversation with many others - both other developers and some close fans. And some of them agreed with you. But after going though the steps that would involve, I couldn't convince myself that it would work out. So in the interest of being open and transparent, I'll step out my full thought process on this one. Some of you may disagree with it, that's fine, but I think it'll help to understand how I reached this decision.
There's no secret that porn is a massive billion dollar industry. Sex appeal is the driving factor in sales behind AVNs. And to clarify, sex appeal isn't just about how many lewd scenes a developer can cram into 30 minutes of game-play. It's about the build-up, the renders towards the build-up and finally, the pay-off. It was obvious the pay-off in Tides wasn't good enough based on the reception to Ch. 3. There are a number of factors to it, but the soft-core nature was a major one. However, there was nothing I couldn't improve and work on.
I have a year and a bit until I'd be entering the workforce full-time and dedicating far less time towards AVN Development. If I were to finish up Tides with 1 or 2 updates, then that would take up most, if not all of that year, and I doubt it'd be enough to be reasonably confident that AVN Development will work out as a full-time job.
However, there's also so much that needs to happen in Tides before the main conflict is wrapped up. Wrapping it up in 1 or 2 updates just wouldn't work and it'd kill the quality of the project.
I had this extensive conversation with many others - both other developers and some close fans. And some of them agreed with you. But after going though the steps that would involve, I couldn't convince myself that it would work out. So in the interest of being open and transparent, I'll step out my full thought process on this one. Some of you may disagree with it, that's fine, but I think it'll help to understand how I reached this decision.
There's no secret that porn is a massive billion dollar industry. Sex appeal is the driving factor in sales behind AVNs. And to clarify, sex appeal isn't just about how many lewd scenes a developer can cram into 30 minutes of game-play. It's about the build-up, the renders towards the build-up and finally, the pay-off. It was obvious the pay-off in Tides wasn't good enough based on the reception to Ch. 3. There are a number of factors to it, but the soft-core nature was a major one. However, there was nothing I couldn't improve and work on.
Even in regular game development most projects fail to reach an audience. Your Stardew Valley's and Lethal Company's are the exception, not the norm, so expecting to carve out a chunk of that revenue in an oversaturated AVN market is some incredibly high risk. You've proven you can create engaging stories with rich worlds, but you'll also have that stigma of two unfinished projects regardless of the circumstance (which compounds onto your initial risk).
I'll also add some personal experience here from another AVN dev in that his pursuit of full time AVN development got cut short once personal life caught up. It certainly wasn't his fault, but had he jump on it as a career path he'd be in a much worse position because of it. I think it speaks volumes as well how much your current fanbase enjoys what you've made here, and most seemed to share the sentiment that they'd prefer guaranteed updates regardless of how slow they're rolled out.
I'll keep an eye on the new project for awhile before making any judgements on it's quality. Despite some here complaining about the college setting being a trope, it's a good one that allows quite a bit of freedom in what stories unfold.
I had this extensive conversation with many others - both other developers and some close fans. And some of them agreed with you. But after going though the steps that would involve, I couldn't convince myself that it would work out. So in the interest of being open and transparent, I'll step out my full thought process on this one. Some of you may disagree with it, that's fine, but I think it'll help to understand how I reached this decision.
There's no secret that porn is a massive billion dollar industry. Sex appeal is the driving factor in sales behind AVNs. And to clarify, sex appeal isn't just about how many lewd scenes a developer can cram into 30 minutes of game-play. It's about the build-up, the renders towards the build-up and finally, the pay-off. It was obvious the pay-off in Tides wasn't good enough based on the reception to Ch. 3. There are a number of factors to it, but the soft-core nature was a major one. However, there was nothing I couldn't improve and work on.
I have a year and a bit until I'd be entering the workforce full-time and dedicating far less time towards AVN Development. If I were to finish up Tides with 1 or 2 updates, then that would take up most, if not all of that year, and I doubt it'd be enough to be reasonably confident that AVN Development will work out as a full-time job.
However, there's also so much that needs to happen in Tides before the main conflict is wrapped up. Wrapping it up in 1 or 2 updates just wouldn't work and it'd kill the quality of the project.
The discussion about "realistic medieval garments" immediately made me think about Eliza from Nephilim and her half a torn up pillowcase she called a skirt for their date in chapter 5. Of course, that's not trying to be realistic in the slightest so it's not the best comparison.
I wouldn't want to see Tides wrapped up early either. So many good VNs fail to stick their landings it's almost a curse at this point. Rushing into one, especially this early into the story, would do just as much damage as abandoning it did, imo.
Probably beating the topic to death, but it's unfortunate that this game is getting abandoned for ... another game. Oh.
Well whatever I say will not change the decision (I got a lot lol) but will simply wish Goodluck on the new game.
PS though: Parting advice until the next thread, but successful devs completed their first projects compared to those that continually abandoned their work.
This thread responded pretty much unanimously this would be the wrong call. You can't guarantee a "financially successful" project (i.e. everything Ubisoft does) and burning people like this is certainly going to have the opposite impact on that goal.
Damn, another one abandoned, as I'm reading through the pages and to me it was cancelled just because the dev didn't feel it anymore with the game? Am I wrong to assume this? if I am please correct me. I have about 15 Patreon/Subscribestar memberships and I'm very happy that all the devs that I have memberships with want to finish their games. It's very sad, many many games have become abandoned this year
Damn, another one abandoned, as I'm reading through the pages and to me it was cancelled just because the dev didn't feel it anymore with the game? Am I wrong to assume this? if I am please correct me. I have about 15 Patreon/Subscribestar memberships and I'm very happy that all the devs that I have memberships with want to finish their games. It's very sad, many many games have become abandoned this year
It very much reads like the dev got bored of ToS, since all the excuses given so far don’t really check out; apparently, adding actual sex scenes to ToS can’t be done because the game was envisioned to be… a softcore romance??
