Re: Breeding Season
So much this. I feel honestly at the end of the day this is the biggest problem I see us facing.
There is no accounting for Human stupidity or lack of foresight. You'll
always have a group of idiots who label dissent as "hate train" and trying to justify scammers who use crowdfunding as a feasible income. If that were the case, most (if not all) of the people on welfare would be redirected to KS/Patreon/etc by their Provincial/State government.
I wanted to hold off on talking about this in general since I am writting an editorial detailing this issue, but i do have a few things to say until that comes.
I want to aggressively accuse you of being a clickbait shill, but you seem like a decent enough guy that labeling you among outlets like Kotaku would be pretty unfair.
First of all like typical human behavior we all have a tendency to focus on negatives. For all the critizizim patreon gets...what we dont talk about nearly enough are sucessful projects and creators. We have plenty of examples of people who either constantly put out content or have finished thier projects with happy results. Yet we can sit here and have 20 long page discussions about failures and not bat an eye on sucesses.
People focus on the negative because it's easier to concentrate on the cons than to think of any pro's to something. As someone who often finds the positive in things, I see
too much evidence of crowdfunding having its negative side and not enough focus on the positives. Sure, we got Shovel Knight, Undertale, FNAF (was that crowdfunded?) and someone mentioned how "good" Steam Greenlight is, but that's like saying Bethesda never released a bad game or GTA V was a 10/10 masterpiece. It's all opinion, and despite what most arguments become, we focus on the negatives because the successes aren't nearly as ground-breaking or impressive as the failures. Breeding Season is an example of a failure that didn't just shoot for the stars, but failed
spectacularly. Yes, Undertale has a following, but so do about a thousand other games/franchises. Did it innovate on anything or change the rpg formula? No.
Breeding Season was also an adult game, and one that was not only funded out the ass, but was slated for success from day-one by a group of people who
believed, despite evidence to the contrary, that it would succeed. If anything, it should exist as a statement that a developer with no idea where they're going/what they're doing and nothing to substantiate the faith their sponsors have in them ought not to be funded. YummiTiger has missed deadlines and despite updates, hasn't substantiated the faith people have in them. Ecogi, etc are also running the same gimmick, but I'm not gonna run a campaign against them because I partly want them to succeed and, assuming the projects crash, hope it's a lesson for the people who contributed.
The issues regarding Breeding Season is something that as devs and consumers should take away. Devs being smarter about thier campaigns and continuing acts of good transparency and consumers being smarter with where they decide to fund personnel.
Devs haven't subscribed to the policy since day one, and have yet to. YT, as an example (hope you don't hate me, honestly want your hentai goodness) isn't really driving me to have faith in their project. Transparency is fine if the issues aren't a consistent factor in the project. As an example, a shareholder will be hesitant to keep their investment with a company if that company has a history of blundering on updates or fails to meet deadlines. People have to stop looking at crowdfunding projects as a "I have faith!" concept and more as a "long-term investment" project. Just the same, Devs have to be willing to look at their project more professionally and have plans and such for situations that come up. I'm not demanding devs account for
every possibility, but at least cover enough bases that an "investor" can feel like their money is being put to good use.
A model where people either donate or help fund projects that are constantly in devlopment and continues to pump out content...such as games like Warframe is totally doable but devs need to be clear about things such as this from the get go.
My understanding is warframe is struggling to keep people invested both financially and from a player perspective. Actually:
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Seems like they've bled numbers as of late. This is because DE doesn't know what they're doing, constantly screw the players with nerfs and such, and then demand more money for the abuse. At one point, much like the WWE and other companies, you start bleeding numbers because people can't be bothered to invest themselves anymore.
This isnt a "Patreon is bad" thing....its the same as blaming guns for killings despite the fact it takes people to pull the trigger for it to happen. Tools can be used for good things too but as usual...good...great things arent as dramatic as seeing a person get shot vs someone shooting the person who was about to shoot up a school.
This is evidence that Patreon is another way for people with no idea what they're doing to exploit a fraction of the population. It's another "get rich quick" gimmick that hasn't died because there have been the odd successes to the handful of failures. 1:10 success ratio isn't very inspiring, but there are people on here and elsewhere who
constantly pull a Homer and say "b-but it's still good!" That pig is flyin', kids, and it's covered in enough shit to make a cockroach sick.
Your gun analogy is terrible, btw. Guns and funding a patreon have zero in common. A better analogy is saying "Patreon is bad is comparable to people who say alcohol is bad." At the end of the day, I'm a consumer who needs to make the decision to stop when I start feeling things, or drink too much and end up with a hangover.
And for those hoping that "Big Companies" are the savior of the adult industry and are going to someday come down with thier huge bugets to start stuff. Stop being silly. The only way we are going to see an increase in quaity is by supporting our own so that the industry can grow and create an enviorment for well know adult devlopers to create sucessful franchises. Even devs such as Winged Cloud started from crowd funding and look where they are now.
Nobody thinks Bethesda is going to come down and make Elder Scrolls: Adult Edition or Blizzard will make a Warcraft porn game. Don't even attempt humor this late in the game, sir. I've complimented you and tried to be as even-minded as I can, but this is treading some dangerous ground, now. I don't want us to devolve into neanderthals trying to beat each other over the head with clubs.
I also must chastise you for your "we must fund our friends in this community!" line. You have to understand that when we sacrifice quality for quantity, it casts a negative light over the niche itself. Look at professional porn nowadays. The quality is questionable at best, and all because there was a high demand that resulted in a lack of quality put in. Now, it's falling prey to the toxic ideology of "if it's on the net, I can pirate it" that is so common throughout. Even in the AAA gaming industry, piracy is rampant due to a lack of quality in the content produced.
And you seriously think that supporting as many projects as possible is the best option long-term? C'mon, man. Journalistic integrity.
This industry cannot be done on just hopes and dreams. Risk have to be taken and lessons need to be learned. Its that simple.
You had me with the first line and probably should have stopped there. It's
not as simple as that, but I'll assume you weren't sure how to communicate why and leave it at that.
I understand that people will continue to be naive about shit, but its still very important to say this. Projects and buisnesses fail all the time. There are plenty of mainstream games that never make past alpha. There are plenty of projects in general that never make out of the idea of conception either. Big projects fail and will continue to fail...which means even more that we need to respect and give praise to those who contiue to do great things.
Businesses don't fail all the time. If you're gonna quote some "Chapter 11 Bankruptcy" then be aware that businesses only do that as a means to avoid taking a massive hit while they re-structure, etc. Businesses don't fail unless the model is bad, and given that there exists a model for businesses that has proven it works time and again, I get the feeling that you don't quite know enough on this subject to speak on it. A business when it starts out doesn't break even in the first annual
because it still needs to do things such as pay taxes, pay employees, buy materials, etc to keep running. It has to be able to pay its dues and such in the first 2-3 years before there is a noticeable revenue. Big businesses have succeeded (and will continue to)
because the model they use has been proven to work.
"Plenty of mainstream games that don't make it past alpha" requires a citation. There are plenty of
concepts that don't make it past the planning stage, are re-worked, and then presented again to either be cut or pushed into development. That doesn't mean they are a finished product or a half-finished one from the get-go. Big projects also rarely fail, and only because of things such as developer differences, the company tanks, etc. Really, you don't seem to have a good grasp on this.
Thats why I started LewdGamer in the fucking first place.
Opinionated pieces=/=facts
