My experience with Patreon

[Pazz]

When scavenging the internet, looking for adult games that are worth playing, my only options are dlsite.com. Where most games are written in alien. Or Patreon, the nexus of unfinished and abandoned games.

Problems I have with Japanese games:

-I can't read it, and some games are text heavy. Excuse me for not giving up my psychology studies, in order to learn Japanese for the sake of porn.
There are fan translations, but seeing their "progress", it's faster to actually learn Japanese then to wait for those people.

-You need to change your pc region to Japanese. Which can cause problems like antivirus not updating anymore.

-You mostly play as a little girl in tentacle town.
What if I don't like that? They do have quite a good collection of femdom games, if I could actually read any of it.


Then we go to Patreon, because no other country besides Japan has figured out that porn games might actually sell well? Where's the English dlsite? Not to be confused with dlsite in English.

Anyway, I'm looking at some Patreon games which usually start something like this:

"We are a passionate two man army that want's to spread joy and orgasms through out the ages. Please check out are new game called "The Landscape Tilt-a-whirl Sonic Boom."

Pardon me citizen, but could you add a description of your game? Description. In words. Like I'm using right now. Your game title doesn't help either.

So after checking their pre-alpha-demo-broken-release version -0.3, I'm seeing what they are about. It's not exactly what I'm looking for, but it's a good start. Let's see their latest version. Maybe this will convince me to pay for a game that isn't finished.

"Release 0.5. Locked. Patrons only $10."

What did you release? What did you add? Why do I have to pay for something I can't even see? Is it too hard to copy/paste that description?
Lord Fenoxo posts every update. I can see progress and what they are doing.


Let's look at Patron reward tier levels. Shit.
Fenoxo Fenfen's ("Fenfen"? Really?) Patreon reads:
"Pledge $5 or more per month
Basic Backer: Get access to backer builds weeks before they go public."

Look how clear this description is. I know exactly what I'm getting here. The other tiers are clear as well.
Now let's look at how you should NOT give rewards:
"Pony Tier
$3 or more per Picture or Chapter, or Game Update"

What? I just want to play the game and I have money. I don't care about the pictures? What pictures are you even talking about? Chapters? This game doesn't have chapters. What do you mean? How many game updates are we talking about?
Look at Fenoxo's Patreon. Look. At. It. And that's coming from someone who isn't even pledged to TiTs.

After waiting for updates, they either add content that is the opposite of what's already in the game:
"Do you like women dominating you in a dungeon with lightsabers? Now you can transform in a werewolf and have sex with guys!"

That's not what I paid for, nor what I asked for. Please stop.

Or they come with an apology: "Sorry for not updating as frequently. A dragon attacked my city and infected us with X44 type B. We have to pay tribute to Wonder Woman or else we will all be cat food."

I'm not making fun of people having problems. I get sick all the time. But maybe start small. Make a short finished game. You won't be burned out as much.

CoC wasn't built in a day.

 

[MotoKuchoma]

 

[The Silver Bard]

So, I can answer some of your questions.
First, porn games don't sell in the west. Some companies try from time to time, but the market is just not there. The eroge market in Japan is fueled by a highly devoted otaku subculture that doesn't exist here in the west.

If you see something added to a Patreon game that is wildly different from the rest of the game, it's probably because a lot of supporters have been asking for it. Developers try to take player feedback into consideration, sometimes to the game's detriment.

Finally, developers on Patreon can't make small, finished games. No one supports small, finished games. Patreon supporters get excited for the idea of a game, not the game itself. The more ambitious the better. Patrons usually want to see a prototype that shows promise and a design that will take five years or more to finish. If a developer wants to finish a game, their next prototype needs to be out and bigger than the last.

 

[Ethereal Dragon]

Patreon is at least when it comes to games in a way to invest in them to see a game developed and being a part of the process, except that if you don't like the direction it's going you can pull your money out of it, well at least the commitment of money towards that project. What money already put into it you don't get back.

As TSB has pointed out porn games don't sell well in the west because there's not a large market for it for several reasons. Western culture is not as open about sexual related things, especially the US, sex related stuff is in a way repressed in the US due to morals (due to several reasons one of them being something to do with religion which I am not getting into as that's a can of worms I like to avoid, right next to politics.), another is that people here don't talk about that stuff because of the way we're brought up. Parents really don't have 'that talk' with kids, the topic of sex is really a subject parents are really uncomfortable discussing about with their kids. In a sense the US as I am using as a reference is sexually repressed and being really open about it is frowned upon in society. The U.S. is a bit backwards compared to some other countries to put it simply.

 

[Nephilim_Anunnaki]

So, I can answer some of your questions.
First, porn games don't sell in the west. Some companies try from time to time, but the market is just not there. The eroge market in Japan is fueled by a highly devoted otaku subculture that doesn't exist here in the west.

If you see something added to a Patreon game that is wildly different from the rest of the game, it's probably because a lot of supporters have been asking for it. Developers try to take player feedback into consideration, sometimes to the game's detriment.

Finally, developers on Patreon can't make small, finished games. No one supports small, finished games. Patreon supporters get excited for the idea of a game, not the game itself. The more ambitious the better. Patrons usually want to see a prototype that shows promise and a design that will take five years or more to finish. If a developer wants to finish a game, their next prototype needs to be out and bigger than the last.

 

[Mad Maru]

When it comes to Patreon, you have to choose very carefully which projects you want to support. In fact, you'll never know if a game will see it's full release or gets abandoned halfway through. Some content creators are either lazy or underestimate the process of game development in terms of effort and money. And even successful campaigns like Breeding Season can ultimately let you down.

That being said: Keep searching, Pazz! I'm sure you're going to find a game that's worth their while. I get what you're saying, and agree. Developers should be aware of the amount of work that game development requires, and they should give their supporters clear descriptions of their product and schedule.

 

[asestado]

Well there are other options for those that are dissappointed on game creators.

How about supporting game translators? there are quite a few:

https://www.patreon.com/translatingtogether A translator group of 2 people, they translate interesting games nothing too hardcore.
https://www.patreon.com/youray Games with quite a good gameplay.
https://www.patreon.com/elfloren He doesn't have defined fetishes for his translations.
https://www.patreon.com/m1zuki Mostly netorare

I have to say that this could be your answer to your problem with japanese games.

 

[IvoryOwl]

Patreon is a cow-milking scheme where everyone can sell their ideas for a monthly fee. Sure, sometimes those ideas turn into something good and proper but for every project that turns out to be decent you have another 3 that are just shit in every sense. Most developers deliberately take it slow as snails because this is their bread-maker, longer projects = more months of income. And since its sex we're talking about, one of things the West is extremely thirsty for, people drop their money like flies to honey. It doesn't matter if your game is bad, it doesn't matter if you go off the radar for months and come back with the excuse of disease, life drama or because your entire work was secured in an SDD that got eaten by a dinosaur. There will always be a few idiots who believe something good may come of it and therefore keep paying you for it, even though that only serves to promote laziness, incompetency and scams.

The problem of Patreon is that it allows everyone to join in regardless of skill as well as physical and mental preparation, whether they're working alone or with a team, dealing with their Patreons' demands, assuming leadership (if they have a team), taking responsability for failure and improving, managing people and money AND, most important of all, keeping at it until the end. Too many individuals fancy the idea of working from home and making money while it... what they forget is that self-employment like this can be just as hard and demanding as any regular job, sometimes worse. That's when they realize making videogames ins't as easy as just playing them but then the damage has already been done - they wasted months, maybe years of their lives (well, its not trully wasted since they got some money for it) and left hundreds of people hanging with broken promises and lighter wallets.

People need to do some self-evaluation before commiting to a project that may last for several years, years of attrition, tears, sweat and dealing with an ungrateful mob always moaning about something and trying boss you around.

Stop supporting shitty games and scammers and you may just see a healthier, more refined Patreon in the future.

 

[Pazz]

Thank you for the replies.

It baffles me that there's so much porn on sites like pornhub, but making porn games is just weird?

If supporters can change a game based on how much money they throw at the creator, then I would rather not support anyone on Patreon. I hope I'm not the one causing a problem then.

Finally, developers on Patreon can't make small, finished games. No one supports small, finished games. Patreon supporters get excited for the idea of a game, not the game itself.

I support small finished games. Just like that highly devoted otaku subculture you were describing. So it's odd that you say no one supports small games.
I know some great things start with one idea, but I guess I'm too cautious/cynical when approaching Patreon. To me, it looks like Steam Greenlight, and Greenlight is gone. Though they still spam shitty games, lol.

 

[Ethereal Dragon]

Thank you for the replies.

It baffles me that there's so much porn on sites like pornhub, but making porn games is just weird?

If supporters can change a game based on how much money they throw at the creator, then I would rather not support anyone on Patreon. I hope I'm not the one causing a problem then.


I support small finished games. Just like that highly devoted otaku subculture you were describing. So it's odd that you say no one supports small games.
I know some great things start with one idea, but I guess I'm too cautious/cynical when approaching Patreon. To me, it looks like Steam Greenlight, and Greenlight is gone. Though they still spam shitty games, lol.

Part of the problem with steam's Early Access program though they changed it quite a bit with the major flop of No Man's Sky and it's large list of features that became empty promises. You can now get a refund under certain circumstances with early access titles.

 

[The Silver Bard]

I support small finished games. Just like that highly devoted otaku subculture you were describing. So it's odd that you say no one supports small games.

Here's the difference: how much money are you willing to throw at your porn games? Otaku in Japan don't mind paying $90 for an eroge, so developers can get by despite the small player-base. Western gamers are not willing to pay those kinds of prices, especially for porn. That sort of market doesn't really exist anywhere outside of Japan.

 

[MotoKuchoma]

protip: patreon is not a store

 

[Mad Maru]

protip: patreon is not a store

Speaking of store, wasn't there an announcement like a few years ago about some steam-like platform for porn games? I believe it's called Kimochi, but I haven't heard about it since then. Has it become a thing?

EDIT: I've looked it up on google. Seems like they started some sort of Steam greenlight, just for adult games, hence their clever name Kimochi red light. Aside from that, they started a partnership with Nutaku, which appears to be a store for adult browser, mobile and downloadable games. The amount of games is rather small, though.

 

[Ethereal Dragon]

Speaking of store, wasn't there an announcement like a few years ago about some steam-like platform for porn games? I believe it's called Kimochi, but I haven't heard about it since then. Has it become a thing?

EDIT: I've looked it up on google. Seems like they started some sort of Steam greenlight, just for adult games, hence their clever name Kimochi red light. Aside from that, they started a partnership with Nutaku, which appears to be a store for adult browser, mobile and downloadable games. The amount of games is rather small, though.

Nutaku bought up Kimochi when it was still in it's infancy, it was starting to fail due to lack of interest until Nutaku caught wind of it and decided to outright buy it up.

 

[Jaydog]

Pretty much all the games listed on kimochi are outright gone now even though Nutaku said they'd keep them around.

 

[Nephilim_Anunnaki]

But that seems to happen to every crowdfunding platform (being the first kickstarter).

 

[DuskyHallows]

I think a lot of your concerns about Patreon are valid, but as others have said, Patreon is not a store. More importantly, though, it's up to consumers to vote with their wallets or at least let creators know when they're providing a shoddy description of what it is they're making. Most creators doing what you're critiquing are new to dev work, or if they are experienced devs then they're new to marketing and maintaining a professional front-end for their business. I imagine a lot of them would respond positively if you messaged them with your concerns (ie what differences are there between the public and patron only builds). It might sound like a lot of work, but if consumers were more vocal about their concerns then the state of the nsfw games industry would improve dramatically. This is such a small industry that vocal consumers have a lot of power.

 

[Obscure]

Thank you for the replies.

It baffles me that there's so much porn on sites like pornhub, but making porn games is just weird?
{snip}

You can video tape yourself banging your girlfriend for 40 minutes, spend 2 hours editing it down to 10 minutes of the good stuff and have some finished good quality porn. Not that most people spend that long on it...

Even an RPGmaker game with highschool grade animu art takes hundreds of man hours to complete. And some people insist on making games to a higher standard.

The two things are not comparable.

 

[Ethereal Dragon]

You can video tape yourself banging your girlfriend for 40 minutes, spend 2 hours editing it down to 10 minutes of the good stuff and have some finished good quality porn. Not that most people spend that long on it...

Even an RPGmaker game with highschool grade animu art takes hundreds of man hours to complete. And some people insist on making games to a higher standard.

The two things are not comparable.

Very true, a lot of people are using Unity now though they still have to do coding with that unlike RPGmaker games. Coding is the thing I think takes the longest when it comes to game development. There are SOOOOO many things that can go wrong with the game if coding goes bad. (Do note I have no experience with coding but I've been around the gaming community long enough to follow along to know the process and how much of a fubar it can be when shit hits the fan.)

 

[aephrosi]

I'd like to echo what DuskyHallows said. So much time goes into the hustle of trying to get exposure. Market research, engaging in communities, and presenting yourself and project is incredibly time consuming. Any constructive feedback is amazing. If you find a Patreon project even vaguely interesting, let the creator know. Let them know what you like and what you don't. To me, that's more supportive than a few dollars.

 

[Pazz]

I'd like to echo what DuskyHallows said. So much time goes into the hustle of trying to get exposure. Market research, engaging in communities, and presenting yourself and project is incredibly time consuming. Any constructive feedback is amazing. If you find a Patreon project even vaguely interesting, let the creator know. Let them know what you like and what you don't. To me, that's more supportive than a few dollars.

While I lurk at forums, I do try to contact these developers. But I can only send a message through Patreon if I'm a patron myself. So I have to hope they have an email address or something else I can contact them with, if I have questions, suggestions, praise and the like. And I'm not going to pay in advance while they might not even reply. They aren't obligated to reply. Ugh, paranoia.

 

[DuskyHallows]

While I lurk at forums, I do try to contact these developers. But I can only send a message through Patreon if I'm a patron myself. So I have to hope they have an email address or something else I can contact them with, if I have questions, suggestions, praise and the like. And I'm not going to pay in advance while they might not even reply. They aren't obligated to reply. Ugh, paranoia.

100% agree with this, and it's a feature I wish Patreon would implement. If you want feedback, you have to let people know how to reach you. Maintain at least one form of social media with a public commenting system and leave your email address somewhere noticeable.

 

[aephrosi]

But I can only send a message through Patreon if I'm a patron myself.

I just went to a post for someone where I'm not a patron and was able to leave a response. Maybe you're referring to direct messages?

 

[Pazz]

I just went to a post for someone where I'm not a patron and was able to leave a response. Maybe you're referring to direct messages?

Yes, but if you got to "community" on a Patreon page, you get the message: "Become a patron to post to .... page."

I can reply to a non-patron-only post. You are right about that. But I have to hope there's a post like that. Then I have to hope not many people are replying to said post, so the developer can easily see my message. But the main problem is I want to contact a developer to talk about many things. It's for them only, not for everyone else to see.

 

[aephrosi]

But I have to hope there's a post like that. Then I have to hope not many people are replying to said post, so the developer can easily see my message. But the main problem is I want to contact a developer to talk about many things. It's for them only, not for everyone else to see.

That's a good point. Doesn't exactly make it easy. I've added contact info to my main page with a few channels to get in touch.

I know that I get an email every time someone responds to my posts. Maybe not every creator has their settings like that, but I would think responding to any open post with a "Hey, how can I get in touch with you?" would be enough. If they don't get back in touch, then I'd have no qualms about moving on and looking for other projects to support.

 

[MotoKuchoma]

I'm confused by this. Not that it isn't reasonable to ask a dev about their game before buying or wanting good samples, but more so that triple A devs aren't held to that standard. When Ubisoft shits bug riddled crap onto the market, people preorder to no ends while they enforce gag orders to make sure no reviewer exposes the horrid quality and lacking features before enough people bought the game already. I wonder why people have such high scrutiny towards indie devs when triple A devs are notoriously more shady and unreliable.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

I'm confused by this. Not that it isn't reasonable to ask a dev about their game before buying or wanting good samples, but more so that triple A devs aren't held to that standard. When Ubisoft shits bug riddled crap onto the market, people preorder to no ends while they enforce gag orders to make sure no reviewer exposes the horrid quality and lacking features before enough people bought the game already. I wonder why people have such high scrutiny towards indie devs when triple A devs are notoriously more shady and unreliable.

I wouldn't say that indies are more reliable than triple A studios. For every indie that releases a game, there are at least four others that fail. That isn't to say that consumers shouldn't be far more skeptical of triple A studios and not preorder anything, but they are better than indies about actually releasing something.

 

[Ethereal Dragon]

People are more wary now of pre-ordering, there have been too many over-hyped games in recent years that didn't live up to the hype, one of the more recent and notorious of this is NMS (No Man's Sky) where they basically pulled a Peter Molyneux and made promises they couldn't keep or cash.

 

[Woider]

When it comes to Patreon, my advice is pretty much "unless you're 100% behind this, stay away." I don't have an intention of ever using it, personally.

People are more wary now of pre-ordering, there have been too many over-hyped games in recent years that didn't live up to the hype, one of the more recent and notorious of this is NMS (No Man's Sky) where they basically pulled a Peter Molyneux and made promises they couldn't keep or cash.

Pre-orders for digital copies is just... *fart noises*.

 

[aephrosi]

I'm confused by this. Not that it isn't reasonable to ask a dev about their game before buying or wanting good samples, but more so that triple A devs aren't held to that standard. When Ubisoft shits bug riddled crap onto the market, people preorder to no ends while they enforce gag orders to make sure no reviewer exposes the horrid quality and lacking features before enough people bought the game already. I wonder why people have such high scrutiny towards indie devs when triple A devs are notoriously more shady and unreliable.

Marketing, with huge budgets.