What is the appropriate time between updates

[bcsjkdfjksh]

I was reading a thread from "female agent" the game and a lot of people were bashing the lack of content and the long time between updates. I've noticed similar patterns where games such as "Jessica o'neill" take months for an update and we're slumped with half a day or day added on. The only honest and well done updates i've seen are from EVAKISS, who is a phenomenal game creator.

Anyone you guys would shoutout that do well done updates?
Why is it for the lack of updates- I could understand if they weren't getting paid/very little pay

 

[Crimson Delight Games]

Could be a bunch of stuff that delays new releases: IRL issues, developer fatigue, inefficient art/coding/writing pipelines, financial troubles (broken hardware, etc.), creative differences between individual devs, community drama, feature creep, and so on...

As for your original question: the appropriate update schedule is whatever the dev and his/her/their (Patreon) community agree on. It's nice to get more content faster, but really the only people who can influence developers are their supporters (by voting with their wallets). Unless the game is being developed as a passion project... then all bets are off.

Still, a good developer should try to adhere to a fixed release schedule, if only to get more eyes on their game and avoid disappointing people who are following it. But if this were easy or simple, then we'd have more completed games, instead of a graveyard filled with the corpses of abandoned v0.0.1s.

 

[Adabelitoo]

It isn't always about money. Most people here never win enough to do this for a living, except maybe devs from third world countries where they make a difference because of how devalued their currency is.

I also think that judging updates for how much "content" it isn't a good thing, or at least the word "content" needs to be specified. Two games can have an update with 5 and 30 minutes of new content respectively, but it doesn't take the same amount of time doing a 30 minutes update if you have the same CG for 20 dialogue lines and sex scenes are just one bad animation where you can see the hair/body going through objects and they both shake their hips a little for 3 seconds before they cum hard as fuck, compared to a 5 minutes update when you have a CG each 3-4 dialogue lines and sex scenes are longer and detailed with lots of animations.

I know that people want something for their money, but at the same time it isn't like they must pay to play or someone is forcing them to support a dev. My answer for an appropiate time would be "Whatever the dev think it is" and if supporters don't agree with the dev, then they are free to stop suporting him.

 

[rayminator]

Just ignore those post when ever you are comfortable to update your game then do so but if you are not comfortable then don't

 

[anne O'nymous]

Why is it for the lack of updates- I could understand if they weren't getting paid/very little pay

But, they are getting very little pay. Among the

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, less than 10% earn more than US$ 1000/month, and more than 50% earn less than US$ 100/month, both before taxes.

 

[rk-47]

Lots of testing is needed before an update goes live, this could take a few weeks even after the months of new renders took place so it could take between a few weeks depending on how fast you work to maybe 3-4 months

 

[Sinaxxr]

For new devs, I'd recommend releasing an update every week. The most traffic my thread gets is right after I release an update so if you're trying to grow and get people playing then more is better.

 

[ihl86]

For new devs, I'd recommend releasing an update every week. The most traffic my thread gets is right after I release an update so if you're trying to grow and get people playing then more is better.

While an update a week sounds awesome, it doesn't sound feasible. Unless the updates don't have that much content in them. At least for 3dcg games, rendering takes a long time and unless you have very low resolution renders, even rendering 24/7 would take a long time to have a good amount of content.

 

[I'm Not Thea Lundgren!]

While an update a week sounds awesome, it doesn't sound feasible. Unless the updates don't have that much content in them. At least for 3dcg games, rendering takes a long time and unless you have very low resolution renders, even rendering 24/7 would take a long time to have a good amount of content.

The only way this would be feasible and for the updates to have a fair amount of content is to have 3-4 updates ready to go before you release the first one; that means you'll have the best of both worlds. The only downside I can see is that you'd have to tell the people playing the game and potential backers what the future release schedule will look like.

 

[anne O'nymous]

The only way this would be feasible and for the updates to have a fair amount of content is to have 3-4 updates ready to go before you release the first one; that means you'll have the best of both worlds.

It's not the only possible way. It can also be done if you've a good enough, and dedicated, computer for the renders, and also don't care at all about quality.
This way, you can release an update with around 100 new renders every week. But obviously the renders will be at most average (clothes that stick to any curves, inconsistent lighting, characters that will looks like in any other games and also looks different each time you change something in the lighting, and so on). As for the story, it while need to rely on tons of deus ex machina moves, and its writing will not be better than in a child book. This simply because you don't have the time to do better.
The worse being that whoring your story this way works...

But have to be noted that, every single dev/studio that started with a weekly or a fortnightly release never did it for more than one year. Not because they used your trick and reached the end of what was ready, but because it's something too exhausting, even if you're still young.
With a monthly release, and even more with a none scheduled one, you can take few hours doing nothing, just in order to grow back some energy. With a weekly or fortnightly release, you can't, and you'll pay the price soon or later.

 

[ihl86]

I actually don't see the value of a weekly release tbh.
If I like a game I would not like the play new content in small increments. I don't see how this would be enjoyable.
The joy coming from a new release for a game you like is that you get to play for some time that new content. I can't imagine being happy with a 100 release content. I would still just play it monthly or even less. I would let the updates build and play it from time to time.
Actually, the only game I play on each update is Fashion Business and even there, now, I am starting to think that maybe letting a few updates gather before I play will be more enjoyable.
I understand from a business point of view, you always get new discussions and visibility coming from each release but I don't see what the people that are already playing get out of this.
And having stored content for multiple months and keeping it "hidden"/not implemented just to have a few releases close together at the start doesn't sound good to me either.
I think a game with more content will attract a bigger audience from the start. Maybe I am wrong but maybe with all the content from the start you could convince some people to support your game. People that would not have been convinced if the game was small.

 

[j4yj4m]

In the end the standard is always what a dev promises. As soon as somebody earns decent money people will start to expect more. The best right now is probably NLT with Treasure of Nadia who indeed manages to release an update with ~3 scenes every 2 weeks, but he really seems to have the resources and the team to make that work and the story of the game supports it, too. If he'd release and more comprehensive game, let alone something in 2D, that wouldn't be possible.

Generally it seems better to release two slightly smaller updates compared to one really big one. Of course they'll still have to be worth it. There's always an above average gain in popularity, recognition and thus new patrons each time an update gets released and it seesm to be a waste to forgo that additional potential.

That's of course as long as more releases are feasible from a developer's/workflow point of view, as long as it fits the content of the updates, as long as saves are working, etc.

On the other hand, too frequent updates aren't that great either. Releasing an update is always additional work and if many start skipping updates because they are too small, it's certainly not worth it.