How long would one consider is too long when it comes to supporting a Dev who rarely gives update?
( a former supporter Bones: the manor)
( a former supporter Bones: the manor)
Supporting a Dev
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I tried googling... but I can't find the data, so I have to make some up with best guess.
Let's say a porn game takes 2 years to complete. Yes, I've seen shorter, and I've seen longer. Let's say you do the 5$ a month version.
That's 24 x5 = $120. What AAA (or other) game could you get for 120$? Is that AVN worth that AAA game? That's not for me to say. Some would say that $500 bottle of champagne was worth. Other would say FUCK THAT... gimme $500 of beer over the course of X months.
And this is where it gets tricky:
If it's 4 years development or $10 a month, the prices soars to 240$.
If it's 1$ a month or 5 month development, the price is now 24-25$.
Personally, considering I either splurge only every few years (AT MOST) for ONE AAA game, and the rest it's F2P or Pen and Paper with friends... final verdict = not worth it for me in general, let alone for MIA devs.
For you? Totally different. The question is doubly difficult because you're not even paying for a completed product re: Abandoned / Rush endings. If porn games had robust anti-piracy measures, I'd go back to standard porn pictures, edited with my personal captions.
Final Dartboard answer to the OP question = 3 months of non-communication or 1 year without updates puts a dev in my permanent "fuck it" list.
Let's say a porn game takes 2 years to complete. Yes, I've seen shorter, and I've seen longer. Let's say you do the 5$ a month version.
That's 24 x5 = $120. What AAA (or other) game could you get for 120$? Is that AVN worth that AAA game? That's not for me to say. Some would say that $500 bottle of champagne was worth. Other would say FUCK THAT... gimme $500 of beer over the course of X months.
And this is where it gets tricky:
If it's 4 years development or $10 a month, the prices soars to 240$.
If it's 1$ a month or 5 month development, the price is now 24-25$.
Personally, considering I either splurge only every few years (AT MOST) for ONE AAA game, and the rest it's F2P or Pen and Paper with friends... final verdict = not worth it for me in general, let alone for MIA devs.
For you? Totally different. The question is doubly difficult because you're not even paying for a completed product re: Abandoned / Rush endings. If porn games had robust anti-piracy measures, I'd go back to standard porn pictures, edited with my personal captions.
Final Dartboard answer to the OP question = 3 months of non-communication or 1 year without updates puts a dev in my permanent "fuck it" list.
Depends on the situation, but it becomes rather obvious when one is milking. If they take too long, you can also stop support for a couple/few months until the next update.
Depends on what you feel. I don't think projects should be supported financially unless either:
The difficulty in running a milk machine game is it still needs to be updated to be viable. Eventually, people that pay attention will stop supporting. There are supporters that start and never stop, and there are devs that live in locations where a small amount of money can mean the difference between eating well or not eating at all.
In the end, anyone that pays attention and is shrewd with their supporting money can spot someone milking a mile away. If they keep getting money, then it's on the supporters that give them money. Maybe they like the long wait times and small updates. Maybe they completely forgot and don't check their monthly statements, or don't really mind that $5 charge.
Personally, if I really liked the project, I would go for at least six months without meaningful communication from the dev before I considered dropping. It also should be said I don't support major projects. Summertime Saga, Harem Hotel, BaD, etc. They're already making beaucoup money. They don't need my $5. It'll go to minor or new devs to give them some encouragement. It's really the only way a new good dev can get started. Supporters don't "buy" the game. They invest in the developer in the hope they can make something special.
- The dev has a good track record of putting out updates, even if it takes several months between.
- The dev has already done 3-4+ updates on their first project, even if takes several months between.
IMHO, this isn't as big a problem as many people make it out to be. It certainly happens. There are several games out there that are legitimately money-suckers that are only updated, usually very thinly, to keep the milk machine going.
The difficulty in running a milk machine game is it still needs to be updated to be viable. Eventually, people that pay attention will stop supporting. There are supporters that start and never stop, and there are devs that live in locations where a small amount of money can mean the difference between eating well or not eating at all.
In the end, anyone that pays attention and is shrewd with their supporting money can spot someone milking a mile away. If they keep getting money, then it's on the supporters that give them money. Maybe they like the long wait times and small updates. Maybe they completely forgot and don't check their monthly statements, or don't really mind that $5 charge.
Personally, if I really liked the project, I would go for at least six months without meaningful communication from the dev before I considered dropping. It also should be said I don't support major projects. Summertime Saga, Harem Hotel, BaD, etc. They're already making beaucoup money. They don't need my $5. It'll go to minor or new devs to give them some encouragement. It's really the only way a new good dev can get started. Supporters don't "buy" the game. They invest in the developer in the hope they can make something special.
It's about consistency. Can they release on a schedule? Doesn't even matter how big the releases are, but can they actually ship a project on (or at least near) a deadline?
Most devs are artistic types, and a stereotype that unfortunately happens to be true a lot of the time is that artists are not very dependable people. They'll get an idea for a game, create some early versions filled with love, and then find out that they don't actually want to treat it like a job (working on it when they don't feel like it, being responsive to patrons, debugging, etc) so they start releasing less often. Then the patreon dollars start to shrink so the "side project" starts up, then the main game starts *really* languishing, the Patreon dollars start to shrink even more, and they just walk away. That's the death spiral you see all the time.
Personally if a dev has a "completed" tag under his belt I will give him a lot more slack than someone working on their first game. For new devs, I bail as soon as they show they start missing consecutive deadlines without clearly communicating about it.
I don't think "milking" as a deliberate scam is common so much as devs just get bored/tired and flake out.
Most devs are artistic types, and a stereotype that unfortunately happens to be true a lot of the time is that artists are not very dependable people. They'll get an idea for a game, create some early versions filled with love, and then find out that they don't actually want to treat it like a job (working on it when they don't feel like it, being responsive to patrons, debugging, etc) so they start releasing less often. Then the patreon dollars start to shrink so the "side project" starts up, then the main game starts *really* languishing, the Patreon dollars start to shrink even more, and they just walk away. That's the death spiral you see all the time.
Personally if a dev has a "completed" tag under his belt I will give him a lot more slack than someone working on their first game. For new devs, I bail as soon as they show they start missing consecutive deadlines without clearly communicating about it.
I don't think "milking" as a deliberate scam is common so much as devs just get bored/tired and flake out.
I was thinking ones where the supporters are almost like a cult, such as A Wife and Mother (the most egregious example.) 7 years in development and still no sex except with her husband. Obvious milking to any rational person, but the fans are all over at fuck95, and apparently giving it a bad rating or giving enough negative comments on it is against an unwritten rule there.
Haven't ever run into that before, but I'm not one to fanboy anything. So I suppose it's not something I run into often.
I've found trying to yell and point and say, "that's not right!" does absolutely nothing. It's a waste of time, energy, and oxygen. People are gonna do what people are gonna do. I accept it and move on.
Guess if people are stupid enough to support bullshit like that, nothing can be done. Sucks a dev like that can get rich stringing people along for so long - and no end in site.
Depends on what you call 'rich'. I haven't gone around and looked at what people are making on Patreon or SubscribeStar or whatever while bilking people out of money by giving no product back. So my knowledge on this is limited to say the least.
A few hundred bucks a month isn't rich, IMHO. Pressed to answer, I'd put "rich" at about $100,000 a year - ~$8300 per month. I suppose you could say Summertime Saga might met the criteria, since they have released one update in a year-plus. They definitely make that much and more.
I genuinely don't know. Are there others that are gaining that kind of money without giving (meaningful/regular) updates? What would you consider rich?
4rcan1st
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between 2 and 3 months, depending on the quality and size of updates.
6 months is like
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but 1 year is mostly
Depends on how much the dev delivers on each update, if he takes 1 year but the update has several hours worth of content I don't mind
I'm not sure what L&P gets. 8000 a month would be a lot for doing very little. Some who abandon games still get a couple hundred/thousand a month for doing literally nothing.
A thousand a month for nothing? Do you have examples? Which one is L&P?
yeah i've seen some that's been supporting actual dead games
as for the game mentioned in the op, probably 2 updates in like 16 or so months
From what i've seen, i've come across many different examples, some that made sense and others that didn't
i mentioned " The manor" in the op as it was probably one of the worst, i believe they make like $3-5k a month
minor update like in feburary and the release before that was late 2022 i think
from the thread of the game, the creator faked kidney stones for about a year and made other excuses.
the discord has become a place where you get instant banned for even using the word update
Twisted world isn't that bad but did go from like an update 2-3 months to 1 or 2 a year
some updates just introduced one time characters with little to no story progression.
i believe it recently is being remade and that first release was a prologue longer than the original and that was 5+ months ago
i'm not sure how much they make
Wow. That's a lot of money for someone putting up nothing to very little.
The onus on this is really on the supporters. I get that the dev for The Manor is just soaking up money like a sponge, but he's not making people give him money. Whether they are duped, don't know they still support him, or whatever... most people will not just decide to stop taking the money. Not everyone, but most. Bones is an ass. Hating on him I get. The supporters are letting him do it.
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Milfy city went without an update from the 15 of july 2021 to the 23 of september of 2023.
The update was obviously rushed, disappointing and of lower quality than every single update before that.
He's been working in dlc1 since then. A DLC, for a game that jumped from 0.71 to 1.0 with a ridiculous small update.
At no point went bellow 2800 supporters(almost 4k right now), with 5 tiers of subscription, 10$ the normal one and almost 1000$ the last tier(which has a maximum numbers of slots and shows as full).
HE WENT DARK FOR 11 MONTHS.
i agree with this fully
if you ask me, for some devs, once you reach a point where the mc basically has sex with all main characters
coming up with more story/ plot becomes...pretty much nothing
many just stop after that
imo that's when you should really start introducing side characters and that plot from way back in the beginning (if there is one)
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