Akabur Games

[Crawdaddy]

Re: Akabur Games

Super_slicer, you're just coming off as an insane, rambling hobo right now.

Whether any person here is Akabur in disguise is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand, and frankly a really fucking weird speculation.


I like Akabur's stuff, but his professionalism and project management skills leave a lot to be desired. Starting entirely new projects while in the middle or start-phase of another, dropping projects after tantrums, etc. does not inspire a lot of trust.

Then again, I haven't dropped a single quid in his patreon so I haven't got a lot to be disappointed about, compared to some of the other people here.

 

[Keyen]

Re: Akabur Games

^ "Vanilla" Witch Trainer ? Top quality ? Let me lol a few hours

Please do.

Just quoting YT since he hits the nail on the head.

I was a Patreon at the $10 level from July 2014 through January 2015, and followed Akabur's development religiously. I just want to note that it was not only "people hyping themselves on what he could make," but the posts themselves during that time.

Akabur never once specified in detail how many CGs, etc. we could expect, but he consistently noted that it would surpass Princess Trainer. At no point in the development were followers led to believe the final game would be 95% chibi with 2 full CGs. THAT was my big issue. I don't even mind the gameplay issues (grinding), but I can't play WT because every time I do, I see what could have been. I mean, if he'd only just put CGs in for each favor (that's like what 12 more CGs with variations), it would be one of my favorite games.

After the fallout, Akabur changed his Patreon page to remove all patron-level rewards (which I note that in 6 months I pledging, I never received anyways), changed his entire tone to one that was less respectful to patrons, and washed his hands with WT. It left me a bit disillusioned with him, so I switched to $1. I like his games, I thoroughly enjoyed PT:Gold, I just wish WT would have been more fleshed out. It made me even sadder when just a few months later Akabur sketched a quick Hermoine flashing her tits CG in like 2 days.

 

[Omnikuken]

Re: Akabur Games

^ Are you quote-bashing me or Abe ?

 

[xXHaseoXx]

Re: Akabur Games

Actually I am Akabur. Bonjour!

 

[Hero1]

Re: Akabur Games

Actually I am Akabur. Bonjour!

I'm Akabur!

/watch?v=u93bhAimFFU

 

[big002fr]

Re: Akabur Games

What to say about Akabur's games...

I don't understand all the hate about Witch trainer.
Sure it is flawed and let you feel that it was rushed because lots of planned content was not included in the end.

But to say it's a crappy game is a stretch. Look at all other anglish porn games made before judging it.

WT inspired tons of other games from people claiming that they could do better. And do you see any better made games?

What I see is lots of beta games with barely any contents to get some backing on patreon. And then an uptade adding 2 pictures each month at best to keep those backer but with no plan to finish the game so that they keep those pledge.

Could Akabur work better and faster? Certenly.
Do I see other artists outside of Japan who pull that off? No

So love it or hate it but Akabur rules. He delivers what he promised (even if it's only the minimum), his games are focused and he doesn't delay his work too much

 

[hugo77]

Re: Akabur Games

What to say about Akabur's games...

I don't understand all the hate about Witch trainer.
Sure it is flawed and let you feel that it was rushed because lots of planned content was not included in the end.

But to say it's a crappy game is a stretch. Look at all other anglish porn games made before judging it.

WT inspired tons of other games from people claiming that they could do better. And do you see any better made games?

What I see is lots of beta games with barely any contents to get some backing on patreon. And then an uptade adding 2 pictures each month at best to keep those backer but with no plan to finish the game so that they keep those pledge.

Could Akabur work better and faster? Certenly.
Do I see other artists outside of Japan who pull that off? No

So love it or hate it but Akabur rules. He delivers what he promised (even if it's only the minimum), his games are focused and he doesn't delay his work too much

Yes, plenty in fact. Did you even play the WT? This game has like 1(one!) full CG(the ending) with slight variations and the rest of the art are just Hermione's standing pictures. The gameplay without cheats is a mindless grind and chore. Also whether he delivers is debatable - his only finished project is Princess Trainer which i admit is a good porn game with lots of humour and sexy scenes.

 

[Keyen]

Re: Akabur Games

^ Are you quote-bashing me or Abe ?

I'm not bashing anybody, I was just providing a quote on why WT wasn't really really good.

 

[Abelius]

Re: Akabur Games

I admit I know the guy only from recently, so I got to play PT and WT with no waiting period whatsoever. And I absolutely loved them. Of course Princess Trainer is superior to Witch/Hermione Trainer at many levels, but the fact is that PT demolished my previous view on the fan-made games scene which is, as big002fr mentioned, not so polished and good looking as Akabur's finished games.

So yeah, I got straight to his Patreon and donated. Kill me for that.

But from what some of you are saying he seems to be a not very, mmm... reliable creator? Even not very warm to his patrons at times? I'm not going to argue on that point because I know nothing of him. And I'll even concede on the point that taking more than one year to make a moderately complex VN in Ren'py when you already have (pretty good) illustrating skills strikes me as maybe too much time if you work full-time on them.

But one thing's for sure: that guy's creations convinced me to make h-games of my own. For me he's a fucking inspiring beacon of hope... and even if he stands in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoots somebody he wouldn’t lose any patrons, okay?

Now seriously, I don't understand all that hate. Maybe it's because this forum is so big, so it's only normal to have... 'vocal' people going against creators not being perfect in their views. But that has a very simple solution: do not give them anything! And as a bonus, do not call "mentally handiccaped" to people who does.

That was astonishingly disrespectful Slicer, and if you ask me why I've been keeping myself away from posting in this forum it's because it's not the first time I've seen people with a high post count and an all green reputation treating newcomers either with a paternalistic tone or as shit. So yes, in case you're wondering, I consider myself better than you, Slicer, in that respect. Surprise, surprise...

 

[Keyen]

Re: Akabur Games

The problem with Akabur is how he gives Patreon a very bad publicity (Ok, some other people are doing it too). When you set the pledge on /month, you are supposed to deliver things in reasonable delay. If you don't, either you take your patrons for milk cows, or you set it to /update.

Guys like him (You can talk about the guy from Opala or guys from BS/CM in another aspect) drain both money and trust into patreon, without doing anything good rapported to the money they earn. In the end, every patreon creator are losing, since people are less likely to invest.

"Do you see this guy, he looks awesome"
"Yeah, but since even creators with 6K+ $/month aren't delivering anything interesting, I will pass, thank you".

 

[Abelius]

Re: Akabur Games

"Do you see this guy, he looke awesome"
"Yeah, but since even creators with 6K+ $/month aren't delivering anything interesting, I will pass, thank you".

You may have a point.

Since I know of the existence of Patreon I only heard about stories about 'getting burned...' And that's bad.

I've also thought about the month/update setting myself. It definitely seems more fair to set it to update if you're not sure about your throughput. Because freelance professionals doesn't get paid if they don't work, after all...

In the other hand, when you're working on some aspect of a game not always you can deliver a 'content' update regularly. Let's say you need to rework the engine logic to allow for the game to be improved and you spend a whole month at that... Patrons won't see anything new that month but you still need to pay the bills...

Not saying this is the case for anybody you mentioned, of course.

In the end, I think the best way to reassure patrons is to communicate with them at all times. A weekly post to inform them about the project, even if it's not particularly exciting. And if you need to focus on non content coding, explaining that to them like grown adults, asking for their understanding and patience.

But... yeah, not many people does that.

 

[loopy]

Re: Akabur Games

I don't think Patreon is particularly good for long-term projects like games. If the campaign is monthly, it gives the developers a steady income, but is likely to bilk the patrons in various ways. If the campaign is per update, the developer gets nothing for long stretches of time. In either case, people don't seem to modify their contributions very well. A popular, monthly campaign can draw niche-project Kickstarter numbers each month. A similar per-update campaign might reach the same level despite only billing maybe twice a year, but they're not likely to make more.

The rewards system doesn't work well either. They end up structured like Kickstarter levels. Oftentimes creators ask for so many dollars per month in exchange for a one-time reward, which is OK I guess if the levels are $1-$2 dollars apart and the reward is just a fun bonus rather than something like ongoing beta access, but they generally aren't. I saw one campaign that had a $500/month reward where they would give you the source code of the game. I wanted to message the guy running it because it was such a weird thing. It seemed like if 1 month at $500 was sufficient, then 5 at $100 or 50 at $10 ought to earn the same reward. I couldn't imagine actually wanting their source code, though.

For Akabur, I'd probably change my contributions a lot, if I was still giving and if he gave weekly or monthly statuses. He writes terrible code. If he went with your example and announced he was reworking something or adding in a new stat or something, and it would take a month, I'd assume it was because he had to manually modify logic in the 14,000 places he'd copy-pasted the original snippets. So that month I'd probably test whether you can give a fraction of a dollar before just skipping it.

 

[Keyen]

Re: Akabur Games

I don't think Patreon is particularly good for long-term projects like games. If the campaign is monthly, it gives the developers a steady income, but is likely to bilk the patrons in various ways. If the campaign is per update, the developer gets nothing for long stretches of time. In either case, people don't seem to modify their contributions very well. A popular, monthly campaign can draw niche-project Kickstarter numbers each month. A similar per-update campaign might reach the same level despite only billing maybe twice a year, but they're not likely to make more.

I disagree with that. Take some patreon like Noxian Nights, or even Harem. They delivers monthly update, do a good PR job, and are not trying to screw their patrons (even if the Harem public release policy changes make me a bit angry). They do things in a reasonnable size and you have what you could have expected when reading the thing.

They are honest patreons, without trying to milk their patrons, despite the /month release. The /month release is only a problem is you don't deliver thing like you are supposed to do.... Per month.


Abelius said "yes, but if they are just changing the engine or something, it's not a true release". But it is. A release doesn't mean you have to give 5 CG and 23 scenes. If you are working on the game, if the change need significant work, then just say it to the patrons, tell them it was required. As long you are not doing 5 engine update per year, it's okay. Or as long it wasn't something you could do in 3 days and resting the rest of the month.

 

[loopy]

Re: Akabur Games

I disagree with that. Take some patreon like Noxian Nights, or even Harem. They delivers monthly update, do a good PR job, and are not trying to screw their patrons (even if the Harem public release policy changes make me a bit angry). They do things in a reasonnable size and you have what you could have expected when reading the thing.

Not really familiar with those projects. I thought I saw complaints about Noxian Nights running silent for an extended period at one point, but I haven't followed it. I suppose if you plan your releases around Patreon's billing model, it works. I do know one other guy who does that, and he does new versions like clockwork. The games weren't particularly fun, new releases had limited additions, and he never stretched himself by adding complex features after the initial release, but he did what he promised.

I was thinking more along the lines of traditional development, which is the model most Patreons I've followed use. And the developers have no real intention of changing their methodology to 30-60 day sprints with episodic releases. Akabur tried it. I think it took him 90 days for the first release; he didn't like it, scrapped his plans entirely, and transitioned to an entirely new game rather than try to finish what he was working on.

 

[Keyen]

Re: Akabur Games

I don't understand your point. For people who don't want "release update like a clockwork", work like they want and update when they want, they can use the "per update" billing, can't they?

 

[loopy]

Re: Akabur Games

What you quoted the first time around was my point on that. When I said two similar campaigns, one using monthly and the other per update, might reach the same level, I didn't mean they take in identical dollars over the course of a year or something. I meant the number per period on their page might be the same. From what I've seen if a creator switches to per update, their income doesn't increase substantially versus running a monthly campaign, if it increases at all. Once they switch, if it takes them six months or a year to release something they get much less money no matter how good it is. So the main incentive for switching to a per update campaign appears to be ethics or stress relief.

It'd be interesting to see what might become of Akabur's campaign if he switched. Unless he changed his pace significantly, my suspicion is that he'd go from making about $72,000/year to maybe $18,000/year. As a patron, I'd be more comfortable with a per-update campaign from him, but I don't think he'd appreciate the pay cut.

 

[borkenone]

Re: Akabur Games

What if there was a middle ground between paying monthly and the paying per update?

Like if the creator doesn't update once per month than the patrons only pay half the money?

wouldn't that be prefect? the creators would have enough motive to update regularly and they won't get on income.

 

[Abelius]

Re: Akabur Games

What if there was a middle ground between paying monthly and the paying per update?

It would be another option yes, but I think Loopy hit the nail in the head with this...:

So the main incentive for switching to a per update campaign appears to be ethics or stress relief.

I think is equally unethical to accept half the money if you know you're not going to work in a game for more than a month.

Furthermore... well, I don't have solid numbers but I suspect most of the creators around here have a main job instead of depending on their Patreon campaigns. Moreover, several games are created by a team, so even if its Patreon reach five figures they will not leave their jobs because it's too many people to share the cash.

So yes, in the case of creators that doesn't work full-time on their games, they absolutely should change their model to 'Per Update' by default. It's my humble opinion, of course.

Then, in the case of lone wolfs like Akabur and other one-man bands out there... well, I know very well how stressful this can be, when you need to fill out the role of four or five people on your own. Development feels like a crawl, it's very taxing for your health and you stop going out as frequently as before. And that's bound to explode eventually and you'll be forced to take a serious break.

But...! If you're receiving a good deal of money for so much work, well... it's obvious you'll have serious savings and you could change your model to 'Per Update', not losing any patrons in the process, and then rest for the time you need to charge yourself up.

So my opinion is that you can only justify the 'Per Month' model if you don't stop working and can regularly show the people something, even if it's a UI redesign or a required engine rework... of course if you don't change it every two months, because then that's a sign that you're doing something very wrong!

 

[super_slicer]

Re: Akabur Games

Now seriously, I don't understand all that hate. Maybe it's because this forum is so big, so it's only normal to have... 'vocal' people going against creators not being perfect in their views. But that has a very simple solution: do not give them anything! And as a bonus, do not call "mentally handiccaped" to people who does.

That was astonishingly disrespectful Slicer, and if you ask me why I've been keeping myself away from posting in this forum it's because it's not the first time I've seen people with a high post count and an all green reputation treating newcomers either with a paternalistic tone or as shit. So yes, in case you're wondering, I consider myself better than you, Slicer, in that respect. Surprise, surprise...

As I said, there is a VERY OBVIOUS correlation between the amount of money you receive and the speed that you work.

The whole point of giving a creator money is to fund their profession, and the expectation (sure there are some that just want to throw money at a creator, but the majority DO have an expectation) of that is if they make enough money from donations they no longer need to work at another job or take on commissions and can focus on creating more content at a quicker pace.

So given the correlation that I already explained, and the expectation of one who donates, one can easily see that giving you money is a counterproductive act.

Yet they KEEP DOING IT. One who continues committing the same act repeatedly expecting a different result is not insane, they are stupid. And should they continue for enough time, one must question their mental acuity further. We have reached that point, and the answer is: severe mental disability.

As for the tone of my posts, you set the mood for this exchange with your response:

You think I'm Akabur...? That's a good one.

You know what I'm seeing? A thread that has around 2.5 million views and a few guys that sound too entitled for my taste.

As a humble suggestion, if you hate Akabur so much you may consider stopping bumping his games' thread because you're doing the man a favor everytime you do that. Just saying...

Hello pot, my name is kettle.

 

[Abelius]

Re: Akabur Games

As I said, there is a VERY OBVIOUS correlation between the amount of money you receive and the speed that you work.

...

Here we go again.

Well, I must say at first I was surprised, even shocked, by your delusions about my identity, but later on I discovered I don't really care and start having fun and laughing like a maniac when Crawdaddy said that hilarious thing about you being an "insane, rambling hobo."

But man, I really would like to make peace with you because this is just stupid. We both are defending the same opinion here!

If I'm Akabur I've just said I can't possibly justify "me" being lazy for more than one month, hurting "my" image badly in the process. And if I am simply Abelius, I've also stated that I know him only from recently, so I've contributed to his cause... let's see... yeah, about three dollars in the past three months. I think that's a ripoff for him, not me, because I've played with his games for more than a week and hugely enjoyed them.

Does that mean I'll give him gold until I die if he doesn't deliver. No hell, no.

But I also understand he's an artist... or in other words, he's unreliable by definition. Me, in fact, have been dealing with different artists for commissions for my game and they are just unbearable people. And when you finally get someone to work they spend three whole weeks for a character design.

I hate them very much, I swear.