discussion How long until a game should have an abandoned tag?

[ghostmaster]

I'd struggle to come up with guidelines that apply universally - for example, something like Summertime Saga undergoing a rewrite in another engine is under very active development, but there's no updates while that happens. Developing the game and talking about developing the game are to an extent mutually exclusive in terms of time spent, though incorporating community feedback on direction on those updates seems valuable in keeping the dev more grounded, and in avoiding the community eating them alive due to impatience. It's tough when so often there are very small teams and no set update or post schedule - these are usually not very professional teams, even if they do work very hard. Too much variance to hold everyone to a rigid timeline.

"rewrite" = the original game is "on-hold". But even declared hiatuses and rewrites sometimes stretch into eternity. I guess that as long as dev is still around and keeps communicating - there will be reasons not to declare game "abandoned".

 

[pencilfight]

I would consider a game to be abandoned once you lose contact with the Dev, or the subscribers cancel their subscriptions.
As long as a Dev is discussing or posting updates, and there are subscribers paying monthly it's not really abandoned.
It may be on life support though.

Ya but then you end up with games that coast on for years with "yes, hello, here's your monthly minor bug fix update that will be $5 please"

Especially for extremely basic shit like TITS that's been in developement for well over 10 years now

 

[Barryton42]

6 months at least

 

[Dragonmede]

Ya but then you end up with games that coast on for years with "yes, hello, here's your monthly minor bug fix update that will be $5 please"

Especially for extremely basic shit like TITS that's been in developement for well over 10 years now

The answer there is to simply unsubscribe to it. Stop paying that $5 for basically no content and abandon the game. My response showed two ways a game can be abandoned, by the Dev and by the Subscribers.

 

[Raodos455]

Till the dev say so, always have hope

 

[Berzz]

6 months without any updates, either a game update, or a post from the dev

 

[Tisty]

If given me a choice i will say 6 months without any updates or news from the dev is the limit. But there are games that update with a year interval

 

[arar]

3 months no communication

 

[brutulf]

imo its 2 or 3 missed update cycles

I feel this is pretty fair. Some games just update very infrequently, but still update sometimes.

 

[DYSfunct10n4L]

If the developer has an update thread separate to the game thread, could be a web page with a Q&A section, to give followers update on next version completion percentage or whatever, then that's ok with me. But if it's just radio silence until *poof* New Update, then I think it should be capped at 4 to 6 months. 6 if it's a new developer with little time, and 4 if it's a big developer who puts all his time into the games progression. That's just my opinion

 

[HuiEtyud]

There are some games that go for at least an entire year between updates ("Waifu Academy" is at 7 months, and "Harem Hotel" is 8 months, for example), so unless it's complete and total radio silence, it's always difficult to put a hard line. My *personal* threshold is a year before I stop actively paying attention to a game and look elsewhere. Especially if the update windows get bigger and the content quality starts to dip.

There was a game that I actually backed, once, called "Love and Submission" by Veqvil. It got to v0.3, I think, and things just kept piling up on why he wasn't putting out updates, then one day he shut off the Patreon and just disappeared. I'm in his Discord, too, and it's been dead quiet for five years.

 

[Connoisseur739]

It is hard to put a metric to define what makes a game "abandoned". Ideally I would say that as long as the dev in communicating and working on the game its fine. But in practice that can't go on indefinitely either. While I would refer waiting shorter times with less content, the length between updates should justify the size of the update.

 

[User_172127]

I think there should be two separate tags. One for "Development Has Stopped" applied after an announcement from the Dev. And our current "Abandoned" tag (or more varied tags if you want) for No Contact With Dev/No Scheduled Update/Update Delayed/Hiatus/Whatever. But, tasking the forum moderators with a weekly checklist for going through every game to see if there's activity on Discord/patreon/twitter/other sites would be an incredibly rude thing to ask them to do.

But, I don't know what the current criteria for applying the abandoned tag is, or who is responsible for doing it.

 

[Demiurge299]

I'll see a few sites slap on an abandoned tag for a game that hasn't been updated in a long time. But if a dev mentions taking a break, how long into this before you think the game should be considered truly abandoned?

my heart says 6 months without contact with the Dev, but my brain says a year overall with no updates (even if the dev insists "its coming guys, I swear!"). because you can always rescind the tag if they do update.

 

[blacblacblac]

I'll see a few sites slap on an abandoned tag for a game that hasn't been updated in a long time. But if a dev mentions taking a break, how long into this before you think the game should be considered truly abandoned?

I feel like 1 year should be default unless the dev specifies a time past that the game will be updated. If that is the case 2 months past that and no announcements should be put on abandoned.

 

[Joesilvestri]

can't say, since some devs like to take their time and aren't vocal about their progress and then hit you with an update with very inconsistent time frames in between, but I'd say 6 months is very fair.

 

[Therealestjohn]

If the dev is active and are talking about a game then I say 1 year but it it's radio silence 6 months is more than enough to say it's abandoned

 

[GettinOlder]

Personally, I think that there should be a Category/Section under GAMES or even under GAMES+, designated to ONLY Abandoned projects, so that way, ANY VN/Game or whatever you want to call it, that gets the Abandoned tag should be removed from the Active library to the Abandoned library to keep the Active content cleared and if anyone has questions regarding an abandoned project they can go there and get whatever information they seek that's relevant to it. That's just my opinion, but I think it should be done because of how many "Abandoned"
games/VNs that are currently in both categories/sections. Just sayin'.

 

[SilentHunter]

1. If the developer openly states that work on the project has been discontinued for one reason or another.
2. If the developer has disappeared and has not been heard from in at least six months. The reasons for this can vary greatly—health problems, creative burnout, death, as sad as it may be.
This should be the main reason for the “abandoned” label.

3. I would not focus on the intervals between updates. I know of cases where updates appeared at intervals of 6-10 months, but in these cases, the developer remained in contact.

 

[LUVGAMZ23]

Have your own mental tag(s) and requirements. I do... now... (I've flip flopped on this a few times)

Some people are SO fucking hating on any negativity that they hate the existence of the Abandoned tag and any discussion about it.
On some sites where it's I dunno, 12 months no release or 3 months radio silence; I mention on the thread +CC to the mods there "Hey. Game X has hit the requirements."
Then it's wait...
3...
2...
1...
"Hey! Luvgamz23! The Dev clearly posted that his third cousin twice removed went in for surgery for the 4th time. The Dev SAYS he's coming back! CAN'T YOU READ?!"

Yeah, I can read. I just don't believe him. And let me tell everyone about what I think of YOU and... ah fuck... I got banned from 95 again... though, to be fair, I did deserve it.

Sorry. Rambled. Make your own tags in your mind and either ignore the thread, notepad the list, or whatever works for you so that it's abandoned in YOUR mind.
It's the only thing that matters...