arewar

Long Term Plans & Selling the Game

Added 2022-08-12 14:00:07 +0000 UTC

Updated: July 12, 2023

We're past the halfway point in Obsession (2 routes done, 2 to go), so I'm making loose plans for what comes next when the last two routes are finished.

I've decided that once Obsession is fully complete, I am going to sell the game in an early access format on a world-by-world basis.

Why sell at this stage?

Most of the game expenses I've covered out of pocket, which I fully admit has been more than I expected, and that's with cutting back on all the CG & BG artwork I wanted for Obsession.

By no means am I expecting to get rich off this game. It's a passion project and when I started, I fully expected the game to bomb. I had no plans to spend any money until it started to be well-received. When I realized the art costs were a lot more significant than I expected, I had to dial plans back. Knowing what I know now, I'd certainly handle the art spread differently! ^_^

The goal for selling is that I'm hoping to break-even on what I've spent for Obsession before the next world. Otherwise, I won't be able to put much money into Remembrance up-front.

Therefore, Obsession will be the base game, and each additional world will be a DLC. (The format will be similar to Taisho x Alice, except DLC instead of separate games.)

Is selling worlds individually a good idea…?

Great question, and I guess I'll find out the hard way! I think this will work mainly because of the quantity (and hopefully quality?! ^_^) of content I am producing per world.

(At time of typing this up…) We're roughly 50% through Obsession, with a word count of nearly 191,000 words, which calculated with an average reading speed of 200WPM equals 16 hours of current content. Doubling that would be 32 hours, although I do expect Quinn's route to be shorter than the others, but that doesn't include new side content either, so it very well could double or more in the end.

For some general cost comparison (simplifying numbers and ignoring some of these are base free).

Taisho X Alice charges $20 for ~12 hours of content per game (based on how long to beat website).

Our Life has roughly 20 hours of content for $15 dollars (buying all the DLC extended content).

Tailor Tales charges $3 per DLC with 4-5 hours of content per route.

Given those random comparisons, I think there's sound precedence to do this. I will keep up a demo as a substitute for the base game not being free, though the demo content available will be adjusted.

What will the game and DLCs cost?

See updated: https://www.patreon.com/posts/72976235

DLC prices TBD.

Once all the worlds and the game is fully complete, I'll offer some kind of discount bundle to put the whole package at a reasonable price.

What will you do with any profits from Obsession?

Once I've broken even on expenses, all profits will go to:

A) Commercial fees & bonuses for the artists who worked on Obsession.

Some of the artists who worked on Obsession generously reduced their prices to either fit in my budget or because they wanted to work on this game specifically. They deserve to be properly compensated.

B) Any additional content for on Obsession post-release. (Rumor has it there might be an Alexander route?????)

C) Future expenses for Remembrance

Remembrance needs its own set of artwork, of course! New backgrounds and new CGs. All remaining profits from selling the game and patreon funds will go into further content development.

How long will the DLC development take?

'Obsession' development started around January 2022, and it looks like release will be around September 2023. That's well over a year. The majority of this time was story and art development, but I'd say a couple of those months was game/gui/programming.

I expect each DLC to take 12 months at minimum.

I plan to keep the Patreon format of everything the same for the DLCs as it was for Obsession. Monthly releases, mid-month betas, content previews, community involvement, etc.

What about Patreon members getting the game?

I haven't forgotten you!

Updated: https://www.patreon.com/posts/72976235

What does it mean for Obsession to be fully complete?

(Updated: Info beyond this point was the status at time of writing. Check newer posts for current game status, most of this is obsolete.)

Here's what I'm planning to complete before Obsession is ready for sale (in no particular order).

Brandon's route finished, with a few CGs.
Quinn's route finished, with a few CGs.
A minimum of 3 side stories for all routes
A minimum of 2 what if stories for all routes
Sprites for Brandon & Quinn & Monika, and game updated to use the new sprites
Sprites for critical side characters
A couple passes of general polish for typos, grammar, expression tweaks, story adjustments, etc.
Review of stock assets (making sure they're the best fit, double-checking I've done credits/legal properly, etc.)
Adjust & finalize the base demo
Eliminate the password requirement in paid version
Probably need to learn how to setup version control / GIT (programing stuff)
Learn how to setup the game for DLC programmatically
Create and setup the store pages

That's a lot of stuff, so I'm expecting the polish period to be a couple of months (after the routes are finished). I will also use this time to start planning Remembrance, so the polish period won't be dead air on Patreon. You will get to see the new side stories, what if stories, new sprites, plans and sneak-peaks for Remembrance during this period.

Timeline

So, when is all this happening?

This is a rough timeline of all of the plans. There is some padding built in here, so I feel fairly confident about this timeline being accurate. (Fingers crossed ~)

Ideally, Quinn's route won't take all of November, and polish/prep/setup won't take two full months… but things never go perfectly! Releasing a game is new territory for me, and I have no idea what kinds of hiccups I'll hit!

On Side Stories and What If

Also, I am always taking suggestions for side stories and what if content! Post your suggestions in the comments, or on Discord, or DMs.

If there's a scene you want to see from another character's POV, or you wonder what would have happened if…, or want an epilogue to a specific ending, let me know! I'm keeping a list so I can dive straight into that development when the time comes.

If there's too many exciting ideas, I will put up polls for voting.

Here's a few currently on the maybe list for Side Stories, some suggestions included:

When Quinn got her tattoos (comedy)
Julian's 'disappearance' during Sebastian's route
Sebastian's previous girlfriend Alexander slept with and the 'missing' girl - what happened there?
How did the LIs get Casper as a pet?

Here's a few currently on the maybe list for What If, some suggestions included:

If Monika & Alexander got together.
If Mother raised Monika the same as Brandon
If Monika had a… 'split personality' (Sebastian's route. The idea is complicated to summarize.).
Happy Endings
If Monika was a Yandere (Me: In which route?!)
If Monika 'just snaps and ends up murdering everyone who wronged her'. o____o
If 'the author was a voice in the head of one of the characters (4th wall break)'. (Me: But which character??)
If Brandon made a different decision in one of his endings (content not out yet)

Conclusion

Despite all of this being a LOT to do and manage, I'm ecstatic to be at this point. I never thought things would come this far, and that's happened because of all you supporting the game!

So again and as always, thank you so much! I hope you're all looking forward to all this! I know I am!