June 26 Update (Patreon)

First a little business: this week we had a $10 art post, but the TLS short stories will continue next week! That said, this week's update will be long, meandering, and a bit gloomy.

TLS Reviews

Since its 1.0.0 launch almost nine months ago, TLS had retained the "Overwhelmingly Positive" rating on Steam, but that has finally been lost:

Though I'd encourage people to review the game if they haven't somehow, realistically I don't think it's possible for the game to ever regain the rating. TLS launched with closer to 96% positive and since then has had more than 5% negative reviews on average, so this was a steady erosion of the starting advantage.

Valve has publicly stated that there's no algorithmic difference at the top end of the ratings, but I think the "Overwhelmingly Positive" text helped TLS stand out, and it's just sad in general. It lasted longer than I expected, and I'm grateful for everyone who has supported the game.

Publishing Woes

There's been something developing in the background that I felt it would be premature to talk about, and the recent developments have justified that caution. It started with a major publisher (one of the largest in the USA) coming to me with an offer for a profit-sharing deal on my self-published work, so that seemed great. Meetings with big editors and lots of stuff happening.

But the publisher is insisting that they want to take over my current ebook sales, which is insane because it means they want me to give up a huge chunk of my income in exchange for unenforceable promises. While it's possible that we'll be able to convince them to budge on this, it seems most likely that the whole deal will fall through.

I did get a literary agent out of this, and I still have some other offers on the table, but this is a big disappointment. I'm not sure whether this deal was actively predatory or (more likely) just a traditional publisher not understanding how important ebooks are for my subgenre. But it still sucks to have a senior editor contact me with all kinds of glowing statements, then offer me the worst deal I've ever seen in my life, one that would cripple my career.

To try to turn this a little positive, I'm fortunate to be in a position where I can turn down a bad offer. Throne of Time also continues to grow steadily, though it'd be premature to draw major conclusions about its long term trajectory.

Starbites

Now it's time for a weird swerve, because I want to talk about a recent RPG release I had nothing to do with, a game called Starbites:

This isn't a AAA game, but it has far higher production values than anything I've done: 3D graphics, voice acting in three languages, published by a big publisher, etc. Yet two months after release, it's sitting at 41 reviews with only 63% positive.

Now, I've played the game but I don't want people to take this as a recommendation. The plot in particular is not going to satisfy people who expect anything like my work. But looking at the reviews I mostly found myself thinking "Aww, it wasn't that bad." The combat actually has some pretty interesting things going on, the game's balance is just such that it's possible to crush most of the mechanics with grinding. There's one midgame boss with an interesting mechanic and I saw people discussing fighting it with levels that were higher than my endgame party.

There are a whole lot of people in the credits of the game and I can't help but think that this must be crushing for them. This is the studio's first game and it will likely be the last. In a world where 60+ games release on Steam every single day, this is the norm, not the exception.

Though I could take this as a prompt to be grateful for the fact that I have a secure career developing games, I take it mostly as a warning sign. I might have somewhat of a platform, but not one equal to a big publisher, so I need to move cautiously. There is no guarantee that my future games won't flop and it would be unwise to bet everything on one.

Waltz of Fiends and Collaborators

Some of you may remember this as one of the things I pitched as an interim project after TLS. Well, after many months of ignored messages, I'm afraid it's time for me to admit that the artist has gone AWOL and will likely not come back. =/ This is actually the second time I've tried to get this idea off the ground and the second time the artist has disappeared on me.

Finding reliable collaborators is hard. Yes, I have to admit that it's not like I'm paying massive industry salaries (can't really afford that). At least in this case I think the artist was entirely sincere and didn't ask for money; his life just must have moved in a different direction. Work on this still ate up a chunk of my time and it's disappointing to set aside something I put passion into.

This is far from the only potential collaborator who has disappeared over the course of my career, I'm afraid. I was going to touch on even more things, but man, this post is already quite long. Just to mention it, DStP is going great, though I don't know how financially successful it will be.

Slave Rehabilitator

Work continues on this, and I hope to have an exciting post to share before too long, but trying to do a project with fully hand-illustrated animations has proved much more expensive than I had hoped.

I'm not reckless, so it's not as if this will ruin me, but if we can finally finish one of the most expensive systems, I will have to do some calculations about how this project works going forward. Maybe the concept with decent production values could ultimately pay off, and I think people here will really like it, but the equation looks worse than I'd hoped.

In Conclusion

This isn't leading to any dramatic conclusions, it's just a snapshot of some things I'm considering at the moment. It's rough out there and I think I'm making the right decision putting my eggs in different baskets. That said, I may need to be cautious with particularly ambitious or expensive projects.

Some recent things have me feeling gloomy and less likely to take big risks, but this is still a dream career and I will be doing everything I can to keep moving forward and upward!