Thank you

Hello everyone,

I'll quickly ditch the only piece of information about future releases right now: The update of Slice of School - Extra Lessons is planned to be released around the end of next week (The 18th or the 19th).

Now that's out of the way, let's go for the rest.

I've been wanting to write a post like this at some point and now feels like the proper moment to do so. The title sums it up the best way possible: Thank you.

You see, it's different for me to thank people for their support when I write a post and actually sit a bit to have a more global view on the whole thing. That's why I wanted to write a post that goes a bit further than the couple of words I'm used to writing (even if it's paradoxical as the title is the same 8D)

One of the most tricky questions people have always wondered forever is: "What is happiness?"

And with my little experience, I've found out that, for me, happiness is something that holds a different meaning for each person. I do have my own, and I know the things that are making me happy. I think I can say I know what's happiness is because I'm able, from time to time, to sit down, do nothing, make a point on my life and feel a sort of bliss.

I won't go over my personal situation (you guys probably understood by now that I was pretty close from my family so that's something helpful to feel happy), but as you can guess, I'm more focusing on the job side of things.

When I first started Vitamin Plus (under the name "Mega Vitamin") I had absolutely NO intention to live from making H games. It was just meant to be a fan game. I had a job on the side (a shitty one, sure, but a job nonetheless) so I wasn't looking for money. Things evolved slowly, first with Butakoma giving me his approval to make the game, then with me finding a couple of people willing to invest in a potential sequel while I'd use the money from my job to fund the rest, then releasing that game (SoV), finding PeakJump, having an 5-hour long conversation with him to convince him to work with me, opening my Patreon, having JFC joining the party etc...

Before I knew it, there were more and more people following the development of SoV2 and when we released the first version, the increase of Patrons made it that I could almost live from working on the game. Even if it was "almost", that was enough for me to justify quiting my job back then and fully focusing on my games.

Ever since, things have had ups and downs (the final release of Slice of Venture 2 and the ban from Patreon being the two major events that made take a HUGE step back in terms of income) but never did I have the need to find a job on the side because the income was too low.

And that's all thanks to you. You know, guys (and girls (I know you're there :x)), you probably have no idea how many time per week I think "Damn, I'm making smut and I can live from it" or "I'm making my own games without the burden of a being a random guy in a group of 200 people". When I think about it, I just DON'T want to work in a classic video game company anymore. Cause that's where I was supposed to head. I do have a Game Designer diploma (doesn't show, right? 8D) so I was supposed to find a job in a company (well, that was 10 years ago). Never got taken in any job. And now that I'm where I am, I feel sooooooooooo relieved that everyone rejected me and didn't hire me.

Just take a look at the situation: Let say I'm hired by Ubisoft (Taking them randomly just because I'm French x). It means: standard working time, probably bunch of extra hours, not even mentionning crunches, having a role that would be making the same thing everyday without any variety (which is actually the opposite of what a Game Designer is supposed to do), having ideas forced on me whether I find them good or not, having to comply to marketing purposes even if it breaks creativity (and I'm not mentioning the whole "let's not offend anyone" side of things :x) and the list can be longer...

Now here I am: I work when I want (just so you know, I tend to start working AFTER noon (doing IRL stuff on the morning like cleaning, sports or cooking) up to the evening), I do what I want in my game (both in terms of gameplay and content), I don't have to lose hours in driving to my work place since I work at home and the flexibility of things makes it I can basically take a day off anytime since I can catch it up whenever I want. So yeah, I earn less than if I was working at Ubisoft, I do have the "managing" problems I wouldn't have had otherwise, and I DO have crunch times as well before release. But HELL, that's still a million times better than what I wrote above!

And the best is that I can do really nasty stuff. You are allowing me to give in my deepest fantasies!

I've regularly seen messages of people enquiring about my health and stuff like that. That's very nice of you to be concerned about my health or my stress. But I'm actually living my best life thanks to you all. Your constant support gives me the kind of life I wouldn't even have dreamed of when I was younger. So don't worry if I don't show it explicitely in my posts or on Discord, but I'm actually extremely happy with my life. Even the let down like Patreon's ban are okay in my book. Sure it's irritating cause you feel like you're dancing in the palms of those sites or the credit card companies, but still. I wouldn't trade my current job for another one even if it meant earning twice the money.

All that text to explain you why I'm truly thankful to the people who are supporting me. I know many of you are doing jobs they're not necessarily fond of, that are much more exhausting, boring or stressful than mine. And things are getting worse with the current world situation. And yet, you decide to spend that hard-earned money into supporting me.

THIS, to me, is the definition of happiness. Doing a job that is so fulfilling that the border between job and hobby is blurry. And that's all thanks to you.

That's because you keep supporting me that I manage to find the strength to do stuff like creating Blue Axolotl Editions. I like the idea of doing more in the field of "extreme consensual" content than just making my games.

I hope you're still satisfied with what I do. As the time passes the amount of feedback gets so much lower that it's hard to tell, but if I take into account the fact that "it's much more easy to write a negative comment than a positive one" I'm tempted to think that if there are (almost) no negative comment about my work, it means you still like what I do :)

I'll keep working that way to maintain that trust you've put in me for so long. I'll keep improving The Hunter 2 to make it an awesome game, I'll keep working on Slice of School for as long as it's possible and I'll do my best to make sure that one day, even if it's in several years, Slice of Venture 3 becomes a reality.

Thank you everyone, you're awesome. You're the reason I'm where I am right now and for that I'll be eternally grateful!

Ark Thompson