May 19 Update
Added 2018-05-19 21:15:16 +0000 UTCPosting the weekly update early to comment on the situation. My thanks to everyone notifying me about it, but please rest assured that I am monitoring developments as best I can.
If you haven't heard about the issue, the brief summary is that Steam is threatening to remove a lot of adult games, including some that they previously approved and allowed for many years. There are many articles updating on the subject if you want to know more - this is probably not the best place to comment on the issue at length. Suffice it to say, it is frustrating that Valve communicates poorly and contradicts itself.
To answer your questions: I have not been sent any takedown notices. I did put off the release of Ouroboros on Steam due to this. Having said that, let's take this post in a more positive direction!
Embedded in this post (or linked here) you can see the new trailer for Ouroboros, provided by SEEQYR! My main goal with this trailer was to quickly convey to potential players that the game isn't just default RPG Maker, but has a core gimmick. Can't say how effective that will be, but I hope more people give the game a chance because of this. New release date uncertain, but it may be the 25th depending on how things go.
FYI, both Crimson Gray and Desecration of Wings are on sale on Steam right now. Question for people who buy a lot of games on Steam: does the length of a sale have any impact on how likely you are to get a game? Usually I've done one week sales, but this time I'm doing 10 days to cover two weekends. Not sure what the effect will be, but let me know if you have opinions.
Finally, despite the unfortunate Steam issues, this was a very productive week for TLS. I think I'm going to struggle somewhat at the end of the month, but 0.35.0 is further along than I had projected for this date.
Comments
You think Sierra Lee could, after moving to a country which has been under censorship since ww2, singlehandedly tear down those laws? How? Is Sierra secretly some kind of porn-Gandhi who can unite the people under the power of nonviolent protests?
Grey Wolf
2018-05-22 21:32:34 +0000 UTCThis is an interesting development! In the past, GOG has been hostile to smaller developers, and more so to VNs, so I had not considered them. If it was possible, I'd be happy to have games there.
Sierra Lee
2018-05-22 19:24:46 +0000 UTCIt seems GOG is adding VN to their store now, I don't know what this means for small indie developers but there is now a new store you might want to look into. : )
Bladestorm
2018-05-22 17:54:48 +0000 UTCOh dear, Stineford High Priestess is coming
Iamdexter
2018-05-22 14:25:42 +0000 UTCpersonal opinion if people want to group together and cause trouble how about going to japan to ban there stupid censorship laws you know how many good games got fucked over by censorship
2018-05-21 17:22:52 +0000 UTCThere is a good video from Jim Sterling: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeMdPxXfEIM" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeMdPxXfEIM</a> Basically Morality in Media is a conservative christian group re-branding themselves as feminists calling themselves National Center on Sexual Exploitation now. Basically a bunch of wankers that are against all forms of pornography and sex. As I said, evangelicals.
Avera
2018-05-21 14:21:41 +0000 UTC<a href="https://twitter.com/HaleyCHalverson/status/997490072156073986" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/HaleyCHalverson/status/997490072156073986</a> Just look how proud she's of herself for making every gamer's life a bit more miserable. I really struggle with writing english instead of slipping into german because i get the urge to verbalize some notions hard to express in english in their profanity. Let's just say that i hope steam mans the fuck up instead of giving in to this moral-faggots.
Jan Dietrich
2018-05-21 06:40:37 +0000 UTCWord of mouth seems to consist of thousands of chains of events like that, so you kind of have to try some of everything and cross your fingers. Anyway, glad to hear you found me through that! I was pleasantly surprised that a big streamer decided to play the game randomly.
Sierra Lee
2018-05-20 18:14:36 +0000 UTCCrimson Gray on Steam is how I found out about your other games. I first decided to buy it because I saw Cinnamontoastken do a playthrough on youtube, and I think HE played it because it was on sale on Steam. Crazy chain of events there, but in the end you got at least one patron out of it.
Runcible Technician
2018-05-20 16:02:57 +0000 UTCJAST is on my list! Not sure when I'll contact them, but I hope to do so eventually.
Sierra Lee
2018-05-20 14:59:20 +0000 UTCI don't know if jast would accept your rpg maker games but they might accept your ren'py games and they are starting to do regional pricing for their store so that's a plus. And of course I usually get your games on mangagamer or whatever places is selling them cheaper ; )
Bladestorm
2018-05-20 13:16:59 +0000 UTCThanks for the feedback on sales - the scarcity effect was just what I was wondering about. Had not considered trying to situate it with paychecks, though, interesting thought. Yeah, right now there isn't really any replacement for Steam. I'll place my games on other stores, but Steam can't be ignored. Your support there is much appreciated!
Sierra Lee
2018-05-20 11:58:22 +0000 UTCThey were certainly claiming responsibility and declaring victory. Hopefully more information will come out as to the facts of the case. I don't like Steam's dominance of the market either, so I'll always have my games on other stores, but their userbase can't be ignored...
Sierra Lee
2018-05-20 11:56:39 +0000 UTCI think sales depend on the scarcity effect, so having a longer sale might diminish that. About a week should do the trick. That timeframe allows people to realize something is on sale (especially those that wishlist the title), but it won't give them much time to overthink their purpose. Placing the sale at the beginning over the month might also give a better turn-out, since many countries pay monthly salaries and not weekly. As for the Steam debacle... I don't even know anymore. Most of the games I buy are indie games and lewd games at that, so buying them on Steam is about as much incentive as I can provide. It's not like there are great alternatives for lewd games. NuTaku is a hellhole, MangaGamer has a very limited collection (though I do buy from them) and I don't think gog will ever sell anything lewd, since they are polish and in the public eye in Poland. I can't say much about the trailer. I'll buy the game no matter what whenever it comes out.
DuckTogo
2018-05-20 06:58:06 +0000 UTCFrom what I've heard the group claiming responsibility for the Steam purge is the same one headed by the crazy bitch who claims that Sesame Street has too much drug use. Regardless I personally try and find market places other than Steam to buy games because of their anti consumer practices.
Username159
2018-05-20 06:43:22 +0000 UTCI can fix that. The wind sound effect - do you mean the static or the glitchy noise?
SEEQYR
2018-05-20 05:55:09 +0000 UTCGood ol' Valve. One would think they'd have better things to do, like counting to 3. Regarding sales, I do like them to be a few days because if they're too short I tend not to have time to find out much about the game. It is possible that a short sale would cause others to buy it while they can; my purchasing patterns don't seem to be typical. Trailer works well for the aim you specified, I think. Only criticism that leaps out to me is that the music is rather quiet while the wind sound effect seems relatively loud.
Decanter
2018-05-20 05:12:41 +0000 UTCI saw! While it's too early to breathe a sigh of relief yet, this is certainly better than the impression we were given before. Fingers crossed! Thanks for the feedback on sales. Hopefully the two weekend sale will have a positive impact along those lines.
Sierra Lee
2018-05-20 03:32:53 +0000 UTCRegarding the Valve situation, the HuniePop devs got word to disregard the earlier notice and that there would be a re-review of the games hit by the notice, so hopefully things turn out alright in the end! Looking forward to TLS and Ouroboros! As for the length of the sale, personally it doesn't affect me, but it does if I'm trying to sell someone on a game. The longer the sale, the more time I typically have to convince them to buy the game. Good luck!
Theo Lacson
2018-05-20 02:45:39 +0000 UTCThanks for the feedback. As for RPG Maker being an obstacle... yeah, I know. Not much I can do about it but keep working my way to bigger and better games.
Sierra Lee
2018-05-19 22:27:34 +0000 UTCThanks for the feedback. I've focused on weekends for that very reason.
Sierra Lee
2018-05-19 22:26:58 +0000 UTCAlways happy to hear about TLS but on steam sales I usually check those on the weekend when I have more free time since I am usually busy on the weekdays
Bladestorm
2018-05-19 21:37:41 +0000 UTCThe length of a sale doesn't really affect much for me. If I see an item I want on sale I'll usually get it right away. A longer sale just means more people would see it. The biggest problem I've had when shilling your stuff is people not wanting to pay for an rpgmaker game. In all honesty I probably wouldn't either if I didn't already have experience with your work and know that you make high quality games. Not sure what the solution is though.
Greentext Guy
2018-05-19 21:23:37 +0000 UTCHang in there Sierra. Happy to hear TLS is trucking along so far.
Coyote
2018-05-19 21:19:46 +0000 UTC
