February 4 Update (Patreon)

So, time to talk business! This will be an unusual month covering diverse ground, so I'll divide this post into sections. Some may not be relevant to some of you, but do check them because I want input from people! Here are some things I'll be doing in February:

1) Commercial Release of Desecration of Wings

Issues with the Steam store have delayed the date, but you can see the approved store page here:store.steampowered.com/app/793450/Desecration_of_Wings

Asset Countdown: 1 

Commercial releases tend to involve very uneven levels of work for me, which makes it difficult to get creative work done. I'll definitely be writing, no question of that, but it will be disrupted. For that reason, I think this is a good month to try a variety of business things that I normally don't want to do. Might as well get them out of the way now.

2) Alternatives to PatreonI've been meaning to put more time into finding alternates in the event of a worst case scenario. I tried to look through everything, but though there are a few options, none is a clear alternate path. I did set up the basics of an Enty, but the site is still rather unfriendly for English speakers and I'd rather not rely on it.

3) TLS on GameJolt

GameJolt is actually set up to favor free games, so I decided to make a TLS page there. If you use GameJolt, maybe give me a follow? But if not, it won't have anything Patreon doesn't have - this is basically just an effort at promotion. Here's the page:

https://gamejolt.com/games/thelastsovereign/316951 

4) Fanart Repository?

People have been asking for a location to host TLS fanart for a while! I've delayed partially because I've been focused on work, partially because I didn't have a good solution. This is something I'd like feedback on, in case anyone has good ideas.

Options I am currently considering: images on HF, a new Tumblr, an Imgur album. The goals are something that's easy for me to maintain, lets you guys see pictures in high quality, and ideally could be seen by non-fans who might be interested. Doing more than one is possible, just more work for me.

5) Ouroboros on Steam?

People occasionally ask me if I'll ever put Ouroboros up on Steam. I didn't consider it at first because Steam is an unfavorable environment for RPG Maker games, not to mention ones with so much default RTP.

However, I find myself considering it again in a new form: a loss leader. I would hope that Steam users would be more favorable toward the game if it was $1, for example. It would take some time to figure out all the details, though, so it's not like this is an idea I can just throw up at random and see how it goes. The benefit would be that even if it did poorly, it would make me less reliant on Patreon in the event of a worst case scenario there. The game is somewhat old now, but that might be too steep a price decrease, though.

So yeah, I'm basically soliciting opinions on if I should take that step. Leave Ouroboros as it is, or try to use it for something new.

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That's the situation! Hopefully the fallback plans will be unnecessary, but I believe it's good to be prepared. I'll have to do work to release DoW, but I'll be working on TLS as I can. Please be patient with me, as I can't guarantee progress at the usual rate.

Whatever happens, I'll report on it here! I look forward to everyone's input, or otherwise I'll see you next week!