Re: Akabur Games
I've always been one to think that a dev shouldn't talk about content or make promises about things they haven't started working on, especially since halfway through development of a game you're pretty much looking for anything that can lower your workload, especially content or functions that you can throw out the window.
Here's the rub.
You have "artists", and you have "professionals". A "professional" is someone who takes a design, estimates the amount of work needed to implement the design, determines the cost of implementation on the basis of that, and when his costs are covered, implements the design according to specifications.
An "artist" just does what he feels like doing, whether it is actually producing some art or lazying away the day, and expects to receive compensation for just "existing". Artists may produce some really cool works, if they feel "inspiration." But "inspiration" is hard to come by, and they do not deliver on demand.
The big advantage that "professionals" have over "artists" is that they usually have a better and more steady income, as people are willing to fork over money to get what they want, and can expect to receive what they asked for, or at least something that they are happy with. Which means: a legitimate art business and returning clients.
Two years ago Akabur was an "artist" according to the specification above, who created some interesting stuff. I started supporting him at some point in the hopes of allowing him to become a "professional". I thought he had that ability, as evidently he had been able to produce several reasonably good games (with some forgivable flaws) in a reasonably short amount of time. In my view, that was the purpose of Patreon: to allow "artists" to turn their hobbies into a job.
But for many of those who do well on Patreon this is not the case. They seem to feel that they get paid so that they can remain an "artist", doing what they like to do, while getting showered with monthly donations of fans who worship every fart they let go. Instead of Patreon giving them the means to produce more and better work, it has the opposite effect of making them produce less and worse work. Akabur is a prime example of this phenomenon.
From my perspective, Patreon completely fails to do what I was hoping that it would do. I donated to Akabur for the good part of a year, stopped my donations after seeing Witch Trainer, and probably will never again donate to anyone via Patreon. Because it just does not work in most cases.
This is a sad message for those who try to legitimately become "professionals" via Patreon, as the army of Akaburs is ruining it for them.