Yes. But the pandemic only lasted for about 2 years and is officially over for close to 3 years now. Also you can't tell me, that a small studio with 10 or 20 people would have had problems to still work on that game. I don't buy that. And even remote work shouldn't have been a big problem for such a small company. It was 2020-2021 and not 1999. It's probably way more complicated to get remote work going in a big company with all the rules and bureaucracy and whatnot, although I can't say for sure.
Yes.
Yes. You can work on multiple areas at once when developing a game, you know. It's also not only about the story. Apart from the sandbox, poser, animation and characters stuff there is basically no content. Just watch the video I linked and how unfinished everything is. There are so many textures, props and assets missing (Water had no physics). The world is very big, generic and empty. Actually, this may rather be a sign of mismanagement.
I know it's not only one person. I did not even claim that. My guess is maybe 10-20 people? That's how many can probably live off of 1 Mio $ per year. More if you're frugal and less if you're not. On the other hand I'm wondering what all these people are doing, when you look at my examples below...
There is absolutely nothing unreasonable about it. 8 years, a small group of people and 6+ Mio. $ budget and it's not even a custom engine and we have nothing but a high quality sandbox toolkit for UE5 to build your own sex scenes. It's really hard to tell, if it's mismanagement at this point (like stated above) or strategy to milk patreons for a longer period of time.
Just to set this into perspective: Have you ever heard of the following projects, mods and games? I'd argue the dev size is similar or even smaller, but effectively accomplished a lot more!
[EDIT] Fallout London is a bad example as I noticed there were 100 modders and 100 voice actors involved. Although probably no money and only spare time instead of full time, so there is that.
Look them up, if you don't know them.
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True. But I never expected a Cyberpunk AAA game. Of couse, they can't compete with them. Also we all know that Cyberpunk was a mess at release, despite its 260 Mio $ budget.
I don't know that game, but what little I just looked up on reddit, it seems the game was made by a single person only in his spare time and without any sort of crowdfunding. I also read mixed opinions on this game and the dev's work mentality which sounds a bit all over the place without reliable progress (sound familiar?). Seemingly, Kenshi 2 has been in development for a couple of years already. At least he doesn't ask for patreon money, because his first game made enough...
Anyway, with Wild Life it's different, since several people have been working for at least 6 years full time on that game with a large enough budget. Also see my other examples above to set the dev output in relation to other projects and their ressources! See the difference??
The only reason I visited this thread again is to see if anything worthwhile has happened AT ALL. Because every 1 or 2 years I remember this game... then I come back 5 fucking years later, the game has barely progessed and people still keep defending it as if it's their baby and throwing a ton of money at it. As I said in my earlier post: I can only assume that most customers are happy about what they got so far, which is -and I repeat again- a sophisticated sandbox modding kit for UE4/5 to build your own sex scenes. That's it. That's the game. If you are one of them. More power to you.
And yes I'm very disappointed, because while the Sandbox mode is in their description, it's basically the only thing working and if you set it in context with the rest of the intended features, it's maybe somewhere between 30-40 % complete... after 8 years... maybe...
Here is the full description in case anyone forgot about what they promise:
You must be registered to see the links
I'm fed up with this overpromising and then underdelivering Patreon bullshit business model. Some other prominent examples: Eromancer with Malice and the Machine and that Onyx game, Cushstation with Female Agent who has not released anything in a couple of years I believe or Splendid Ostrich with Newlife where he releases an update whenever he pleases. These are just 3 examples of people who live a happy life with Patreon money without working for it. And there are probably countless others which I don't even know. Adeptus Steve is not quite that level of audacity, but the line is already thin...
I mainly wanna open eyes really. But people don't seem to care either way, even if you explain it in detail. Also I can criticise shitty business practises without making my own game. That's the funny part: I have already found other games, but I still decided to post here to prevent more people from losing money for no equivalent value.
While we're at it: Star Citizen. Same BS. Started in 2012/2013 raised almost 800 Mio $ until today and still alpha or something. But they keep getting away with it, it's ridiculous. Granted this game probably already has a shit ton of content (haven't looked into it). However, the Single Player campaign which was promised (let me look) 12 freaking years ago is only set for release in 2026... Bullshit business model and you know exactly why they do it: because they can extract more money from naive customers that way. See screenshot below.
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Over and out. Good luck and see you in 5 years!
