by Duoiz » Mon Jul 23, 2018 9:09 pm
Not being online for god knows howlong, but since I was browinsing today and saw the question adressed to me I feel like I have to respond.
"The horrors" I am thinking of is not only the way Breeding Season went, and since we all know what happened there, I will adress Simbro since you asked.
"The horrors" (sorry for re-using the words like a broken record) is the fact that X number of people gave them money, and it became alot of money, fast.
The project was little more then a "Check out this system we made, we are going to do lots with it!" when it first came out, but I do belive the money scared them.
Instead of polishing what they had, adding an outfit or 2, new hair or something simple like that, they felt that they needed to do so much more.
(not on the team mind you, it was just the feeling I got.)
And all of a sudden they intrudoced events, with custom dialoge, looks, every patch becomming more broken and less maintained.
Instead of taking time to add for instance a new room type and polishing that, things were given that didn't really contribute to the game, but instead appealed to the gaping masses.
If they had a solid framework to work with, adding things like a new hair/color/clothes should be more or less artist draws, change 1-2 variables, done. Instead it felt like
they had missed doing this, felt a need to keep the money flowing, and made halloween event, x-mas event, new years event, saint pat... okey.. going of tangent... but
you see my point by now I hope.
The last version I tried of the game crashed after 3 minutes of gameplay, and at that point I gave up. At this point it also felt like the devs themselves came to relize what they had done, what kind of monster they had created, atleast some of them. Causing the patreon and the forum posts to go dark. (as in no more of them.)
But it isn't dead yet, just like most monsters.
Peoples donations kept comming in, and to my knowledge some money still is, but the project can be seen as dead.
I find it sad, but the "Horror" I am talking about is the fact that the group gets money, lots and lots of it, and there are alot of things happening off screen, behind covers, or what ever you want to call it. Some patreons think "It is just a minor hickup." but the screaming few that you have to listen to, are the ones going "GIVE UPDATE NOWZ!!" spoon feeding them things that will mess up your code, untill it is a an unsavalged mess.
If the code is writen in a way that you can't come back 3 months later, after writing, for instance, a new room type, or a new type of encounter, in most likleyhood you didn't spend enough time polishing the code in the first place.
I feel like this might be what happened to Simbro, and I fear alot of devs of games of an adult nature, especialy the ones from small indie teams of 2-3 devs, risk falling
for the same trap.
The western world have a large audience for adult games, but the people that want it often want it free, and easy to access. (Flash games anyone?) One of the reasons
for this is the taboo stamp on drawn pornographic content. Patreon is a way to pay these devs to give you the "drug" people want, without leaving a game case of "Fuck me plenty oni-chan" in the bookshelf or in the steam libary. This in turn leads to the games with potential being bombared with money, fast, and that is something few people can deal with. Their project turns into something that needs to be "OMG ZO GREATZ!! So fast that the devs panic, turning the game into a mess."
Hope this clearify what I meant with "the horrors" of Breeding Season, and why I also included Simbro in the same category. In my eyes, Breeding season was doing fine, slowly growing, things getting added with a slow phase, but the slow phase clouded the judgement of some people and drove the team to ruin. Now this is what I think and I am a thrid part, if not a forth, but I see the same thing in Simbro. And I fear that this things might spread to other projects, especially on the "adult-game" market.
