Project X Subject 2 Launch Review

After putting out a review to the original project for its launch, I want to give out some thoughts on the reaction to the sequel. It's not all doom and gloom, but the opening take here is going to be pretty rough.

I'm making this post 4 days after launch, same as last time. Subject 2 has picked up 3k likes, about 1k followers, and 12 patrons since launch. That's less than half the likes, a quarter of the followers, and about two-thirds the patrons as the original. Don't be fooled by the patron count, it's actually less impressive than it looks. Most patrons only joined for this month, and those that stayed were quickly replaced by others cancelling. Subject 2 has actually launched to a net gain of 0 patrons.

For a project that's almost double in size to the original, the numbers are kind of... brutal.

Now, I never expected the sequel to do as well. I figured it was lightning in a bottle to be so successful. There was no way double the project would have double the results. Honestly, I was barely expecting it to equal Project X. Still, it's pretty hard to put this much into the project and only put up a fraction of the results.

The biggest gain from Project X really was patron retention. I saw something like 30-40 patrons gained in a month, but more importantly a 20+ patron gain that stayed for months since launch. No patron retention on immediate launch is a pretty bad sign that this will make no difference in the long run. It doesn't take an expert to see that patrons joining for 1 month on a project that took 3 months to make is not sustainable.

There's too many variables at work with social media to really know where things went wrong. Is it worse than the original? Are people already bored of the format? Messages are really encouraging, but it's hard to gauge when all other metrics are substantially worse. Claire is a more popular character, but did going with a niche choice for the original actually work in its favor?

All I can say for sure is that putting so much content into one project is too much of a risk. Over 100 pictures, 3 animation loops, and a 9 minute movie all in one post that, for whatever reason, kind of flopped. I think the problem is that the length undermined the project. The design goal of the project type was supposed to be a shorter project that could be churned out in a month for so. Once it took multiple months to create, it was never going to be successful enough.

Still, I don't regret working on the project. I had a similar mentality like the first one. I made the project because I enjoyed it. I had a vision for what I wanted to create. I was optimist that adding more content would make it more popular, but mainly I just made content that I thought fit the project better. I am satisfied with the complete work. The main takeaway is to not let ambition overstep for next time.

As I said before, it's not such a bad outlook. Perhaps I've been beaten down by releases like this too often to feel much. I'm disappointed but not enough to really impact me.

I've actually gained a lot of confidence working on this project. Over 100 pictures completed in just a few months. Each animation loop created in a week. A whole 9 minute project done. While I think all of this effort into one movie didn't work out, this amount of content could easily be refocused elsewhere.

With that many pictures done, I could easily be putting out a picture set or two a week, a short loop a week, or even a minute long animation a month. I could provide for much greater variety in terms of characters and franchises, and that would help with the backlog of project ideas. The way social media works, it seems content more frequently is the way to go.

I can't even be dramatic and say something like the next Project X movie is cancelled because it was never even planned to be the same format. I've always written it as a 3-5 scene movie that will be fully animated. I wanted to take a break for some smaller projects after Subject 2 anyway. Perhaps this does mean I edit it down closer to 3 scenes than 5, but I'm actually less intimated by the animation work after how easily I added some in to Subject 2.

Anyway, I've got lots of ideas for content coming up. Baldur's Gate 3, Mortal Kombat, Witcher, Resident Evil, and Mass Effect are all on my mind. The only way I'll even be able to go through so many of these ideas will be with smaller projects. I also want to try doing some fluid sim stuff too. Basically, I don't think the amount of content will slow down at all. I just have to refocus it into many more different things.