Would you be willing to support a Dev who releases on a Tri-monthy/Bi-monthly schedule instead of Monthly?

[Wol]

In this case if a dev posted frequent progress updates, along with a possible additional form of incentive, would you still be willing to support them on a month to month basis even if they were only releasing a game build every two or three months?
Edit: I probably should have clarified that in addition to releasing builds on a two or three month schedule, the releases themselves do have more content, since at this point paying at least 5$ for 10-20 minutes of content each month seems like kind of a ripoff to me.

 

[EnsenL]

Depends on the amount of money given each month and how dedicated I am towards the game. But in general, no. If I spend 5$ a month supporting the creator then I am spending 15$ for an update. Consistent, monthly game builds are the best overall to keep everybody happy. Maybe if there is a prototype build that Patrons can help test and debug every month that would keep interest though.

 

[Korentin]

Sure, already am. I don't think any of the ones I currently support release monthly.

 

[Avaron1974]

None of the devs who's games I play release monthly.

In fact one of the top devs I know tells other devs to never release monthly because quality suffers.

The few games i've tried that have monthly releases aren't exactly high quality.

When you have games like City of Broken Dreamers, Personal Trainer, Alison Fall of the Apple, Retrieving the Past, Becoming a Rockstar, Being a DIK, Heavy Five, Offcuts, Bad Memories, Vinland (don't let me down Huti, hunni), Sisterly Lust, Harem Hotel, Mythic Manor, Where the Heart is, Parental Love, Last Sovereign all releasing after taking a few months to make sure an update is up to par you will not compete with a monthly release schedule.

The only possible way you could compete with some of those is if you have multiple render farms going constantly for a month along with dedicated writers, coders and awesome project management.

Your average monthly release dev has none of those so you get a 10 minute update with grainy renders, Engrish script and relying on basic tropes to pull in certain players.

If a dev is trying as hard as they can and putting across decent quality i'll be willing to give them support.

Some of those in my list aren't the greatest but they work hard and put care into what they do and it shows.

If I see generic incest game number 387465 with all the tropes of sleep rape, shower spying, 2 sister, horny mother etc, the shit we've seen many, many, many times before and they shit out monthly updates following the same lack of giving a shit then no, I won't even entertain them enough to download for free. My time is valuable and I won't waste it on rushed garbage.

On the flip side of that you have some devs that can put out quality after a month. The only problem is they can't do anything else so they work, develop and sleep. That's their life. Sooner or later it burns them out and they abandon their game.

I've never seen a monthly release schedule with good quality hit the completion point.

 

[Volta]

Yes i would, however they would need to make each update count more than they would in a monthly release format, if i was only getting 4-6 updates a year rather than 10-12, then i'd expect them to be more substantial and not just in terms of volume of sex content, i'd probably want a little more meat in terms of story or gameplay depending on the particular game. What i would be more keen on though is giving that dev a significantly more generous donation on a per update basis, say £5-£10 rather than £1-£3 i would give per month, it all depends on content, quality and the attitude of the Dev, but then it always does. A per quarter(ish) update schedule certainly doesn't put me off, i fact the obligatory per month updates that end up as fluff +1 scene annoy me and waste my time, i'd sooner play a higher quality game less often.

 

[Nottravis]

*watches this discussion with interest*

I think this could be one of the most important questions yet asked on this forum. Certainly it's an issue I'm wrestling with myself as, by my reckoning, I can release a chapter every six weeks. Anything less than that would be a part chapter only.

*shushes again*

 

[zoomg]

no

 

[Merseault]

yes! (and i actually do)

(+ everything, Avaron1974 wrote)

 

[Huitieme]

Well, as a patron, I don't mind at all that the creators I currently support both don't release monthly, since I know that everytime they do, I'm in for a treat anyway. In fact, I haven't got one single game in my "great games" list that do release monthly*, and I wouldn't want the devs I respect to burn themselves to reach an arbitrary release date only to shit out something they wouldn't be proud of.

If you look at it with a bit of hindsight, once the game is done, what would you rather have? A streak of chapters/episodes/events poorly articulated with rushed out renders or a full well adjusted game with a coherent storyflow? All the devs here are mainly letting us play the alpha version of their game, and when you pledge on patron, you're not exactly buying the product, you're just using your money to say to a creator: "I like what you do, please keep going".

That being said, now that I'm a developer (sort of), I already feel kinda guilty for not releasing faster D:

Then, you have the case of devs who go mute for months, and maybe post a render or two once. Even if their game is great, the lack of communication makes it more difficult to support them.

Certainly it's an issue I'm wrestling with myself as, by my reckoning, I can release a chapter every six weeks. Anything less than that would be a part chapter only.

I'd like to comment on that, if you'll let me. You say you can release a chapter every six weeks, BUT how long did you spend crafting everything, every little details, every characters personality and looks, before the first chapter even got released? The monthly support alone wouldn't reflect that. Which brings me to my point, after all this rambling.

So to answer your question, Wol, my support does depend on the dev themselves. If the dev is a great chap, I support, if the dev creates the best game in the world but I have no affinity with them as a person, I don't. Ultimately, the release cycle does not really come into consideration.

*edit. I'm lying, Belle (Long Live the Princess) usually does release monthly, but that's more like the exception to the rule.

 

[Hentai_Kishi]

People already said this but here I go.

If the dev can make significant updates then yes. In a perfect world I actually think this model would be the best because the dev team has time to actually implement features instead of having to constantly worry about pleasing everyone and with this, implementing simple and often not so good solutions to their projects. Having more content to play is a plus too.

If the dev has to take some time off for whatever reason(work, family, illness) the patrons won't feel scammed because the dev still has some time to work on the project before the next deadline. If the dev simply stops putting out content with whatever excuse the supporter can simply drop him, I think that waiting for 2 or 3 months and not getting ANY content is a very visible red flag. The developers need to frequently post and communicate too otherwise the supporters will understandably wonder if the devs are even alive.

All of this in a world where people are honest though. I can already see some devs trying to get the money and bounce.

 

[frap]

Absolutely. The whole concept of being a "patron" isn't about getting a piece of work for every payment, it's about supporting an artist (writers and game devs are artists too) as they make their art.

...
If a dev is trying as hard as they can and putting across decent quality i'll be willing to give them support.

...

On the flip side of that you have some devs that can put out quality after a month. The only problem is they can't do anything else so they work, develop and sleep. That's their life. Sooner or later it burns them out and they abandon their game.
...

^^^ I second that entire post, especially the bits cherry-picked here.

I think this could be one of the most important questions yet asked on this forum. Certainly it's an issue I'm wrestling with myself as, by my reckoning, I can release a chapter every six weeks. Anything less than that would be a part chapter only.

You say you're wrestling with it, but your patrons have spoken: fewer releases, full chapters, when they're ready. The guilt monster rides you hard, I feel you, me too. Don't burn yourself out, keep making great content and we'll go on supporting

Well, as a patron, I don't mind at all that the creators I currently support both don't release monthly, since I know that everytime they do, I'm in for a treat anyway. In fact, I haven't got one single game in my "great games" list that do release monthly*, and I wouldn't want the devs I respect to burn themselves to reach an arbitrary release date only to shit out something they wouldn't be proud of.

If you look at it with a bit of hindsight, once the game is done, what would you rather have? A streak of chapters/episodes/events poorly articulated with rushed out renders or a full well adjusted game with a coherent storyflow? All the devs here are mainly letting us play the alpha version of their game, and when you pledge on patron, you're not exactly buying the product, you're just using your money to say to a creator: "I like what you do, please keep going".

That being said, now that I'm a developer (sort of), I already feel kinda guilty for not releasing faster D:

Then, you have the case of devs who go mute for months, and maybe post a render or two once. Even if their game is great, the lack of communication makes it more difficult to support them.
...

1: exactly that
2: Of course we'd rather have a well-written, beautiful, coherent game when it's finished rather than a hodge-podge of stuff shat out every month looking like a collection of bad tattoos vs a beautiful body suit

Spoiler: bad vs good

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3: Try to ignore the guilt monster
4: Too true - communication is important

 

[frap]

...
All of this in a world where people are honest though. I can already see some devs trying to get the money and bounce.

This is something that pisses me off. It doesn't only hurt the supporters, it hurts the entire community, including other devs. How many times can people support a dev, only to have them scarper off with the cash before they decide to never support another? My guess is it's a pretty low number.

 

[Jaster42]

I would, though this is assuming I had money to support with, so take that for what it's worth.

 

[Avaron1974]

I think this could be one of the most important questions yet asked on this forum. Certainly it's an issue I'm wrestling with myself as, by my reckoning, I can release a chapter every six weeks. Anything less than that would be a part chapter only.

You have a job, your health and your own free time to worry about aswell.,

You are a talented girl, no doubt about it, i'm sure you could push out an update every 6 weeks.

1 quick question though Notty hun .... would you be happy with it?

It's rhetorical really, we both know you wouldn't be. If you wouldn't be happy pushing out 6 weekly updates would the fans that are telling you now to take your time be happy?

So in the end, would it be worth it?

Tell me if i'm off base but the girl i've got to know over the past year wouldn't exactly be jumping for joy over rushing out something she cares about.

 

[jamdan]

Most of the top games aren't on monthly release schedules. Melody/DMD are monthly releases (on a 2-1 rotation, but i think that still counts), thats the only "top-tier" games I play that I am certain are monthly releases. Some other games are too, Haley's Story, Alexandra, Freeloading Family etc. But those games have a team to work on them , not a 1 person show. Most of the games I genuinely look forward to are on 2-3 month schedules, because they are higher quality than the monthly games for the most part.

Now, the only 2 games I can think of that are on update schedules of less than 1 month is Man of the House, which I assume has a dev team (or Faerin at least has some helpers) and Corrupted Kingdoms, which gets weekly updates (as the dev prefers shorter schedules)

For 99% of devs they need to remember this is a hobby, not a job. So dont stress out about a hobby, they are supposed to be fun not stressful. Do whatever you are comfortable with and prefer, whether thats mini-weekly updates or a few updates a year. If people like your work, they will support it either way.

 

[Winterfire]

In this case if a dev posted frequent progress updates, along with a possible additional form of incentive, would you still be willing to support them on a month to month basis even if they were only releasing a game build every two or three months?
Edit: I probably should have clarified that in addition to releasing builds on a two or three month schedule, the releases themselves do have more content, since at this point paying at least 5$ for 10-20 minutes of content each month seems like kind of a ripoff to me.

As previously said, many do that... A classic example is Summertime Saga.
It is common but it does not necessarily mean that it has to be always like this, Fate of Irnia is an excellent game but the dev can easily put even two updates a month.

As you can see from the mentioned games' patreons, people will support those projects anyways because at the end it does not matter whatever you update monthly or every 2/3 months... Your time, strictly speaking, is constant: If you can do x things a day, it means that at the end of the month you will have x*30 content but if you wait another month, you will have x*60 instead.
This allows you to make bigger updates and people, in exchange for waiting, will be able to experience a longer update rather than a short one and break their experience in two.



From a point of view of a dev (myself), challenging myself to release an update weekly allows me not only to have fun but also shift a release between tiers often enough to not make it such a big deal to put releases behind "paywalls" since a 5$ release will become public after two weeks.

Which brings the question: Since patreon-wise it makes no difference, should *you* release monthly or every 2/3 months?
That is an answer that only you can answer, I take it as a challenge to have fun and shift releases quickly but I would not be surprised if a dev had a lazy personality and seeing how there are 2/3 months of time, he might skip a day or two.

If you think you are a bit lazy like that, putting the "pressure" of having to release monthly will allow you to never skip a day, at the point that you will always find the strength to do at least a minimum of content each day... At the end of the month that little each day will pile up in a decently sized update.

 

[PJWhoopie]

Looks like a lot of folks are echoing the same things....

I'll add, since I didn't see it already... If I "knew" a Patreon didn't update very often, I think I'd be less inclined to go for a bigger donation bracket. I'd be real hesitant to pay $10-20 for a quarterly update.

If a Patreon is just starting out, I would suggest just having lower tiered stuff $1-5 to build up a base.

If the game works, and everything grows... then increase the reward cycle etc.

THEY KEY TO IT ALL IS COMMUNICATION.

You can update a game every 2-3 months if you are going for good quality.... I am OK with that (assuming the buy in is low), but really how much effort does it take to make a a couple of POSTS a week? Throw in some sketches, story teasers, what the developer is struggling with, what is going well... etc.
Its funny that when a Patreon just starts out, they are communication hounds... It just flows out of em'.
After some $ucce$$ though, they kinda go "dark". The posts, let alone the updates, become fewer and farther between.

For that matter, I like the Developers who stay active on sites like this... a shout out to Lost Raven, part of the Taffy Tales team, who posts here/responds to users several times a week... right here at the f95Zone.

Along those lines, I can't tell you how often I've seen on a Patreon's page... "We" have a new goal... " Instead of $15K monthly, "we" are shooting for $25K....

Hey, I am all about capitalism, and think folks should make as much as they can, but you probably could get an update out monthly if you took some of that $15K Patreon says your making per month and hired an additional writer (or artist, programmer, etc). I feel better about supporting a team when "we" really is a group of folks working together to make a better product.

Also, in the weekly posting/updates, show us a picture of the new Render box/drawing tablet/Server that we helped fund and tell us how it is working out. Make us feel like we are part of "the team" with good communication and we will keep Patreon-ing!

 

[Belle]

I really don't care how often a dev releases updates as long as it's not too slow (Summertime Saga is an example of a game that is skirting the limits of my tolerance right now, though I really like the game itself). If a game updates often, odds are I won't play every update anyway.

I release new updates monthly for Long Live the Princess, but I realize that I'm an outlier. If I wanted to I could probably get away with a new version every two months, but for me, I don't really see the point. My game is non-linear and designed in such a way as to be easy to expand in small chunks at a time without having to rely on artificial "episodes" like so many other games do. I designed this game for rapid releases. Not all devs think about that when they come up with their ideas, probably because of lack of experience. I've noticed that devs starting their second project often take a much more measured approach to their release schedules than the first time around.

So yeah, I would support a dev who didn't release every month, no problem. That doesn't bother me at all.

 

[recreation]

I wouldn't even be able to release monthly, I tried and failed hard.
The few hours I have after my day job usually fall apart for creating the scenes in Daz, writing usually happens on the weekends. Rendering in between. If I'd release monthly, there wouldn't be much content.

 

[Joshua Tree]

For me it's not about the frequency of the updates but the quality. Also if I support a creator on patreon is not about "subscribe to monthly" content, it's about support the creator because I like his/her work.

Then again I like to spread it out, so doesn't really pledge for a very long period of time at any creator. Imho, if you like something a creator make and played their game, but doesn't really want to pledge to them for months. Just tip their jar for a month, and then do another creator the next one.