IMPORTANT: Future projects and circumstances
Added 2019-08-28 13:35:44 +0000 UTCHello everyone, Wolfenstahl here!
Today's topic is pretty important so you should read this post at all costs.
Even if you do it at a later time, but make sure to read it so you understand what's going on.
I discussed these matters with those of you that attended the monthly dev-chats on Discord, but I figured that doing a post on here is necessary to get everyone up to speed.
Without further ado, let's get to it!
To get a better understanding on WHY we are doing things, I need to explain what happened the past year:
From August 2018 up until now I tried many many things to grow our Patreon and fanbase, as well as selling games on Steam (Dark Alley Elf).
We hired folks for marketing, did cross promotions, tried a bunch of other stuff etc.
Overall we spend more than 10 000 USD on marketing over the course of the year.
(I used my own savings for this btw.)
However, no matter what we did our growth in general stagnated ever since August 2018 as you can see in the following graph.
Game releases and the webcomic were both unable to grow our fanbase significantly, despite them helping with the growth prior to August 2018 as you can see.
So we grew pretty desperate over the course of the year.
I must also stress that during the past 4 years prior, we had a steady increase in Patrons and new fans with these methodes.
After analyzing the matter, I can say that the webcomic used to do a good job at luring in new people.
So why did the webcomic fail from August 2018 onwards?
I think this is mainly attributed to us having reached most people on Hentai Foundry already.
There are almost no (good) platforms for NSFW webcomics.
When Tumblr (the only other source for new fans we had) banned adult content in December 2018, it was the end for the webcomic.
Having reached most folks on Hentai Foundry and being unable to reach a new audience, the webcomic basically lost it's viability.
I do love the webcomic and we still intend to finish the current chapter at least.
But being realistic about the entire matter, there's just no future for the NSFW webcomic.
Since it's unable to fulfill it's main purpose: Drawing in new fans/reaching new people.
How does the lack of growth of the fanbase and lack of growth of Patreon influence matters?
You see, I payed Dark Alley Elf and the upcoming Deathblight Guilty Raid out of my own pocket.
Both projects are self funded.
The funds we get via all the support on Patreon are simply not enough to fund a team of our size and all Patreon funding goes into DB RPG - Operation Thunderfang.
Dark Alley Elf cost me around 13 000 USD in expenses, but it only made 50% of the expenses back in sales.
(Yes I track expenses, and yes it means I effectively lost 6000 to 7000 USD with Dark Alley Elf)
Deathblight Guilty Raid will cost more than 40 000 USD in expenses once it's done, and I DO hope that it will sell well enough.
However, I'm not one to rely on luck, so I'm constantly looking for ways to improve things in general and cover expenses.
The most reliable way would be by growing the fanbase to reach more people in general, so I'm currently focusing on that.
What do I have in mind now, after having tried all the things I listed above?
I actually considered doing something quite desperate, which is doing a new (!!!) SFW webcomic to upload on websites like tapastic and webtoon etc.
The thing is, I believe with a SFW webcomic on those major websites we could actually reach a very large audience and thus increase our fanbase significantly over time.
We cannot do this with a NSFW webcomic, as we are not allowed to upload it to those websites.
Furthermore, I don't think it's wise to strip the Deathblight webcomic of all hentai and upload it there.
As in, people will not be happy with "censoring" it and there will be gaps in the story and this will cause problems.
The same applies to "continuing" the Deathblight webcomic as SFW, as new readers will be confused due to the older chapters not being uploaded.
We effectively would be required to redo the entire Deathblight webcomic as SFW, which means we could just start an entirely new SFW webcomic.
Especially considering that Deathblight will be continued as Visual Novel.
So you guys don't lose anything there.
What will the new SFW webcomic be about?
I haven't fully decided on the content yet, except for it being SFW and having sexual inuendos and ecchi etc. as far as we can go basically.
I am thinking about finally kicking off "Project Muramasa", which explains why Cres drew characters like Akatsuki and Muramasa on some of the last Live Streams.
I'm currently considering different protagonists and different "story arcs", but I need some more time until I can settle for someone.
The possible protagonists for now are: Akatsuki, Kohaku or Muramasa.
I plan to focus on a single character more this time and thus avoid some mistakes I did on the Deathblight webcomic, like spreading screentime too thin between multiple characters.
This doesn't mean that there will be only one character, it just means the others are all side characters and get less screen time overall, or simply a chapter where they get some screen time and afterwards they barely have any appearances.
At any rate, it's very likely the webcomic will be about the Project Muramasa characters from "Musashi" (Deathblight Japan).
I'll update you guys on the matter once I've settled on something.
How will this affect future game projects?
First of all, I did consider to kick off the Project Muramasa "franchise" properly, and thus also have future game projects alongside the SFW webcomic.
Those game projects will have SFW versions with NSFW patches to further increase visibility on these projects so we can post them everywhere and sell them everywhere without problems.
No worries, you don't have to miss out on any of the hentai you're used to! The NSFW patches will provide you the usual stuff so there's nothing lost here.
Also, Ars (our Pixel Artist) is almost done with his work on Deathblight Guilty Raid.
I know there are delays on DB GR, but that's mostly due to the writing.
I can't have the rest of the team (Cres, Ars, Blade etc.) sit around idly, so I'll assign them to the next game project as soon as necessary.
Even if this means that Deathblight Guilty Raid is not out yet.
(I also don't want to fire anyone)
So you can look forward to seeing news about a next game project in the next couple months, even if DB GR is only halfway done.
It's most likely going to be related to Project Muramasa due to the SFW webcomic plans and everything, but I haven't fully settled on anything yet, so this may be subject to change.
I hope you all understand and are not confused about us "starting another project despite the other one not being done yet".
I wish I could finish DB Guilty Raid before starting something new, but wishful thinking is not getting me anywhere.
And as the reality stands, the writing is holding us back and there's not much I can change about this.
I'm already working on a possible solution but it will need time to take effect.
So I have to have those that are working faster on the team work already on the next game project, I hope this is understandable.
It's a necessity to keep everyone employed and busy working on stuff.
Thank you very much for your support and I hope you're looking forward to the things I mentioned above!
If you want to talk with me about things, you should join our Discord as it's easier to talk over there.
Discord: https://discord.gg/MzWWayw
And as always, feel free to comment and ask questions below this post.
I'll get to answer them whenever I have time in between my other work.
After all I believe in transparency and I like to inform you folks ahead of time.
Best Regards,
Wolfenstahl
Comments
Hm, I guess I misunderstood when you said you were waiting on story. I guess you were only referring to Guilty Raid? I guess I'm curious why it takes so much longer to create CGs for DB RPG compared to, for example, doing the "speedpaints". I've never actually watched a stream so I'm not sure how long they are, but if one artist can make something of the speedpaint caliber in a single session I'm unsure why CGs for DB RPG can't get cranked out faster. The speed paints are already higher quality than most other game CGs. Is it just the artists are working on too much other stuff at the same time?
Ghost
2019-09-18 03:37:38 +0000 UTCThank you very much ^^ We did some of those suggestions in the past but it didn't work out. This is also due to the nature of NSFW stuff. (as in, people often don't want to share hentai with their friends and family for understandable reasons) As for twitter: We can't really advertise there due to NSFW reasons as well. Also we tried as much as we could on twitter but we've currently ran into a wall kinda. At any rate, thank you very much ^^
Crescentia
2019-09-15 01:55:51 +0000 UTCWhat about advertising your numerous projects on Twitter, considering that everyone who used Tumblr moved to a more tolerant territory? You could also potentially ask for your Patreon supporters to perform some free advertisement for you via social networks : Discord channels, Steam chats and groups, Twitter accounts, DeviantArt samples... Just ideas I can share, and things I've done myself previously to bring in some fresh blood (and money) into the fray.
Arcadelord
2019-09-14 22:58:47 +0000 UTCI'm afraid we shouldn't really sacrifice the 'story'. You see, the main thing releases take time is because of the art. And if we'd sacrifice the story none of that would speed up because the artist is not responsible for the dialogues and story as well as the programming. (the team is larger than 1 single person) Plus, I bet a lot of people would be sad if we sacrificed the story. So we can't really do that based on one or two people not taking a deep interest into the story. (and it wouldn't gain us anything if we ditched the story because as I said, it doesn't speed the development process up at all...) As for the suggestion about doing simpler games to sell them: That's exactly what we do on the side (and why we have a pixel artist hired full time with our own money). There is no writing bottleneck with DB RPG at the moment since the texts for the Catheline job had been long done by Sierra Lee. (and those CG scenes are up next on our list) At any rate, thank you very much for the feedback and support ^^
Crescentia
2019-09-10 20:05:34 +0000 UTCAlso, I just became aware of the promise to not sell DB RPG. It is a bit of a rock and a hard place, but I don't think many would fault you for selling it to remain afloat. Alternatively, you could create an even simpler RPG maker game with a simple excuse story but lots of CG, and have Operation Thunderfang be the more "premium" RPG that is more of a whole package, but longer development cycle and retains the free promise. I don't think many could complain about more content, and there doesn't need to be a rule that you can only have one DB RPG game. If it's successful you can do even more of these on the side while waiting for e.g. writing bottlenecks to help keep things running. You could possibly have these simple RPGs focus on a single girl each, which would also help people form closer connections to them and thereby increase brand loyalty.
Ghost
2019-09-07 06:17:04 +0000 UTCIn my opinion, the best option for at least the DB RPG game would be to sacrifice story and go hog wild with cg and enemies. I know in my case I am completely used to using machine translations on already badly written Japanese games, so really anything is a step up from that in terms of writing. But you know, I've never once thought to myself that these games needed better writing, as long as they delivered on quality and quantity of good art. From what I can tell, you are very fast at creating very high quality art, so you could play to that strength and jam pack a game with very simple plot and minimal writing/special game mechanics full of simple but high-quality GOR scenes and have an incredibly successful game. I know from what I've seen on DLSite that any game with high quality art (or even just plain passable art in many cases), variety of kinks, and many CG scenes sells like hotcakes regardless of any other component, and these games also appeal to me most as well. Personally I enjoyed Dark Elf Alley a bit, but the quantity of art really wasn't that high if I remember, perhaps because there was a large focus on unique gameplay, which is great but more of a plus than a necessity when it comes to H-Games for me if I'm honest. Certainly the best of the best h-games have great gameplay, story, and h-scenes, but in an h-game I'd take the latter over the former in a heartbeat if I had to choose, since if I want good gameplay/story only I can play any number of AAA titles. Once you are more stable financially you might be better able to start spending more time on making the absolute best you are capable of. Anyways, just my 2 cents, feel free to ignore.
Ghost
2019-09-07 06:08:28 +0000 UTCThanks! We really appreciate that you enjoy our stuff. Our main goal is to keep Deathblight running for years and producing as many games and as much content over the years as possible. (DB RPG and DB Guilty Raid are just two games among many to follow over the next years) So we hope you look forward to them ^^
Crescentia
2019-09-03 15:35:59 +0000 UTCSorry for the late response, I just returned from my weekend (usually Sunday's and Monday's since we stream on Saturday's) and it was pretty busy before we went on weekend. Thanks for the feedback! As for SFW, when I say "SFW" I actually mean that the story will be as lewd as possible without breaking any SFW rules. Meaning, lewd innuendos and possibly some ecchi and teasing should still be in there, so people can 'expect' more stuff off site. (aka on Patreon etc.) As for the 10$ pledge suggestion: I'm afraid we can't do that. It's the equivalent of selling the game and thus meaning we broke our promise. We said it's going to be free once it's finished, so any changes to that is basically a breach of the promise.
Crescentia
2019-09-03 15:35:42 +0000 UTCDammit men, it seems you guys are having a rough time keeping thing running, I'm sad to know NSFW comic will be paused (since I love Ferania) but I wish things can improve for the team and get enough funding to keep your awesome work alive, best luck and personally im satisfied as long as I can get art from deathblight.
Iskandar Joestar
2019-09-02 23:31:41 +0000 UTCIn my opinion the branching out is a good idea in and off itself, though i am not sure how exactly you would bring those folks to the patreon cause, in my opinion. People reading a SFW webcomic and go to the artists patreon do not expect a full own NSFW site with games and such in productions. Another poitn about the whole no selling DB RPG, i would say that making the full thing available for only the 10$ pledge and above seems reasonable as a compromise
Andreas Klärner
2019-08-30 17:50:48 +0000 UTCThank you very much! I actually considered the things you mentioned, but the problem is that if I were going to focus on DB RPG and then selling it once it's done, I would be effectively breaking my promise. Over the past years I renewed that promise over and over again. Especially when people mentioned their bad experiences with other developers and them going back on their promises. Today I realize that it was a mistake to say that we would not sell DB RPG. But I also feel that I cannot go back on the words I spoke repeatedly. If I were to go back on that promise, I'd lose a lot of credibility. Naturally, some people on the fanbase would prefer us to focus on DB RPG and sell it once it's done. On the other hand, others would want us to stick to our promise. I do not want to disappoint those who have faith in my words, as I'm not a politician that spews whatever sounds nice and then once they are elected goes back on his words doing something entirely else. This is not who I am, and a lot of folks know this and have faith in me because of this. I couldn't sleep at night if I were to betray this faith or go back on my words. And even if I wouldn't have any doubts and self-loathing when doing this, there will be a lasting damage to our reputation. I'd rather be disliked by people for sticking to my words, being truthful, and doing exactly what I said I'd do, like being transparent and upfront about my plans before I actually set them in motion etc. I'd choose to be disliked for THIS any day, instead of being disliked for breaking promises, lying, and exploiting folks by saying things they want to hear and then doing something else. I'm positive that if I hold a vote about selling DB RPG and focusing on it, right now, about 60% of folks would vote for "yes". Which is a majority, but the consequences of breaking my promise would be that from the remaining 40% who were not okay with this, several people would feel betrayed and will most likely stop supporting us as well as spreading the word about us breaking our promise. And this would be fatal in the long run. So I'm afraid I can't do that. All I can do is follow through with what I promised as long as it makes sense. It's not that I made a secret out of this, I'm repeating these things over and over again. Technically, anyone who supports us should be aware of this, or at the very least they can read the frontpage or Patreon posts or simply ask us anytime, as we're easily approachable and respond to questions. So noone can accuse me of lying or betraying anyone, and I'd like to keep it that way. I hope you understand.
Crescentia
2019-08-29 21:47:50 +0000 UTCWhat i grasp is that you need a larger fanbase to stop paying out from your own pocket. You expected the fanbase will increase substantially from aug 2018 and start to making revenue on Patreon, but somehow it didn't happen. I read posts from others to find out i'm not the only one who support here for the DBG RPG project. But you said it's not going to make a profit because you made a promise. Take a look at the free games on DLsite and Steam, do those have the amazing quality of DB? I don't think so. A lot of hentai game developers I know on Patreon also sell their games on various platforms, and keep sticking to that promise will never make any commercial profits to sustain other projects (when Guity Raid is not paying back). I suggest you can either use DBG as a demo to find funding resources from large game developers, or complete DBG as your first priority and sell it and get some money back. From my point as a consumer, I would never feel unreasonable for you to break your own words trying to keep our beloved projects moving on. And I don't think your core fanbase will love to see their supporters distribute a lot of time on SFW comics, trying to get new fans with a totally different taste. Also, do you think it's a bit too ambitious to work on multiple projects, when Dark Elf cannot provide you sufficient income to sustain your team? So that a new solid funding resource is what you need ASAP. Patreon is never a place to fully fund a team of skilled and amazing artists. A lot of hentai developers sell their SFW version products on Steam with NSFW patches on Patreon, and I don't see anyone of them worried about funding. Again, starting a new project need a lot of investment on time and stamina, most importantly, it takes a long time for you to earn enough money which would compensate the expense of this new project from the start. So think about to rebrand and finish one of your current projects to make enough revenue, then shoot for the next one with the fanbase who are willing to support you when there's few outcomes at a starting point of a new project.
Rocioldfriend
2019-08-29 14:07:25 +0000 UTCThank you very much for having faith in us and continuing to support us. I'm not sure if I understood correctly what you said about other creators. (as in, if they don't have the ability to create the same quality of work as we do, this would be one explanation why they could create content faster, as quality needs time and skill, and reducing quality can compensate for a lack of skill or for the sake of releasing stuff faster) At any rate, it's a bit difficult to compare different creators with each other due to various circumstances. Cres and I live in one of the most expensive countries of the world. A creator who lives in a cheaper country could for example get by with less funding and could focus more on a single project. Also, as an interesting comparison and fun fact: Back in 2012 when we started work on Paperheads, we were still living with my family. Our expenses were a few hundred USD each month only for food, nothing else. (my family supported us back then) I still had savings from my previous job, so we focused on Paperheads and finished the entire game within a years worth of work. (from March 2012 to March 2013) After this things got rough, since I got kicked out of home and various other things. Suddenly we had to pay taxes (because we started selling games and earning money after Paperheads was done), we had to pay for health insurance, food, electricity bills, and renting our own appartment, as well as a couple other things. Our monthly expenses increased tenfold all of a sudden, and things became really tough. What I want to say by this is, circumstances really matter. (all of the circumstances)
Crescentia
2019-08-29 13:03:17 +0000 UTCI mean, branching into SFW stuff makes sense to me since it would allow you to go on websites and other mediums that you normally would not be able to go to. It's sad, but perhaps necessary.
Roland Knight
2019-08-28 22:48:11 +0000 UTCFor starters I've been around since 2015. Paperheads and the Comic brought me to giving you guys money, and the RPG was the thing that kept me going. Regardless of your organization and needs and however you've structured your time/money, at the end of the day it's like I said. There are creators on patreon who work alone (or are lying about working alone I suppose) who put out consistent content seemingly without issue or need to start new projects, stop to do small ones for cash flow, etc. And these aren't people who seem to have the ability to do the same quality of work you guys do. I guess I'll just maintain my lack of understanding how they're able to get by with only doing one thing at a time solo while we have projects like this and a few others that seem to have a group working or available to do work that seem to get stagnant. At this point, just do whatever you think will make you money, and I'll hope you guys can return to the things that brought and kept me here. For now it's still worth my $5 a month, and I imagine it will be for a while. I'd love to be at a point where I can justify to myself to spend more like I have at times, so I'll be here patiently waiting, wishing you guys the best because I personally think you could be.
John Smith
2019-08-28 21:51:08 +0000 UTCSadly, upping the NSFW "ratio" to include more lewds doesn't exactly work with the way the story is intended to be told. (Deathblight was originally planned to be a Visual Novel and I adapted it to become a webcomic) If I increase the hentai noticeably, the story will stagnate and not get anywhere. Also the current chapter was only SFW because we didn't want to lewd the younger version of Minori.
Crescentia
2019-08-28 19:44:47 +0000 UTCThank you very much! I do hope that our plans work out in the end. At any rate, we're not to change plans on a whim, so we only do that whenever we're faced with the absolute necessity to do so. We're happy to hear that you're worrying about us due to our high volume of constant output over the years, but no worries we're fine ^^
Crescentia
2019-08-28 19:42:54 +0000 UTCyou're welcome and thank you very much
Crescentia
2019-08-28 19:38:03 +0000 UTCHonestly, I can see the advertising issue being the main thing as to why the NSFW comic is being discontinued. I have a lot of friends that will miss the comic as will I, but with the rapid growth your team has pushed I can understand how it would put more pressure on you. I also understand how DAE not selling well (liked parts of it but it does seem to have been a very expensive experiment) and other projects not bringing in more money to make up for the loss isn't helping things. There are a few other places to advertise but they are sort of niche forums and the like or in other devs sites or forums so the networking needed to make those happen or the realistic amount of increased traffic those might generate is not that great. Although I do think that NewGrounds would generate some boosted traffic as that site had a major boom after the tumblrpocolypse that could help because you can post both SFW and NSFW there and simply tag their level of lood. In the end, change needs to happen and you are not the only artist I know going into SFW as well as doing NSFW. A well done SFW comic with a good story can draw in a *lot* of supporters, as Schlock Mercenary, Grrrrl Power, Captain Mike, Manly Guys doing Manly Things, and more show. There might not be any loods, but if I know you and Cres, you'll find some ways to include some hearty cheesecake here and there :P As for starting projects before they are finished...you do what you need to in order to make things work, I might have my questions, comments or observations but in the end it is you and the team that are really having to live with the consequences of your choices so the most I can do is support where I can, what I like, and wish you the best. Your content in some form or other has been so constant I have been worried about imminent burnout for awhile now so hopefully things will stabilize. Best of luck, hope it works out, and sorry for being so quiet the last few months.
Argenten
2019-08-28 19:35:26 +0000 UTCAs far as I remember, the last DB webcomic chapter had very few NSFW pages, if any. I can guarantee you that most people paying a quick visit to Hentai Foundry would completely ignore an image on the front page which doesn't have any "action" or any of the NSFW tags. In addition, there is always "fresh blood" stumbling upon Hentai Foundry and the site's popularity definitely hasn't plateaued - it went from 14,700,000 visits in February 2019 to 16,300,000 visits in July 2019 - an increase of 11% : https://www.similarweb.com/website/hentai-foundry.com Would it perhaps be possible fiddle with the SFW/NSFW ratio of the DB comic so that both the story and the hentai scenes get enough exposure and your "fireworks" get more noticed?
MartinX
2019-08-28 18:53:52 +0000 UTCI understand. It can't be an easy situation to be in, and I really do hope it works out. I'm not jerking my knee on this so I won't go anywhere at least until I see how the DB VN is executed, or until I get too starved for updates on it.
Ethranoch
2019-08-28 18:40:07 +0000 UTCOkay, thanks for clarifying that, the numbers make a bit more sense now. I'm not convinced that this is going to solve any of your problems, nor will any of us really get to see a difference if it does. But in the end, you've of course put far, far more thought into this than I have, so I suppose I'll just wish you good luck.
Pezantri
2019-08-28 18:27:41 +0000 UTCActually, the NSFW webcomic used to help raise the support over 4 years. But as I said, it started to fail drawing in new people from August 2018. I analzyed the viewer statistics and we also made a survey and various other things to gather data on this. We only stopped doing the NSFW webcomic at the end of November 2018 (several months after the stagnation happened). And it was attributed to us being unable to reach new folks. During those three months of stagnation the webcomic was still running. After we stopped doing the webcomic for the next 9 months we had no decrease, but also no increase. (so what you said isn't the case) I sincerely wish we could continue doing the NSFW webcomic. I REALLY wish we could do this, believe me. But the harsh reality is simply that we need to grow the fanbase and we're unable to do so with a NSFW webcomic considering we reached almost everyone on Hentai Foundry already, Tumblr banning adult content, and there not being any other viable platforms for NSFW webcomics. (creating a website of our own also comes with the addional problem of not having ANY userbase there, and our goals is to precisely reach new people and connect to an existing userbase of an existing website)
Crescentia
2019-08-28 18:16:30 +0000 UTCThanks for clarifying things. Yes, Cres is the only one doing artworks on our stuff. She's responsible for all combat graphics, CG scenes and dialogue graphics. (Unfortunatelly, programming isn't very practical to show around, so the regular progress on the programming and stuff like character development, writing etc. all has to wait until the graphics are done and implemented)
Crescentia
2019-08-28 18:09:22 +0000 UTCIt's pretty difficult at times. In our case we don't make adjustments to our plans because of a whim. It's because we're forced to make adjustments. Being an NSFW creator often feels like navigating a minefield. There's just so many obstacles and things that get in your way. And sometimes something works, but then there comes a time where it doesn't work anymore. (see Tumblr ban)
Crescentia
2019-08-28 18:05:37 +0000 UTCThanks for the feedback and advice! There's certain reasons why we cannot create a website and platform of our own. (starting with not having a programmer for websites, nor having the possibilities and ressources for a server for our own stuff, as well as laws of our country requiring us to openly post our real life identity and address which we do not want to do as NSFW creators, I hope you understand <-- and I'm being completely honest here, laws in our country require this, otherwise we face harsh legal actions so we would be taken offline anyways...) I know it's hard to satisfy everyone and that people will be unhappy no matter what decision I take. It's ultimately going to be a losing game for me anyways. But I know I'll also lose if I continue on as before, so that's not going to work out sadly... All I can hope for is that people understand "why" I make decisions as I make them. And perhaps some folks can understand it and will stick to us. Also I can totally understand when people stop supporting us because we don't continue what they loved about our stuff. No hard feelings, I can totally understand and I think the same way. At this point I can only say that I sincerely thank everyone who has supported us thus far, even if people just supported us for a short time. Every little bit matters and we're really happy and grateful about everyone who helped us along the way. Without you guys it wouldn't have been possible ^^ Thank you very much! PS: Deathblight is not dying btw. It will be continued as Visual Novel. Originally it was meant to be a Visual Novel. I just "adapted" it to a webcomic style due to reasons at the time. But I feel that a lot has been lost by doing that. Continuing it as Visual Novel will make it a lot better. Wolfenstahl
Crescentia
2019-08-28 18:03:05 +0000 UTCI would say that the quality is a step down with some of the artists involved, though the rest of the stuff you mentioned (clothing destruction etc.) is there. I would be certainly agree that Cres is better overall, don't get me wrong, but Cres is also the only one supplying content on a consistent basis (unless someone else is involved in creating CG's)
Pezantri
2019-08-28 17:57:50 +0000 UTCPlease hear me out on this: You said you don't understand how there's slow progress on DB RPG despite us putting "all funding" from Patreon into it. Let me explain this in more detail. You see, there's a 4000 USD per month on this Patreon. Roughly spoken, I set about 1000 USD aside for Blade and for me, that would warrant about one week of work from the two of us. If I'm generous I'd say, 1.5 weeks worth of work. This barely covers the work I put into DB RPG as well as previously the webcomic as well as maintaining the community, doing PR and marketing, and a bunch of other stuff I do. (I work WAY too much for what little payment I get out of this already) So with Blade and me taking up a combined 2000 USD (1000 USD each) for paying for 1.5 weeks worth of work (though I do a lot more than that...). This leaves about 2000 USD for Cres artworks. Going from Cres commission prices, you can easily subtract 500 USD per month for speedpaints. (There's two monthly speedpaints here on Patreon which people vote on) This leaves roughly 1500 USD for work on DB RPG artworks. Roughly spoken this translates to about 1 CG scene in soft-shading per month. Also there's monthly sketch package, there also used to be the Deathblight webcomic and multiple other things I didn't account for, so again, I'm being generous here. Furthermore, there's expenses like paying for writing and custom SFX or music (since I plan to include custom music in DB RPG) which is also not accounted for in this entire calculation. In case you wonder why Cres is so expensive: There's a ton of people wanting commissions from her, including some developers who are interested in hiring her for those prices. In fact Cres is currently working for Sierra Lee on "Once Ever After". And there's a bunch of folks interested in hiring Cres once that project is done. Due to Cres not being able to pay her bills with Patreon money alone, it is a necessity to go and do this hired work. (or working on games we can sell after they are done) Cres effectively has an endless amount of commissions and hired work and people are paying those prices. Every time Cres finishes a commission, 2-3 new commissions pop up every single time. It makes no sense to pay Cres any less for work on DB RPG. Wolfenstahl
Crescentia
2019-08-28 17:54:45 +0000 UTCPezantri: I haven't checked out Yeehaw Games or what they do, but let me just say this: Do they produce more similar quality CGs than Cres does in the same timeframe? (I'm not saying to say "they release an update each month and you take several months for an update" I mean more like, how many high quality, multi variation CGs do they actually release compared to Cres output in a year) I highly doubt it. Especially we're not just talking about plain CGs, I'm also talking about the quality, variations, facial expressions, clothing destruction, and many many more things. It's one thing to draw a CG without variations or with one or two simple variations. And it's an entirely different thing to draw what Cres draws. Cres is also a very expensive artist, but she can back it up, which most artists can't. I tried hiring multiple artists over the years, but noone of them could pull through long term. (having the endurance to work on projects long term and producing dozens or even hundreds of elaborate CGs as well as drawing the same character over and over again is pretty taxing on most artists and most artists break down and give up after some time) These are important factors to consider and I can totally understand that people who are not working in the hentai game industry may have difficulties to relate to this. Also, as I stated multiple times in this comment section: We can't sell DB RPG once it's done. So we can't possibly put our entire weight behind it. Sure I'd love to wrap it up and move on. But with 4000 USD split between 3 people (out of our team of 6 btw but half of our team is not working on DB RPG, they have nothing to do with it), we cannot possibly work full time on it, especially since we can't sell it once it's done. I mean, don't get me wrong. I understand that people see a flashy 4000 USD a month number beside our Patreon. But if you actually consider that I'm working with some of the best folks in the entire western hentai games industry here, as well as considering that each person I'm working with would deserve 3000 USD minimum as monthly payment... I think you should get a rough idea that this simply doesn't work out full time? (plus DB RPG can't be sold) Wolfenstahl
Crescentia
2019-08-28 17:27:11 +0000 UTCFirst of all, it's 2 projects right now, not 3. Also we're not switching to SFW, we're still providing NSFW patches to "restore" the games. The long wait between updates is clearly not the reason we are stagnating. We had long waiting times like that in the past too and we had steady growth. Also when we released new game versions the growth didn't continue at all past August 2018 which proves my point. (I have a lot more data and evidence about this, but I'll spare the details for now) As I wrote on John Smith's comment, we CANNOT focus on a DB RPG only. Because we cannot sell DB RPG once it's done, asking us to dedicate all our time on DB RPG with a merely 4000 USD split between 3 people is asking too much, I'm sorry, but it's not enough to pay our bills at all. Also the teammembers working on the other game project (DB Guilty Raid) are not slowing down DB RPG. They have NOTHING to do with DB RPG actually. I also can guarantee you that a smaller team isn't able to push out "more content" than we do. It's simply a matter of perception, like, how you distribute the content and how it's presented. Stuff like overall visual quality, number of variations, clothing destruction etc. I highly doubt someone produces MORE CGs of Cres art quality in a shorter time frame. That aside, simply the number of CG's is not everything, there's also the programming and various other factors and I highly doubt that a smaller team with less funding is able to produce more content. (we're not slacking off after all and posting progress updates all the time, the CG count also remained steady and didn't drop etc.) Furthermore, even if such a team truly exists and they are smaller and have less funding, while still dedicating all their time to the project: It's their choice to work full time on a project and sell it afterwards. As I said, we cannot sell DB RPG once it's done, and investing all of our time into it would mean that we finish DB RPG and close our doors forever after it's done due to lack of funding and not being able to sell it. It's effectively something we simply cannot do. I hope you understand this.
Crescentia
2019-08-28 17:14:52 +0000 UTCI gotta say, the whole reason why I originally was drawn in to the various projects that you put out over the years is due to the NSFW comic, and the discontinuation of that is a large part of why I'm not likely to donate much in the future, barring game releases. The NSFW comic is the core of your fanbase, and the reason that things kept level instead of going downhill with the stagnation in game updates from Operation Thunderfang.
Jericho Drakane
2019-08-28 17:00:51 +0000 UTCThanks for the feedback: I already considered that but it doesn't serve the same purpose. As I explained to someone on the Discord, the purpose of the webcomic is to be a "weekly advertisement" and having something people can return to on a weekly basis. It's main purpose being to gather as much attention as possible and drawing in new folks. A visual novel is more like a short, really bright firework. But it's easily missed if people don't look at it when it goes up. A webcomic basically is a lot of small fireworks which go up regularly. I know it's not everyones cup of tea, but it's the best kind of "continuous advertisement" we could go for.
Crescentia
2019-08-28 17:00:24 +0000 UTCI'm afraid we cannot release a "full version" of DB RPG for sale. We stated multiple times that we are NOT going to sell DB RPG once it's done and we're not going to betray the trust people put in us. Furthermore, because of this, it would be suicide for us to work full time on DB RPG because 4000 USD are by far not enough payment for full time work of 3 people. (not even including payment for writing, custom SFX and music etc) I hope you understand that we cannot possibly do this. Thus, even with a fully completed DB RPG, we would not make bank at all. The project will earn us zero money once done (as it's not being sold) and thus it doesn't work out as you imagined. Based on what you wrote I get the impression that you didn't fully read my post? I explained in the post why we need to do multiple projects, and slow progress is NOT because we are spread too thin. As I said just now, working full time on DB RPG doesn't work. (we don't get enough money via Patreon support for this) And having "more projects" is because half of the team isn't working on DB RPG (because they are not needed for it) Ars (Pixel Art) is being fully payed out of my own pocket. And he's working on DB Guilty Raid only. Zhuan (writing) is also fully payed with my own money. He's also only working on DB Guilty Raid. Both of them are NOT working on DB RPG - Operation Thunderfang at all. And if I didn't work on DB Guilty Raid, I'd have no work for them at all. Ars needs to work on the next project (possibly a platformer) soon, as his work on DB Guilty Raid is almost done. Zhuan lags behind with his work on DB Guilty Raid, meaning we CANNOT release the game without his work done. Cres and Blade (as well as me) are NOT holding back any projects at all. We're making a ton of progress and are always ahead of the rest of the team. I cannot afford for Cres and Blade to sit around idly, and I cannot afford to invest their time into DB RPG as it's not being sold. (it makes more sense to assign them to a new project... or I can fire people... but I don't want to fire people) I hope this makes sense? Please don't "assume" things, but instead read the posts I write and talk to me if you have issues with something. I'm more than willing to update folks on matters and explain things. I'm doing my best to be as transparent as possible and I'm ALWAYS honest and upfront about matters. So I hope if you have any issues with what I just said, that we can talk about it and discuss it so you may understand better why I make the decisions I do. I never do things on a whim, I make careful plans and analyze the situation constantly. Overall I have nothing to hide and would be happy to explain myself. Thank you very much and talk to you soon! Wolfenstahl
Crescentia
2019-08-28 16:57:03 +0000 UTCJust my 2 cents. Even with AAA titles you see them step away from what people loved and the reason they signed up or bought the game in the first place. Dead space is a prime example. First game amazing second game just as good then for whatever reason they went away from what made it good. Medal of Honor same thing. Maybe after DB Gr. Focus more on DBRpg have you tried getting your work out on reddit even the all hated 4chan under ACO. Can’t hurt to look but trying to real in new people might cost you the old ones because they don’t like the direction. Phone posting sorry!!!
sib
2019-08-28 16:50:05 +0000 UTCI'm just going to be blunt about it since it's comfortable to me and I want to get my point across (whatever a $10-turned-$5 sub is worth). I was not happy with the discontinuation with the webcomic, which is the reason I subbed in the first place. H-games are not really my thing, and I tend to avoid RPG-maker styles all together. I personally think it's a mistake to discontinue your core product as it threatens the core audience. I will say right now the only reason I'm subbed is to get a speedpaint I like occassionally, but this makes me more than a little concerned about the direction being taken here. I'm not willing to pay to be on the dev-level, but I will offer unsolicited advice. Make your own platform, your own website, and grow that. It may not be as fast as your previous growth, but it will be a lot harder to take away from you as tumblr was. Further, perhaps unwanted, advice: keep your core product. Resume the comic, keep it going, even if at a slow pace if you want to branch into SFW. Diversify, grow your own platform, and use SFW to draw people in. I don't want to see DB die completely, as I love several of the characters and have been following it closely for years, first on HF then here, and while my favorite character did not get as much gooey love as I'd like, I supported it anyway. I tried even to attend a few livestreams but rarely found the time for them, and checking up on DB progress has been a regular habit for me until last August. You have, by far, my favorite art style and my favorite character of all on HF etc. comes from your comic. Color me biased, but that's all for my 2c. I sincerely hope you can get back your investment with your game. You deserve it up to this point.
Ethranoch
2019-08-28 16:35:45 +0000 UTCIf they were only doing the RPG, I'm not sure it would even need to be big updates if they had any sort of consistency. Cut down the size of each 'quest' and make it something like a quest a month, that's basically how Yeehaw Games is doing it, and the level of content provided completely blows this team out of the water.
Pezantri
2019-08-28 16:15:22 +0000 UTCThat, and you're going about the employee problem the wrong way. Making work for them isn't the same as making demand for the work, which seems like an obvious contributing factor as to why you're losing money rather than making it. You're worrying about the consumers you don't have over the consumers you do.
Pezantri
2019-08-28 15:52:46 +0000 UTCThis honestly seems like a firm step in the wrong direction. You said you didn't want to rely on luck, but that seems to be precisely what you're doing with talks of Guilty Raid and an SFW comic. By your own admission you're losing money trying to do more, so what makes you think that doing more will fix the problem? You said everything is going into Operation Thunderfang, and yet I honestly don't remember when the last release was, even if I'm being generous and including the barebones 'job system' update. I reduced my pledge months back because I was here for a game that just isn't going anywhere, and somehow I don't think I'm the only one. Perhaps you should try getting some feedback from you Patrons, because it's hard to miss how no one who's commented so far seems to think this is a good idea.
Pezantri
2019-08-28 15:48:06 +0000 UTCI agree with John's comment, rather than doing what, 3 projects at once? finishing one then going to the next would been better, and big updates would for sure draw in more people, the long wait between updates is from my perspective at least why you're stagnating. As for switching to SFW, personally i don't think i'd stay as i'm here for the NSFW stuff, and i'm sure most of your fanbase is here for that too, the art is great and i love it, but as i said, the long wait between updates etc is kinda weird when smaller creators with less people get them out faster, not just on the art front, which obviously is because of the focus on 3 projects instead of one.
Steffy
2019-08-28 15:36:46 +0000 UTCHmm, I'm not sure about the SFW comic. First of all, I had never even heard of the websites "tapastic" and "webtoon" before this post, so I wonder how many of the "normal comic" fans would suddenly become interested in backing hentai stuff (assuming they don't frequently visit sites like Hentai Foundry in the first place). Furthermore, with Cres' amazing NSFW art skills, it seems strange to delegate significant effort on an entirely SFW project. Wouldn't it make more sense to publish small NSFW visual novel stories/adventures every few months on all of the NSWF forums/websites in order to gain more exposure? Either that, or something similar which doesn't require a lot of programming and relies mainly on Cres' great CGs (which should definitely be enough to hook people up).
MartinX
2019-08-28 15:30:46 +0000 UTCWell I'm not surprised by Dark Elf Alley. It was short and the gameplay was kind of boring. You guys are starting to Eromancer with so many things going at once. If you put out your full version of an asagi style game with your artwork I would expect you to make bank. But between the comic, dea, raid, and the rpg I see people getting worried you've lost focus on the things that brought us here. Updates on multiple things are slow, and we can only assume it's because you have multiple things going instead of focusing on one. I don't know why developers do this, but its the reason I reduced my pledge after the last update. There's so little content with each one I feel I would be better off going blind for a few years to your project then coming back and hoping there's something substantial. I think another issue is there are solo developers working on one project at a time who are putting out big updates every few months. It makes it harder to sympathize with devs who aren't solo and have multiple fires going at once. I want to see you guys blow up because your content is amazing, but it's been stagnating and sucks to see. It sounds like you're doing a lot but I'm just not seeing it. Give us a solid asagi rpg, even if it's short, just have good variety of combat H and some decent cutscenes and you could sell it. Look at asagis artwork compared to yours. You could cut your quality in half to increase production and it would still be amazing!
John Smith
2019-08-28 13:46:51 +0000 UTC
