- Apr 3, 2019
- 305
- 970
As long as he is raking in a 6 figure income, why would he change? Genuine question. The fact of the matter is if he had actually worked and released the game 3-4 years ago (which he easily could've done) he would've missed out on close to half a million dollars of Patreon money. And he knows this.
Whether or not he is doing it intentionally is irrelevant. What is relevant is the fact that he is making a very comfortable upper middle class income quite literally doing nothing but writing a report every month. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, why would he do anything to rock the boat? And yes, releasing new content is rocking the boat when people are happy to give you money for zero content.
Westerners hate paying for games, but they love supporting game devs. The same fan that happily supports Crush's 6 figure income with a 20-30 dollars a month Patreon subscription for years on end would've foamed at the mouth in anger if Crush had released the game finished all the way back in 2017 and asked for a 30 dollar pricetag upfront. It is to the benefit of all western indie devs to drag out the Patreon process for as long as possible to milk your audience, because you know that once the game actually releases sales will be minimal.
All these suggestions on what Crush should do is worthless because Crush is winning and winning hard right now. If he had worked hard at start he would've lost out immensely. From his perspective, why fix something that isn't broken? Why go down a path that would've ruined you if you had gone down it a few years ago?
Before any white knights come with a "very well thought of rebuttal":
Yes, Patreon shows 5k a month.
No, Crush does not get the whole 5k to spend in anything he wants
Yes, there are some fees as with any payment service
Yes, there are taxes (guess what, everyone has to pay taxes on income)
Yes there are other collaborators but anything about payment for those collaborators is pure speculation.