blueaxolotl
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Very important post about the future of Slice of Venture 3
🕑 Added 2021-05-17 11:01:08 +0000 UTCHello everyone,
I wish I could make this post short but I'm afraid it'll have to be a bit long to explain everything there needs to explain. I'll try to divide it into clear sections so that you don't get lost (nor me :x)
1) The genesis of the project
I have to re-explain a bit things for those who weren't around back then or to refresh the memories of those who were around but don't necessarily remember everything.
I finished SoV2 in December 2018. That led to two important things: a big loss of patrons (I was earning roughly $3,000 per month back then and fell to $2,000/$2,200 by the end of March), and the need to breathe a bit for PeakJump and I. So in 2019 I kept working on SoVO, The Hunter and Naomi's Past. With that trio of games, I requested Peak only for Naomi's Past, helping me financially as I was still paying him through commissions back then. I finished The Hunter in October 2019 and that's when I started looking for someone to work on SoV3 with me. Basically no artists answered me back then (and the few ones who did declined) and while it wasn't planned (we had "signed" together for SoV2 and Naomi's Past only), I went to see PeakJump and ask him if he'd be up for SoV3. The main condition was to "hire" him on a monthly basis and that's why I'm now paying him a monthly salary.
Back then, I had planned SoV3's development to last roughly 3 years. This was the same time than SoV2 but in my mind I'd have released more SoV3 content because the goal was to only alternate with TH2 (while for SoV2 I alternated with TH, SoVO and Naomi's Past). Anyway, that was my estimation and I told it to PeakJump and he was fine.
2) Naomi's Past & The Hunter 2
Now that I look back to it, there's definitely something I should've seen coming: the time necessary to both start TH2 and finish Naomi's Past. I released TH2 in March with a second update in April (after having worked on it since the end of SoV2) and then I worked during the next months to finish Naomi's Past. The game was fully released on July. Without having done anything about SoV3, we had already lost 6 months. That wasn't that terrible though. After all, now that NP was done we could move on. And we started, with PeakJump, working on SoV3 pre-production during August. We had already worked a bit on it during January and February when I was working on The Hunter 2 mind you, but here we needed finished stuff, even if we had to spend ages on designs. On my side, to avoid releasing nothing, I released one (or two?) SoVO update. In October 2020 I explained that we'd need to fully focus on SoV3 to release it asap and even doing that, we were only able to release it in January 2021.
3) Patreon
You have to realize than when I said Peak "it should take 3 years to make SoV3" SoV2 was still rather fresh to my mind and I (stupidly) applied how things went for SoV2 to SoV3. But when I saw that we had needed roughly 6 months to release the first version, even if the stuff we had designed wouldn't need to be designed anymore, there were still TONS of things to design in the future (especially considering PeakJump was supposed to deal with the design of the monsters too, in addition to the main characters/race designs etc...)
Patreon's ban was a huge kick in the nuts in that regard. But it was also a combination of events. Due to personal reasons, Carlis, our colorist, had to leave the team. So while the goal was to quickly add the missing content for the first update, the loss of money coupled with the fact we didn't have a colorist anymore slowed everything down. PeakJump finished the necessary stuff (the extra scene, the monster sprites), but I had no one to color them (and even I had, the loss of money would have prevented me from doing so. After all I still had to pay the previous months of work to Carlis cause she's the kind to wait until everything's finished before requesting her payment ^^')
4) Research and Design only until the project can be funded
This is probably recent enough for everyone but as you know, I explained people that one of the goal to fund SoV3 properly was to earn around $2,500 per month and while I reached that amount one or two months after I announced it would mean PeakJump would be back at the end of 2019, I never went back to that amount for the whole 2020 year ^^' The goal was to invest everything and cut corners (on my own income) to make no concessions on SoV3 to give it as much exposure as possible to bring new patrons in and hopefully reach the necessary balance. Patreon killed everything (not only by cancelling my account but also by forcing me to remove the game from download on the site for the 2 weeks I tried to get my page back, meaning the whole advertisement campaign went to waste cause even if the game was free, people couldn't access it.)
So we're back to square one, trying to reach that amount. I asked PeakJump to do only R&D because that meant I wouldn't have to pay for anything else for SoV3 while I was still recovering from Patreon's ban. And that's where we're reaching the current state of things. I'm supposed to release a new TH2 update, then work on SoVO until it's finished and hopefully, by then, we would've been able to get back to SoV3. But Peak reminded me something I had TOTALLY forgotten about...
5) Scheduling life itself
We're in May 2021. If we take back the original deal, SoV3 was supposed to be finished by the end of 2022. It is, of course, totally impossible. The only possibility to reach such a result would be to work on SoV3 ONLY AND have all the designs already prepared for all the characters of the game (which is not the case at all). When Peak told me that last week I kinda realized that the fact I had forgotten that deadline was both stupid but also very counter-productive to come up with a proper schedule.
Now that's where things start to be a bit tricky. Believe us, we've talked about it. A LOT. PeakJump and I spent two full afternoons on vocal to expose the situation and search for different solutions. It actually ate my whole brain until saturday, so I'd rather say it right now, I'll be a bit late for TH2's update. Haven't been able to work on it all since then. At the same time I questioned the patrons on Discord to see what they were looking for exactly, how'd they react to different possibilities, even JFC helped us trying to figure out a "best" outcome.
Here's the key of the problem. I've always said it, but with $500 per month, PeakJump doesn't live. He survives. Even if he gains a bit more thanks to his Patreon/Fanbox, that's not a decent wage. But he makes up for it cause he can draw all he wants. But there's a huge problem he's confronted: since he doesn't earn enough, he can't open a self-company allowing him to put money on the side for his retirement pension. I can understand it, after all the reason I opened my own self-company in january 2019 and pay 25% of my monthly income as taxes is exactly for that. So this is a first problem. Basically, if by the end of 2022 I want to have a chance to keep PeakJump to work with me, I first need to be able to pay him the minimum wage for a self-company which is apprently around $1,300/$1,400 per month. So I'd have to be able to pay him almost $1,000 more per month.
BUT, if life was that easy, we'd know it by now. Add to that the fact that PeakJump and I have been working together for almost 6 years (it will make 6 years this August.) He doesn't dislike working with me (unlike what some you might say :x), but it could be normal for him to start wanting to do other things. He has some clues about potential paths to take to try living from his drawing but that shit is random as fuck. We can't predict the future. In the possibility he'd managed, somehow, to live from drawing hentai on his side (meaning without having to work with me), there's also a chance he'd take that chance to focus 100% on his personal career. And that would be totally understandable.
Keep in mind that if he were to agree to keep working with me on SoV3, considering the speed of the project and the huge amount there is to do in research and design we'd be easily going for another 3-year period STARTING the end of 2022. So roughly up to 2025. When you've already worked on the same projects for 6 years, it's much trickier to agree right away to jump on another 3 years.
That's the current situation. No matter what, SoV3 wouldn't be completed by the end of 2022 and PeakJump just CAN'T say right now if he'd be willing to keep on and anyway I'm not even sure I'll have the money to hire him at the end of 2022.
I just want to make one thing clear though: In this whole story I'm the one to blame. I'm the one who was unable to come up with a proper schedule, to realize that SoV3 would require more R&D time than SoV2, to quickly finish my side projects and more importantly, to remember that we had signed for a precise amount of years so what happens after 2022 is my problem alone. So even if the justification relies heavily around PeakJump to explain you why we're in the current situation and where things are headed, keep in mind that it's my fault. Don't go and attack him personally, thanks (I know I have a wonderful and understanding community that will never do that, but hey, I just can't help it writing it anyway ^^')
6) What now?
After all, that's probably your main concern right now. What the heck did I decide to do? Well here's my answer:
- As much as I'd love SoV3 to be done by PeakJump, I just can't aford the risk of making a single part of the game with him and have to change artist at some point. That would ruin everything. If anything, I'd rather change the artist from the start as we're lucky enough to have "only" done what's currently available.
- As such, SoV3 is now put on hold definitively. And I'm saying "on hold". There's no way I won't make SoV3. But the current situation just doesn't allow me to work on it at all. The lack of income, time, team members (still don't have a colorist because I'm not searching: they'd have nothing to color for the moment) and the uncertainty of the future are too many problems to work on SoV3 smoothly. SoV3 is and will always be my most ambitious project and I don't want to lower my ambitions on the altar of making it asap. I can wait. Which means that meanwhile...
- I'm launching a totally new project. With all the R&D PeakJump was forced to do since August last year, he only drew SoV3's H scenes in 10 months!! Those are the only H scenes he drew for me. Seriously, fuck that, no? Where are the good old days of SoV2 were he had to worry about nothing but the amount of variations I'd ask him in a scene? So I'm aiming at changing this 100%. As soon as I'm finished writing this post, we'll talk about that game so he can draw smut right away.
- The goal is to manage to have a finished game by the end of 2022. This way, if life decides that we must part ways, at least we'll have finished with a full game. I needed a game that would need 0 R&D (so only already existing characters) and something much more affordable for me in terms of conception (understand a "simple" game). And it happened that I had a fitting concept for that. It's a game I had in store for AFTER SoV3 and TH2 (yeah I think that far :x) but working on it right now might not be a problem after all.
The next game will be a spin-off and a "what if". If you're not used to the "what if" concept in Japan, it's simply the fact of making a game with an already known cast but with a different setting and/or development of the story. One of the most famous case is Tomoyo After which is a "what if" from Clannad. Usually, devs use that to justify their fantasies (Dungeon Travelers is set with the "To Heart 2" cast but in a dungeon-crawling fantasy setting where character still retain their relationship from the main game.)
And here, this is what it will be! Welcome "Slice of School", the spin off where a part of the cast of Slice of Venture will meet a part of the cast of The Hunter in a private school where you'll play as a new teacher who's just been hired and will witness A LOT of things ;)
I've been working on the documentation for the whole day yesterday, today I have to plan stuff with Peak, so that's more extra days I'm delaying TH2's release but it's really needed. The goal is that PeakJump draws smut from now until September so that as soon as SoVO is finished I can jump on that project and release a first version asap. I'll be alternating it with TH2 and as the time goes by and we'll see how things evolve, we'll decide what to do about SoV3.
That's all for now. I hope you guys and girls aren't disappointed too much. I really apologize to have to hold on SoV3. Hopefully, that new game will help me getting more exposure before the end of 2022. But we'll have to see that in a distant future :p
I'm leaving you for now. We'll show you stuff from that game as soon as we can. And meanwhile, I'll go back to preparing that game with Peak and after that, I'll go back to TH2!
Thank you again for your support!
Comments
On my way.
Ark_Thompson
Indeed, there are quite a few things to say so it would be safer that you come over Discord if you want to talk about that rather than having me making another set of comments x)
Oh yeah, I might aswell mention that if you'd rather reply or discuss things in person, let me know and I'll join the discord - otherwise I'll put that off until I subscribe.
Well, if it was important I'll probably be reminded about it eventually. I'll try to find room in my economy to join up as a subscriber here eventually, I've gradually been putting parts of my economy towards subscribing to artists I enjoy lately, and my economy is likely to see a small boost soon due to one of my irl friends that owe me a lot of money getting his economy into shape enough to start paying me back, though I need to invest in a new HDD before I do much else. I hope any of what I said can be of use to you - either directly or just emotionally - and I also apologize for how lengthy this got.. based on the maximum 1k character length, it's likely between 6-7k. With that, I'm done for now.
From the cases I've seen, not only will their stuff often be even more likely to be uploaded on E-H, but I've seen cases where the artists action (or reaction) towards it has been in such poor taste/manners that people have been outspoken about ceasing to support artists they had previously supported. But apart from cases of artists going nuts towards E-H's community about being there, which is highly likely to hurt their "E-H advertisement", I think it should remain a positive being there. About the translation part, I myself was hoping to get into translation, though primarily JP>Eng and primarily for VNs.. but that's mostly a goal, as I'm currently stunted on that due to the previously mentioned depression - the initial hurdle of studying Kana and such is too steep of a hurdle for me to get over atm. Saying that, if I ever do get far enough into that for it to be relevant, I'd be happy to help you for a cheap cost. I feel like I've forgotten something else I was thinking about.
Just recently I bought a copy of https://vndb.org/v29909 from Amazon because I wanted to support Milk Factory after I started playing it - I had already played through some of their titles (I include Squeez's games as part of their library) before. Admitedly it was also the most expensive "support" I've made in a long time, as I also try to pick up games I want to support when they're on sale whenever possible. Anyway, that part about myself was mostly for a contextual reference and clarifications. I still stand by that most products are helped more than they are stumped by being on E-H - at least for anything that isn't a regular CG or Manga. There are exceptions, the most notable one being where the artist comes out with a massive statement or similar reaction to finding their work on E-H.
For E-H in general, while there'll always be tards and general idiots in any community, I think most stuff that ends up there actually helps the products more often than not, as a lot people try to support artists they enjoy - I myself often use E-H just to check out if I'll enjoy the artwork of a game enough to warrant getting it. Saying that, I'm also in the group of people that wish I could afford to support all the artists whose work I enjoy, but I've spent the majority of my life with an extremely limited economy. Just for the past 4-5 years I've been "on sick leave" (or some appropriate version of the term) due to depression, which leaves me with a social welfare sum that is estimated to be just enough for me to get by - though I'm economical enough to make some slight excess every month even despite hardly having been capable of cooking (relying on fast-food or pre-made bought lunchboxes) for a few years. Most of the spare cash I *do* have is spent on supporting artists.
I can't say too much about F95 as I haven't been on there much, but I don't think your games being on E-H hurts more than it helps - most people that would play the games in the first place are more interesting in playing games with art they enjoy rather than just looking at the gallery (unless they think the game's artwork is great but the game itself is trash) - myself included. The majority of people that enjoy art on E-H but don't want to play a game to get them (VNs, RPGs, other games etc) wouldn't purchase the game regardless of it having a gallery or not. I think you should even consider putting more links in the comments for where they can purchase them (I noticed you had commented on at least one of the galleries), as I only noticed DLsite links thus far and some people didn't seem to be aware they could get the game uncensored.
I'd also agree that your games are probably a bit more on the niche side of things, which *might* be another reason to try to get the game translated into japanese as most niches tend to do better there in general (though I think the western market has picked up a bit). You did say you've looked into it, but I'm just mentioning it as another person who think it might be a worthwhile goal to have in mind - assuming you can get it translated at a respectable level and a reasonable price. On a note of finding your sites, you might want to consider making a more dedicated hub page on your main site that link all of your affiliated sites together, as I don't think there's one leading here atm - you can get here from the Pixiv page, but I think there should be a direct link. It'd also help visibility than the current corner-bound design. You could keep some primary ones up there, but a dedicated page seems like a good idea to me.
Now, actually finding my way from DLsite to here (and the other sites associated with you) was harder than you'd think - I specifically had to search for "Blue Axolotl slice of venture" to get here, seemingly largely because of something from Minecraft. That leads me to my next question - would it be possible to link to your site - or some linklist - on the DLsite pages of your game. If not, you might want to consider making a ci-en entry on your DLsite publisher page, as that will show up for anyone looking at the 'Blue Axolotl'-page on DLsite - specifically might help if you mention there that people outside of japan can purchase your games uncensored. I don't mind (reasonable) censoring in games myself, but I see a lot of other people from the west that do care - especially from people that seem more like "normies" - to the point where for example people have come up with tools to automatically decensor Unity-based games. So that might help catch people that see it on DLsite.
I hadn't really paid close attention to any of your titles before today, though I had seen them around every now and then. Mostly because I've been extending my reach beyond just VNs recently. While I still haven't played any of your titles - saying that I might've had a short try of Vitamin Plus at some point since I like Butakoma, but I'm not sure - I tend to empathize with any developers/artists that seem like good people. I hope things work out for you and everyone involved. I also read through the discussion below and unless the numbers signify something else, SoV has sold at least over 1k copies on DLsite, which while not a ton is still a decent amount by DLsite standards - and if I had to guess based on what I've seen thus far, the initial jump may have also helped the visibility. While SoV2 still doesn't have a lot of sales there, at least it (just like SoV) has a good rating. I'll continue this in another post, I've got a few things I'd like to say;
Lyszard
yeah, that, would pose another set of problems, nothing is easy unfortunately :(
Ark_Thompson
That's dirt cheap compared to the prices I've seen before. Now would those translators be ready to work on a game like SoV2 (with everything it contains in terms of fetish, some might decline just for that) and also, are they versed in the eroge vocabulary world? (Cause Japanese people have their own slang for hentai stuff so the translator has to know them for the translation to be accurate.)
Lyszard
I've done some rough research about the translation costs from english to japanese in my country. Taking into account 30k characters it should be 500+ USD to get it translated. Just for your information if you were interested in something like that in the future.
Ark_Thompson
Putting TH2 on Patreon would be instant ban. There's shota. And it's 3D (they're much less lenient with 3D). And yes, it's my account which is banned. I could make a new one. But why would I bother to give them money? The same sjws would report me all the same anyway. I'm not going back to Patreon and I hope they'll end up being eaten by the sjws they're protecting :x (yes I'm bitter) As for TH2 I'm not sure what you're talking about with Kaya being "fast". The game isn't meant to be played with a mouse at all so it might be a first problem. Also for text, I haven't changed anything about text speed, so I don't know where your problem of having to read text twice comes from. It's probably linked to the fact you're using a mouse because you're the first one to mention that problem.
Ark_Thompson
I don't go on F95 anymore (plus I'm sure there are people who uploaded TH2 there already.) All my games are on F95 so people know what to expect with my games. If they're not here it means they don't feel like supporting me. It's extremely complicated to sell stuff on Japanese sites other than DLsite. That's why, when you submit a game on DLsite you can ask that they also put it, on their side on all those sites. That's why SoV is on DLsite but also on DMM (Fanza), on getchuu, on Digiket, on Melonbooks and on Guytto. And if you need a proof it doesn't change anything: after 6 years of selling SoV on those sites, I sold a global total of 2 units on all those sites together :x No, I don't need the have the game in Japanese for DLsite. SoV is only available in english. Mentioning Japanese translation is just to appeal the Japanese market. But translating from jp to eng is MUCH less costy than the other way around.
romeck
PS4: pleas slow down H2 a bit. Especialiy with mouse, if i click on sth. Kaya go so fast that i m not so fast to leave click an half of the text are missed. Its very unconvenient couse half time i have to click again to read whole missed text.
romeck
I think that puting H2 on 95zone would be good thing. People like to pay if like creators. And your game is quite uniqe with good models and gameplay. PS: what with shops like getchu ? PS2: you have to get japanese translation to put games on dlsite? I pressume that all need to be censored ? PS3: btw will you be banned from patreon if you put Hunter 2 there only ? Are you banned as whole dev or just that SOV were incest type ?
Ark_Thompson
@Satyrer Wait I'm not sure I understand. The game is accessible. I put it back on the site around March. @Lyszard SoV is on DLsite. Right here: https://www.dlsite.com/maniax/work/=/product_id/RJ159087.html SoV2 isn't on DListe because I've been denied the right to sell it back then. I'm currently resubmitting it because the merge with the japanese version (meaning everything is in Japan now) changed things. They only asked me to re-censor the 2k pics because I hadn't censored them enough -_- But it should appear at some point. I don't remember the amount of characters. But that's how I had made my calculations. That was a rough estimation based on the amount of characters. So there should be something between 25,000 and 30,000 characters in SoV2 (the average price for Eng/Jap translation was around 0,50 cts per Kanji when I checked at the time.) I know prices can be lowered with the amount, but even at $8,000, hell even at $5,000 it would be much too expensive for my current founds.
Lyszard
What about putting the games on dlsite. I dont see SoV and SoV2 there. Are there some legal restrictions? 10000$ for translation wow the price is astounding. Is it possible for a rough estimation how many characters the game's dialogs contain? I'd like to see what would be the price of translation in my country.
Satyrer
How about you (Ark) fix the hyperlinks in SoV3 to your own page, Subscribestar and Fanbox and Rerelease it again? I think its a little Work with a bigger exposure after all. Have a nice week and a great workflow. :D
Ark_Thompson
The only hentai site making porn reviews I know of is Lewdgamers and I'm blacklisted there because the site owner came and see me because he wanted to work with Butakoma but when I told him Butakoma didn't want to work with anyone (not even with me), he never answered me back so I think he didn't like it. I estimated the translation of SoV2 to roughly $10,000 considering the amount of text. Even for a smaller game, it needs extra cash I don't have ^^' And let's be honest, due to the content of my games, there's like 90% of the places I could promote it that are closed to me. We'll see if that new game manages to rake up more newcommers. I will promote it as much as possible when it comes out. But we first have to have content before promoting it ^^' (Sorry I had to split the message in two cause it was too long :x)
Ark_Thompson
I'll complete Peak's answer. I know that people who like my games are frustrated that I don't have much visibility, but at the same time, they "are" (my games) more or less everywhere they can be. People put them on F95 for free, there are tons of half-scam sites putting MV games playable through browsers that make it with my games, people are uploading galleries of my games in exhentai... So they ARE kinda everywhere. At the beginning I can blame the lack of exposure but it's been 8 years now I've been doing what I do (even if I started living from it much later) and there's never been a real surge of newcommers. I'm afraid it's mainly due to the content which is too niche for the majority of players.
ピーク・ジャンプ
If I can chime in on this as part of the team - We've indeed talked a lot about that aspect. Overall, it's clear that we definitely need to grab for more exposure, but it's always a tricky thing. We do streams, Ark publishes more content for free than he used to etc. Sure, this would have to be done a lot more aggressively, but there's issues. For one, the main fetish of these games limits our options. Ark understandably avoids Twitter cause, well, you know how Twitter can get once they get hold of you. We had high hopes with SoV3's first version being offered for free, but you see where that got us. All that being said, we're definitely thinking about that aspect and are gonna try to make the most out of it. Oh, and thanks a bunch for the input, always good to get more feedback like this. ^^
Thats exactly my tought too. Its so frustrating to see stopping such amazing projects just because of lack of money. You really should try to promote it more. Sure, maybe its a bit a special topic but, it is worth it! :)
Lyszard
I know you are a clever guy and you probably have done everything you could think of but I am terribly worried that maybe there is not enough marketing put into your brand to change the situation for the better in the long run. Maybe it would be good to spend a day in a week focusing only on promoting the brand and calling new supporters. Posting on every possible hentai/porn site. Maybe even sending some copies of the games to some hentai/porn reviewers if they havent played the game already. I dont know, translating to japanese to aquire a public there, you already have a platform for that. Some attention definitely needs to be aquired. Wish you all the best and hope for the better days.
