sierralee
patreon
September 29 Update
🕑 Added 2019-09-29 21:58:06 +0000 UTCAlright, as of this post, I've closed the survey. We had 285 responses, which is a pretty good response rate for something quick like this. Though some of it produced expected results, there were also some things that were good to learn.
(One note for future surveys: the write-in options were mostly used as a "misc comment" field instead of to write in other options. I read all comments, but in the future would probably avoid that field. The reason some of the text looks weird is that there were so many write-ins that the text started getting compressed in the results page.)
I'm struck by the fact that there's a solid 50% of respondents who are relatively neutral - I suspected that if that position existed, it wouldn't be voiced as strongly in comments, so it's good to give that group a chance to be heard.
Beneath that, however, there are some useful trends. Between the two questions, it's easy to see an antipathy toward Ren'Py. There's a bit of a split regarding Unity, though I'm unsure if I biased the results by phrasing an option as negatively as slowing development. Some people voted both for Unity and against anything that slowed development, so it seems I wasn't clear enough.
As expected given the nature of my work so far, there's a fairly strong preference for NSFW, with almost 60% combined on those two options. I'm not sure this will directly influence any of my decisions, but it's interesting to see the spread of opinion like this.
I'm not sure how useful this last data was, but I certainly find it interesting. This looks about right, given how I've developed my Patreon around a central project. Overall, I found this data quite interesting, and thanks again to everyone who responded!
Anyway, since too much is going on these days, I'll throw in some other misc updates:
Book Stuff: Once a book is a month old, the amount of natural promotion it gets drops off a cliff, but surprisingly Street Cultivation's rank hasn't plummeted. It's not constantly sky high anymore, but it's bouncing around pretty high on Amazon. This certainly doesn't hurt.
Audiobooks: I got a commitment from Travis Baldree to narrate the audiobook. This is a good thing, as he's essentially the most famous narrator in this subgenre. More importantly, in theory I don't have to do a single minute of work regarding this until the audiobook comes out in early 2020.
Standalone Novels: I've decided to change my plans and not publish the three standalones. It would be more profitable to put them out, but I'm afraid it would be too time-consuming and I'd rather spend that time on the upcoming TLS updates. My only regret is that it will weaken my launch of TBS, but I can live with that. Thanks to all of you for supporting me so that I can make decisions based on what I think is creatively best. ^-^
Okay, I think that was plenty for this week. The next time you hear from me it will be with simple good news.
Comments
Barissia
Can't speak for everyone but Ren'Py gives me Vietnam-esque PTSD flashbacks to the mountain of poorly written dating sims and VNs that flood patreon
Sierra Lee
That's a good question regarding Unity, but I don't know beyond my general feeling that you'd probably need to buy UI systems separately.
Rachnera
Yet another factor that may explain in part Ren'Py abysmal score: The lackluster user interfaces of most side-mechanisms (combat, raid, alchemy, shops) in Kingdom of Deception, coupled with the maybe true maybe false impression that they did take quite a few time to be made nonetheless. Out of curiosity, does Unity provide anything outside the box for UI, or does everything on that front need to be built pretty much from scratch in the same way than Ren'Py?
Sierra Lee
I can say that several comments explicitly took that position and only one or two expressed pro-VN but anti-Ren'Py positions. I'll have to look into if Google Forms lets me create a character limit.
Sierra Lee
I wouldn't have anticipated the numbers would be like that either, so I feel that was a valuable result from the survey. As for the question itself, you have it right: there are tradeoffs either way.
Decanter
I get the distinct impression that the anti-RenPy votes are because of opposition to a VN as main project and not the engine being used for other things, but maybe I'm wrong. Guess in the future the write-in option should be "Other (please detail on Patreon/SS comments)", or maybe have a character limit?
Dubsington
Surprised by how strong the anti-Ren'Py voting was, even considering this Patreon is one of the last healthy hold outs of RPGMaker fandom on Patreon. (There are several projects out there of RPGM games being remade in Ren'Py that are actually making money, despite not delivering any new content.) I assume that a big factor is that people feel you will be more productive & effective if you're wielding your strongest weapon. The counter to that, I think, is that RPGM costs a game potential players-- at least that is the impression I get from chatter on discords and forums.
Darthjake
I got converted to this point of view with TLS, I came for the pron, and stayed for the story. Now, I tend to judge all the games by TLS. I want a story with sex, but I want to focus on the story, and just have the sex there when appropriate.
StalkerRoguen
I don't know if a lot of people feel like me, but I discovered that I enjoy NSFW when it's not actually the point of the game. I mean, I hate books where the point of it is the romance, but I enjoy romance in books/games that the point is... well... adventure, a mission, a plot, whatever. I think TLS is unique in that regard, so while I enjoy the writting, I would be less prone to play something SFW.
