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I create the adult visual novel Estate : Dominate

June 06, 2020 06:56 pm

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What's wrong and how to fix it - Vol.1

Hi everyone,

I don't know how much background info I should post about this 'pause' and the upcoming changes. My first instinct was to write the initial 'announcement' post, and then detail whatever changes I'm going to make, done. But I've gotten a number of messages with questions, I've been talking about it on Discord, and it's probably always a good idea to explain the motivation behind bigger changes anyway, so... this post now.

It's the first part of a two part series, and only covers what's 'wrong' atm, and why I want to make changes. If you are only interested in the solutions (well, hopefully), you can skip this post.

1. Work hours / Separation between work and free time
I already touched on this before, so I'll keep it short: I never used any form of social media before starting development on the game, and I've never been a regular in an online community. I've sometimes traveled for many months without phone or laptop. Suddenly switching to a very online life came very easy, but I missed the mark on the separation between work and free time.

2. Pledge benefits / Tier levels
Estate : Dominate is my first public project and I had no idea what I was doing when I made the original Patreon page. The tiers and benefits were a mix of copying other pages and guessing. I've already made a few changes here and there, like removing the different release dates for different tiers, but the core is still as it was at the start. And it's a shitty mix of overpromises and things I dislike.
The promised 'polls' have never been an even semi consistent feature for example. The game is so complex with the 3 paths that I can't make a simple poll and run with the result. The few times I tried this it took way too long to do, and never felt like it added much.
The custom images for the top tiers are another issue. I love making them, but I've never found a good balance for either the number I should make, or the time put into them. The people on those tiers are patient to a fault with me and essentially apologizing at this point when they ask me for an image I owe them. It's just a crappy thing I'm doing with this.
And honestly, most of the segmentation into tiers has never felt right. The worst was the mentioned difference in release dates at the start, when some supporters were playing R2 and others still had to wait their turn. But there's so much silly shit, like: you get a wallpaper, but only you over there get the special custom image, but the non existent poll is exclusive for that third person right here... It's just gross.

3. Everything is a temporary 'subscription'
The Patreon/SubscribeStar model is genuinely great: a somewhat reliable monthly income instead of the 'cross your fingers for the one release after years of work' model is a game changer. But it sucks like nothing else that supporters get immediately kicked to the curb when they aren't actively subscribed anymore. And it's not like being a Patron/Subscriber is cheap compared to the normal standards in gaming.

The combination of all this is that I'm working stupid hours for little total compensation, while at the same time feeling guilty, because the individual support from Patrons and Subscribers is too high, which I'm actively promoting with promises I can't keep.

This needs to change, but I'll talk about this in the next part.

All the best,
Henissart

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