Personally I'm taking this as a lesson to be learned with my own personal project. I'm not even going to bother making an uploader/creator account until I have my entire project completed. Downside to that is, this is just going to make my timeline unpredictable, 'cause I was (still am) a bit discouraged when I discovered how much money it'll cost me in the long run in DAZ assets and licensing. But so be it if it'll avoid any headaches such as these.
I think the largest lesson to learn is that:
a) Your customers are not your friends (they are like the Greek Fates, fickle and cruel when spurned), b) Discord is a tool, not a social platform if you're a Developer: use it for PR / communication soley about the game and leave it at that and c) Patreon is not your friend given it is structured to minimise feedback that shows the actual fail-rate / percentage of failed projects it actually hosts. Patreon isn't even kick-starter (in that KS at least cancels projects that fail their target goals).
Many (
many) of these projects fail because a Developer falls into the Discord rabbit-hole and wastes time, energy and psychological well-being that are better spent coding / writing / planning out roadmaps. Lesson #1 - Discord is a company
with an identical model as Twitter or Facebook where they use a whole raft of dark patterns[1] to maximise engagement. This includes
you, the Discord creator.
Top tips:
1) Don't overly front-load a project: yes you want a splash and yes you want to get hype / momentum, but don't blow all your load at once. This is a classic where a title launches with 3+ gb of renders, huge cast, massive promises and then runs into production issues. Make a roadmap: know what your next three release targets are and do them religiously. Three month updates are sensible and allow for RL to interfere without ruining deadlines (monthly is suicide: professional studios don't do monthly apart from internal crunch... and that's kept internal for a reason). This is called "runway": if you have 3+ gb, release 2, hit the next deadline with your remaining 1 and the breathing space / lack of pressure will probably mean you can produce an extra 1gb to bolster it.
Always have runway (and not imaginary 2500 renders that do not exist a year later) and be realistic: even a short narrative arc / render set is better than panicking and throwing out a minor cast render / sex scene to placate your customers: hit roadmap targets, not filler spank. (You'll take a hit in the short run; in the long run your game gets completed).
Lack of content + Time pressure + solo psychological development = death spiral waiting to happen
2) Focus on the game rather than the PR / Discord / Patreon numbers. Make it clear to customers (and to yourself) if you consider this a hobby (which will get you more leeway on updates but lower interest levels) or if this is semi-professional.
If it is a hobby, then treat it like one and have fun. Ignore feedback and just create and see what happens.
If you have an absolute $$$ goal make it clear to yourself and make it realistic. Don't say "If I don't get $1000 / month by month two I am ditching"; do say: "My target is $250, $500 and then $1000, but I can accept $200, $400, $800 for three months after this deadline, then I will have to reconsider".
Then stick to it.
3) Social media is poison,
especially Discord which is real-time interaction. Treat it as a required necessity and never use it for anything
but hitting a roadmap target. Yes, each update should have patch notes / a lead-in time, but only do this
once you have wrapped up the actual update.
You get the idea. Good luck with your project.
[1] The best source on this is probably:
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