Changes and Value for Money.

Hi all,

A quick general update first before I start boring you with stuff ;)

The "big" animation is complete. Well, more or less. Over 2,500 frame of lewd goodness of incredible complexity. This one is like -nothing- you've seen before in respect to the setting or content. I say more or less as I'll now put it on ice and look at it with a cold eye in a few weeks. At the mo, I'm too busy running around the room clapping my hands going "I did it! I did it!" to have an objective view on the quality :)

Although there are another three large lewds to make this one was by far the most challenging and I had to do this one first in order to ensure I didn't have to make any story tweaks. But....all is good. Very good. 

I've also been on the marketing angle in between tweaking frames and I'm pleased to say there are a few things in the works. Products and advertising ofc but there will also be a discord on the way as well. I know quite a few of you have asked me for this in the past and my concern has always been the time factor. It's why my preference has always been for a forum in that I can dip in and out of as and when and answer at my pace.

However some lovely (mad) people are willing to run it for me and so I'll use it as a child of the forum. Cross posting and popping in as and when but not having to spend hours moderating it. 

What else? Well those lovely people at https://lewdpixels.com/ interviewed me the other day so that might drive some interest and finally...I made a promo video.

I'll use it on the Patreon page as part of the refresh and also see if I can bat it around a few places. Every little helps and all that.

https://streamable.com/8dfpdk

Finally I made all the rebuilds and patches...only to have another bug reported to me this morning. It's an odd one as I know others have been down this path with no problem at all (and indeed it was tested) so it might just be saves getting stroppy but I need to check it out regardless.

But now on to what I wanted to talk about which is value for money and tiers.

I have some very basic principles when it comes to tiers. I won't sell "air" (i.e. ranks on discord channels), I want to be able to look you in the eye knowing I've given you value and I won't sell delays. (staggered releases). On the latter, mainly as it wouldn't work for me I don't think. 

On this there was a strong push on my forum to make the $15 available to $10 tier a month later but I just don't see it as practical. For one I can't see anyone going "Oh, H5 is out - I'll wait a month to play it" and secondly I also can't see anyone downloading it once to play, and then downloading it again 30 days later for the bonus stuff.

With those principles in mind, I've done a solid review of the tiers. Now it goes without saying I am grateful for any level of support. This review was more was I keeping my side of the deal.

$1 tier. It's not bad value really. It allows you to keep tabs on me, and in return I also share previews, one offs etc. I could do with being a bit more regular on that perhaps (and I will be) but I'm content the $1 tier passes the value test.

Conclusion: Keep

$5 tier. I'm happy with this one too. In theory it should be a release every three months which makes a chapter  $15 and compares pretty well to a US movie ticket price of $10 especially when you compare the playing time vs the film run time. I know, I know. In theory you are supporting me - not buying a product. But it doesn't hurt for me to look at it from a product angle to be able to do a value sense check.  But on the whole, other than doing more to speed up production, this one works.

Conclusion: Keep

$10 tier.  I'm not happy with this one at all. It was different at the start when the game was smaller but I just don't see Bored Pilot by itself worth that extra $5 a month. Sure, you get to choose who is in it, and it is a custom piece of work but.....anything over $10 in total and it's not passing my test. Nor indeed is it passing yours. I've around 5 people on this tier and when you think I need to make a whole different build.... So it's not even efficient for me.

A lot of you have made suggestions how this tier could give extra value but they all tend to revolve around the kind of things I don't want to do (selling "air", delays etc).  I can't myself think how I can value to this tier with the longer production time and so I'm going to cull it. Perhaps when I get faster, and can hit a two month release then it will come back. But at the moment it feels very much like I'm failing supporters at this tier - and I don't like that. Not one little bit.

Conclusion: Remove

$15 tier. It could do with a few tweaks. But for $15 the supporter is getting the game, now a vote a month on content (one of the tweaks is to ensure that there is a vote a regular vote a month), Bored Pilot and a mini-game that is comparable in production to some other games monthly updates, certainly in terms of render production.

Conclusion: Keep and ensure a vote a month content wise.

$25 tier. Now this tier is an oddity in that people asked me for this one so they could support more. Which is pretty bloody awesome when you think about it but I do feel bad that this tier doesn't get anything extra. At all. For me, even though this was a supporter requested tier, it fails the "looking you in the eye" test.

So from next month I'll do a pin up glamour commission for those at this tier. A single render (maybe two) of a character  in a setting and outfit of their choice each month. Soft image only in 4k. Now I don't see a sudden mass influx at this tier but to ensure that it doesn't get in the way of production I'll be setting a limit. Somewhere between 10 and 20 tops.

Conclusion: Keep and add value by commissions.

To compensate those few at the the $10 tier this month, I'll make available the $15 tier rebuild when I issue it after this last bug check.

I want to put these new arrangements in place from the 1st December so if you do have any additional thoughts please let me know below or by PM.

Keep safe.

Notty.