But where's the $#&%!* download link?! (Patreon)

Sorry, I just finished writing a long reply to a user comment in a previous post, and since I've been asked the same thing many times lately, I thought I would republish my answer here to give it some visibility.

The core part of the question was as follows.

"To download [the latest] version you need to:

1) Click on the pinned Welcome post to open https://www.patreon.com/realvr/posts/welcome-152405833

2) Scroll down to "Download and Setup instructions"

3) Click the "here" link to open https://www.patreon.com/realvr/posts/how-to-setup-r-e-152405468

4) Scroll aaaall the way down to "Early access version download"

5) Click the "here" link to open https://www.patreon.com/realvr/posts/early-access-152734106

6) Click the attachment to finally download the file.

Is this some kind of a dark pattern?"

And my reply was:

Haha you caught me out!

Yes, apart from the "stub" posts which I swear I'll get around to fleshing out one of these days, there is indeed a pattern to the post structure.

Basically, what used to happen was that SO MANY people would come here after watching a video on YouTube or something like that, just wanting to replicate what they saw as quickly as possible. They subscribed and immediately downloaded and installed the framework, without any understanding of how my software works.

Now, I do invest a lot of effort and time trying to ensure that using R.E.A.L. VR is as easy as possible, but let's face it: it's still a cutting edge, niche piece of software, living in the space of PCVR which is one of the most complex that you can find in the industry (so many different games, options, runtimes, headsets, hardware configurations, you name it). That means that a sizable percentage of those users will inadvertently make mistakes that completely ruin their experience in VR.

You know what happens after that. Very few of them (the ones with a positive attitude, which is becoming so rare to find these days) just come here again and ask for help with troubleshooting their issues, which usually Brandon or myself can solve simply by pointing them at some information they didn't see or know.

But the vast majority instead goes straight to the comment section of the YouTube video that got them here in the first place, or to some other mass frustration outlet like Reddit, and they start talking trash about me and R.E.A.L. VR to anybody who would listen. You know how this works; the less time users spend with a product, the more they feel entitled to bash it in public posts and discussions.

So, I'm just trying to make sure that those people, which unfortunately abound in gaming communities, will at least be forced to scroll through the instructions (how to install the framework, how to configure it for the game and so on) before they finally reach the download link.

They say you can bring a horse to the water, but you cannot make it drink. That's true, so of course I cannot guarantee that those users will actually READ the instructions and realize what's stopping them from having the amazing, jaw-dropping VR experiences that each of these games could offer them throughout hundreds of hours of gameplay.

But at least I can plant the seed of an idea, like in the Inception movie. So that when they set out to rant on (anti)social media about how crappy my software is, they will think for a moment: "Mmm wait, could it be... maybe it didn't work because of all those pages of instructions that I chose not to read?"