VN Ren'Py Turning the Page [v0.31.0] [Azienda]

[Ashen Bunny]

I can't wait to find some free time and play this. Overview and previews simply looks amazing.

 

[Joshy92]

The leaking of content early reminds me of the situation with the game misfits.
The dev of that said he is going to quit making games when that finishes because of leakers.
I hope that doesn't happen here.

 

[BBCinyourass]

The leaking of content early reminds me of the situation with the game misfits.
The dev of that said he is going to quit making games when that finishes because of leakers.
I hope that doesn't happen here.

Its leaked somewhere already?

 

[Joshy92]

Its leaked somewhere already?

No but I think the previous update was leaked early

 

[BBCinyourass]

No but I think the previous update was leaked early

APBLU was leaked early last month as well. Faster than 5$ Patreons.

 

[bigboat]

its the day one leaks that really kill them

 

[Jackie123]

APBLU was leaked early last month as well. Faster than 5$ Patreons.

Whats APBLU?

 

[BBCinyourass]

Whats APBLU?

A promise best left unkept. Similiar game to Turning the page. I highly recommened this game too

 

[Fyo]

I think that generally focusing on the leaks is faulty thinking - I understand how frustrating it must be to see hard work leaked, costing money/feeling like a slap in the face. However, I think it is a type of short term thinking. The trajectory of Turning the Page patreon has been consistently positive. Over the last 6 months alone, Azienda patreon count increased 85%, while over the last year it increased almost 400%. The most important thing, and the thing that should be focused on, is growth of the popularity/reach/fanbase of the game and developer. That's how you make stable significant long-term money. The leaking isn't really a huge problem. Just my two cents.

 

[Azienda]

I think that generally focusing on the leaks is faulty thinking - I understand how frustrating it must be to see hard work leaked, costing money/feeling like a slap in the face. However, I think it is a type of short term thinking. The trajectory of Turning the Page patreon has been consistently positive. Over the last 6 months alone, Azienda patreon count increased 85%, while over the last year it increased almost 400%. The most important thing, and the thing that should be focused on, is growth of the popularity/reach/fanbase of the game and developer. That's how you make stable significant long-term money. The leaking isn't really a huge problem. Just my two cents.

Hey there Fyo,

We understand the point you are trying to make, but there are a few points we disagree on.

First of all, we have not had consistent growth. There are two months where we have shrunk, which are the two months where we were leaked on the first day.

Second, while we have had significant growth over the last year, we weren't actually producing anything a year ago, so yes, naturally our numbers have increased significantly since then. That context is obviously important.

As far as the last six months go, they have been buoyed by one absurdly good month, which just so happens to be the only month in the last six where we happened to go almost a whole month without getting leaked.

Considering the power these leaks have on our growth, I would not say this is not looking at the short term, but rather our long term. Because if these leaks happen the way they happened last month consistently, our experience shows that we will continue to shrink over that period.

It's also worth noting that the Patron number doesn't even tell the whole tale. While our patron number shrank 10% last month, our revenue was down 25%. As we've said before, if we already had a stable income, that would be one thing, but we are still living kind of lean right now and these kind of things directly interfere with our ability to pay the bills.

So, while I totally understand that it isn't a nice or comfortable thought that the early leaks damage our well-being, it is true and it is true for every developer we have talked to on the subject. Many have spent a lot of time trying to deal with the problem in various ways with varying results. We thought we would try to directly appeal to you all with the truth. We have read the replies and very much appreciate that most of you seem to understand, and even those that don't necessarily agree, thanks for at least considering what we have to say.

I will leave it there, as we are hard at work finishing the next update. Thanks for supporting us, all of you!

Azienda

 

[andybc]

I think that generally focusing on the leaks is faulty thinking - I understand how frustrating it must be to see hard work leaked, costing money/feeling like a slap in the face. However, I think it is a type of short term thinking. The trajectory of Turning the Page patreon has been consistently positive. Over the last 6 months alone, Azienda patreon count increased 85%, while over the last year it increased almost 400%. The most important thing, and the thing that should be focused on, is growth of the popularity/reach/fanbase of the game and developer. That's how you make stable significant long-term money. The leaking isn't really a huge problem. Just my two cents.

So many armchair devs making ridiculous claims with no context. How can you be so confidently wrong? You can really tell who has no job experience.

 

[Fyo]

Hey there Fyo,

We understand the point you are trying to make, but there are a few points we disagree on.

First of all, we have not had consistent growth. There are two months where we have shrunk, which are the two months where we were leaked on the first day.

Second, while we have had significant growth over the last year, we weren't actually producing anything a year ago, so yes, naturally our numbers have increased significantly since then. That context is obviously important.

As far as the last six months go, they have been buoyed by one absurdly good month, which just so happens to be the only month in the last six where we happened to go almost a whole month without getting leaked.

Considering the power these leaks have on our growth, I would not say this is not looking at the short term, but rather our long term. Because if these leaks happen the way they happened last month consistently, our experience shows that we will continue to shrink over that period.

It's also worth noting that the Patron number doesn't even tell the whole tale. While our patron number shrank 10% last month, our revenue was down 25%. As we've said before, if we already had a stable income, that would be one thing, but we are still living kind of lean right now and these kind of things directly interfere with our ability to pay the bills.

So, while I totally understand that it isn't a nice or comfortable thought that the early leaks damage our well-being, it is true and it is true for every developer we have talked to on the subject. Many have spent a lot of time trying to deal with the problem in various ways with varying results. We thought we would try to directly appeal to you all with the truth. We have read the replies and very much appreciate that most of you seem to understand, and even those that don't necessarily agree, thanks for at least considering what we have to say.

I will leave it there, as we are hard at work finishing the next update. Thanks for supporting us, all of you!

Azienda

Again, I don't mean to invalidate your experience, but rather to hopefully assure you that if you produce quality content and market it well, over the long-term other problems will not severely harm you.

I'm not talking out my ass here, as andybc states, either. If you don't trust me, listen to

You must be registered to see the links

on the topic:

"Our goal is to create greater service value than pirates, and this has been successful enough for us that piracy is basically a non-issue for our company. For example, prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become our largest market in Europe.

"Our success comes from making sure that both customers and partners feel like they get a lot of value from those services. They can trust us not to take advantage of the relationship that we have with them."

All games on Steam can be easily pirated, yet steam is a multi-billion dollar company. Why?

In patreon terms, this all means interacting with your community, posting fun content, showing that you care, etc. All things you have been doing, and things that help explain the real growth you've experienced. My point isn't that leaks don't lose you money. They definitely do, especially early leaks. My point is that solving them won't make you the kind of money you can get over the long-term with a large dedicated fan-base. With that in mind, the most important thing is always building that base.

Most people who want to patronize you are doing it to support you, not because they absolutely need the product a month early. I'm confident that, over the long term, focusing on growing your fan-base and producing quality products will far out-weigh any problems with leaking. Just look at developers like fenoxo, who makes 30,000 a month just from a dedicated fanbase and basically unlimited easy access to all their content for free, or milfy city, who made tons of money without releasing any content for years.

Edit: I'll add that please don't leak Azienda's content early if you enjoy their work/want to support them.

 

[SiriusBlack]

In patreon terms, this all means interacting with your community, posting fun content, showing that you care, etc. All things you have been doing, and things that help explain the real growth you've experienced. My point isn't that leaks don't lose you money. They definitely do, especially early leaks. My point is that solving them won't make you the kind of money you can get over the long-term with a large dedicated fan-base. With that in mind, the most important thing is always building that base.

Most people who want to patronize you are doing it to support you, not because they absolutely need the product a month early. I'm confident that, over the long term, focusing on growing your fan-base and producing quality products will far out-weigh any problems with leaking. Just look at developers like fenoxo, who makes 30,000 a month just from a dedicated fanbase and basically unlimited easy access to all their content for free, or milfy city, who made tons of money without releasing any content for years.

Let's say you don't have any control on the leaks, since almost everyone can spend those 10-20-30$ and ruin your plans if they want. Building a good fanbase and being present and transparent is surely a good way to stabilize, but that and money gains don't always go in tandem. Just look couple pages back with a comment like: "Oh yeah i'd give you my 10 bucks this months, but ehhhhh it got leaked so cya thanks". You may have forgotten the common internet user is just a keyboard lion ready to throw shit to everyone if he can't get the games he wants, when he wants, made like him wants.

 

[Terix3]

I'm not talking out my ass here, as andybc states, either. If you don't trust me, listen to

You must be registered to see the links

on the topic:

"Our goal is to create greater service value than pirates, and this has been successful enough for us that piracy is basically a non-issue for our company. For example, prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become our largest market in Europe.

"Our success comes from making sure that both customers and partners feel like they get a lot of value from those services. They can trust us not to take advantage of the relationship that we have with them."

All games on Steam can be easily pirated, yet steam is a multi-billion dollar company. Why?

You are comparing multi billion company that has semi market monopoly vs few man dev team struggling to make a living...

First of all you should not take public statements like this at face value, even if they are not lying they hardly ever tell the whole truth. Fundamentally piracy is not issue for steam because they are not the devs/publishers but only store that sell the games. Their costs are comparably non existent while they take 25% cut, they will always make profit. If somehow a game would be losing them money (ton of refunds/CS issues) they can just remove it from the store and none would really care.
There are plenty of game on steam that can't be easily pirate but it is devs/plublishers that need to worry about protecting their games and truly only they can apply strong DRM protection by weaving it deep into game code. Steam is free of costs associated and any potential backlash against intrusive DRM this way.

In patreon terms, this all means interacting with your community, posting fun content, showing that you care, etc. All things you have been doing, and things that help explain the real growth you've experienced. My point isn't that leaks don't lose you money. They definitely do, especially early leaks. My point is that solving them won't make you the kind of money you can get over the long-term with a large dedicated fan-base. With that in mind, the most important thing is always building that base.

Most people who want to patronize you are doing it to support you, not because they absolutely need the product a month early. I'm confident that, over the long term, focusing on growing your fan-base and producing quality products will far out-weigh any problems with leaking. Just look at developers like fenoxo, who makes 30,000 a month just from a dedicated fanbase and basically unlimited easy access to all their content for free, or milfy city, who made tons of money without releasing any content for years.

Dev already answered you regarding their growth curve. Let me just add that based on how other projects behaved in this niche genre, they are about to bottom up. Any further growth will be a very slow one. While the devs take it into consideration that they will need to bear it for first year till project gets some traction expecting them to wait 3-4 years before they can earn fair pay is not reasonable. Another issue is inflation, they won't really be able to increase the pledge price so few % growth over a year does not really translate to better pay.

And yes I've seen devs do exactly what you are suggesting and see little to no growth. Again we are talking here about niche genre, your comparison to "mainstream" projects is not really adequate.

Despite what you say what works is 1) No early leaks , if a game can go for a month without leak that easily translates to 30% more money for devs which is huge. 2) Rewads for patrons that do not lose value due to leaks. 3) Reaching for broader audience ...

 

[Oriandu]

Unfortunately the only real way to avoid leaks happening rapidly is by cultivating a loyal patreon base and it's not always easy to do that. Some developers release bonus content for a certain tier level, that can result in the people who get that tier feeling more important than the lower tiers and thus make them less likely to leak it. Some developers don't release a public version at all and that can result in a more loyal patreon base which causes leaks to be less common, case in point the most recent build of Seeds of Chaos took two weeks to leak. There's also the groups that are more communicative with their community and that often leads to a support base that will stick with them even if leaks happen as they're supporting the developer not paying for the game, Henteria Chronicles is a good example of that. Sometimes you just have to put out a really, really good product. Sometimes you just have to do one thing well and a bunch of rubes will throw money at you for years with little to no work to show for it. Often it comes down to how worthwhile the updates are, which is something Turning the Page struggles with every now and again.

We can all sit here and postulate about what should and should not be done, what is and is not effective, but ultimately it means nothing since what works for other devs will not necessarily work for this project.

 

[bleruse]

I feel for the developers about uncontrolled early releases. Kind of a bummer. On the other hand, I gave them about as much money as I spent on Elden Ring. This game is not Elden Ring. I'll wait for the free release or the leak at this point, to be honest.

Edit: The above comment about long term growth is spot on in my opinion. Clearly they have a growing community of supporters. People will pay what they feel is reasonable, or possibly as long as they feel is reasonable. The DIY smut games really shouldn't be a career. If this is the developer(s) only way to buy groceries or whatever then, I don't know what to tell you. This type of stuff isn't and probably (definitely) shouldn't be that. If they are just going to get miffed every time uncontrolled distribution happens, then I've got bad news for you about this industry. Should really just take the free publicity and move on, I think.

 

[Terix3]

I feel for the developers about uncontrolled early releases. Kind of a bummer. On the other hand, I gave them about as much money as I spent on Elden Ring. This game is not Elden Ring. I'll wait for the free release or the leak at this point, to be honest.

Edit: The above comment about long term growth is spot on in my opinion. Clearly they have a growing community of supporters. People will pay what they feel is reasonable, or possibly as long as they feel is reasonable. The DIY smut games really shouldn't be a career. If this is the developer(s) only way to buy groceries or whatever then, I don't know what to tell you. This type of stuff isn't and probably (definitely) shouldn't be that. If they are just going to get miffed every time uncontrolled distribution happens, then I've got bad news for you about this industry. Should really just take the free publicity and move on, I think.

There is no way you are getting monthly releases if it is not the devs job. Many projects do well for themselves and the whole "industry" wouldn't be where it is if people only worked on them in spare time. This is not about them being "miffed" but whatever they are doing it or not. The post was to make more people realize that, because so often people are like "leaks have no negative impact only free publicity".

 

[aNTiReal]

There is no way you are getting monthly releases if it is not the devs job. Many projects do well for themselves and the whole "industry" wouldn't be where it is if people only worked on them in spare time. This is not about them being "miffed" but whatever they are doing it or not. The post was to make more people realize that, because so often people are like "leaks have no negative impact only free publicity".

Personally, I would prefer a complete release as I know it from Japan instead of being supplied with monthly appetizers for 10 years at astronomically high costs and the risk that the game will be discontinued.
But everyone as he likes.

 

[Mommysbuttslut]

Personally, I would prefer a complete release as I know it from Japan instead of being supplied with monthly appetizers for 10 years at astronomically high costs and the risk that the game will be discontinued.
But everyone as he likes.

Japan is a completely different market than the rest of the world. Anime and manga typically make more in japan off the first tv run and original magazine print than it does in the rest of the world even including streaming, box sets/tankabons and syndication combined. Meanwhile eroge is an even more niche market outside of Japan. Unless we get hit with some seriously major social degeneration out west we aren't going to have enough of a market for non crowd funded erotic games.

Then there's also the issue that the vast majority of Japanese eroge are just some soulless RPGM scene viewers and kinetic novels that you can easily finish in a day. I'd gladly argue the average western porn game is a hell of a lot more ambitious than your typical Japanese eroge.

 

[Kilikxx]

Personally, I would prefer a complete release as I know it from Japan instead of being supplied with monthly appetizers for 10 years at astronomically high costs and the risk that the game will be discontinued.
But everyone as he likes.

These games are niche. There is no need to be hypocritical either. If that were to happen, the game would be pirated and only 0.01% of the users would pay and that would lead to the death of the team and its future projects.