Ballot results! (Patreon)

As you can see, Rub For More Wishes has won in a landslide. In a seven horse race, it dominated the first round and won almost all of the resulting preferences. I'm a bit of a stats nerd so having an option winning so convincingly is a bit anticlimactic, but on another level it is great that my supporters have largely galvanised behind a clear preference ^^.

In total, 135 patreons voted out of an eligable 285, for a total of 47.4 percent Everyone's vote was counted. Even if I sent you a note saying the script didn’t read your vote and you never replied (there were 6 of you), I was later able to enter the votes in manually.

Thanks so much to CtrlAltElite (https://twitter.com/OriginalCAE) who made some mad scripts to help this vote go smoothly with minimal time investment from me. Had he not have done this, I'd have had to have manually calculated the votes and voting rights form nearly 300 people. On top of that, I wouldn't have had these fancy graphics or level of analysis either! So I wanted to sincerely thank him for the many hours he put into helping me out

WHAT COMES NEXT?:

I have big plans for this one! I am hoping I can give Andre a big, expensive commission art upgrade & make him look reeeeeeally professional, to go along with his big rig upgrade. I want to take this animation to the next step; add some hair and fur, and some voice acting/lip synch, and (lots of) fluids. We will see how it all pans out! There will be sexy sex XD!

Don't expect much headway into this animation in the next couple of months however; there is a bit of groundwork to cover in terms of these upgrades before I can get down to animating it. But I'll be documenting the development and keeping you guys posted on its progress, even if I won't have a lot of eye candy in these early days.

Below I will share some more analysis into the results as well as give some commentary for anyone interested; if not, then feel free to stop reading here ^^.

ANALYSIS:
In the end, the preferential voting system didn't add much to determine the winner; Rubs would have won a simpler first-past-the-post ballot convincingly. BUT, looking deeper into the votes, it does give a far more accurate picture than simply looking at the first preferences.

https://www.patreon.com/file?h=7709570&i=766182
sorry for only having this as a DL;  from what i can tell, patreon only lets my upload a single image in a post :(

I'll go through the ballot in the reverse order of where each option finished, listing the numbers of people who voted each preference in brackets. Numbers to the left are the early, or desireable preferences; whereas numbers to the right are the later, or less desireable preferences. These numbers are total people; not total votes. Keep in mind that some people have more votes than others, based on time and size of their contributions, and that affected the positions of some of the options.

ELEVATOR GROWTH:

[4, 6, 23, 21, 38, 32, 8]

This was one of my two nominations. Going in, I did not expect it to win; but I thought it might capture some people's fancy. I put it forward mainly as a VR option to test the waters on how you guys view the medium; and it tanked. This concept even had the benefit of a trailer of sorts in my scraps, so it wasn't just conceptual either.

I'm reading two things from it; my supporters arent ready for VR yet, and th elevator growth concept is better off staying in my scraps ^^.

GROWING NEEDS:

[9, 19, 32, 19, 15, 20, 17]

This was an interesting supporter nomination. It is a little different in its themes than what I usually make, and I was very interested to see how people would react to this option. I had no idea how well it would do; I figured my audience would love a 'fuck frenzied hyper-rodent', but I didn't know how they would take a more disproportionate growth.

In the end, it didn't do well; but it didn't do poorly either. More people put it in their top 3 preferences than in their bottom 3. It's lack of first preferences is what really hurt it from doing better; the numbers don't suggest that this deserved to come second last. There is at least some interest in this concept.

LIZARD GROWTH:

[15, 21, 20, 18, 20, 28, 11]

This was a more generic concept nominated by a supporter; there were less details in the pitch than the other nominations, and while I figured a lizard turning into a kaiju would go down very well, I had a suspicion that it was lacking an extra thematic hook.

Turns out, I was right. This is another one which didn't do great; but didn't do poorly either.  It has a remarkably even split among all preferences; implying an emphatic 'meh' from my supporters as a whole. I think that this concept, with a  few extra  details, could really position itself into a potential winner.

What is the potion? Is it from a pool at the foot of an altar? Who is the lizard? Is he a slave? Is he in an tribal aztec tropical paradise? Will he get revenge on those who whipped him? These sorts of details can start the mind (and the loin) turning ^^

THE LAB:

[9, 8, 6, 11, 15, 17, 66]

Ah, now this is the nomination that made headlines! It was the only nomination to feature a woman, which I figured would galvanise a large portion of the voter base. But on the other hand, I didn't know how many people would gravitate towards a human to 'hulk-like beast' transformation, given the general furryness of my audience.  I figured that this would be a polarising option.

Turns out, I was kind of right! half of my supporters voted this dead last in total preferences; but it was not without it fans either. Influential fans. Although only 9 people preferenced it first; it still managed to capture 11% of the vote, lifting it into third above lizard growth, who had a greater popular support. Additionally, the fact that it didn't pick up a single preference during the rounds is noteworthy.

I think that a female option could do well; not necessarily win as the sex of the grower is probably a polarising element & I definitely get a male preference vibe from my supporters (which would be no surprise looking at my gallery; I guess there is an element of 'Build it and they will come'. I build dicks, and people who like dicks come).

I get the impression that the reason this option didn't do as well as it could have was the human element. If it were furry, then I imagine that those numbers would have gravitated more to the left. I want to do more with women, for the record. Once my rig is made then I will work on a suite of characters to add to it; including women.

Before moving on, an interesting note: at the end of the first day of voting, I thought that this option was going to win. The early results were so heavily in favour of 'The Lab' that it was clearing 50% in the early rounds. I lay in bed that night thinking about how I would animate it, stunned with how I had misjudged my supporters tastes so spectacularly. But then suddenly, the votes stopped. And never returned.

SHORTCUTS

[11, 11, 23, 32, 22, 20, 12]

Shortcuts was the suprise packet for me, as I genuinely thought this option would win. Ever since last year's ballot, I've had people regularly ask me about whether I would still make Shortcuts. It finished third then, and the two above it were not on the ballot this time around. Three different people even nominated it to this ballot. Although it is my concept, I didn't put this on the ballot; they did. I thought that the muscle growth would also help it, as behind hyper, that is the second most requested thing I do (even moreso than TF). There seemed nothing that would stop this juggernaut.

WRONG! XD. Turns out that my perceptions on the ground can be way off base. Third isn't a bad position for Shortcuts to finish in, but looking at the numbers, that is really due to the vote weighting (If three people from the highest tier are nominating it, then thats a lot of votes just there).

In terms of the popular vote, the best you can grade it is a 'meh',  much like lizard growth, Only worse; the numbers skew towards the right side. Make no mistake, this isn't just a poor result relative to initial expectations; this is just a poor result full stop. This is the second time Shortcuts has finished third, but this time it definitely feels unearned.

I don't know what to do with this concept from here; it is still my personal favourite, but there isn't much room for refinement, and it doesn't look like it will be fitting into my patreon any time soon. I'll leave this one for when I retire I guess ^^.

Elections are awesome for surprises like this XD

GROWDOM

[24, 35, 17, 20, 14, 13, 10]

This was the second most surprising result for me. Honestly, I thought this one would do poorly. I know a lot of my supporters love dragons, and a lot of my supporters love hyper (which I haven't really done yet); but I thought this concept would be too... cerebral? I'll come out and say that no one likes condoms.

BUT NO WAS HELLA WRONG! people love big hyper dragons cumming, condom or no! This was the option that overtook The Lab early on, and held first place for a day or so IIRC, so I also thought this would win. I had plenty of time to think about how I would like to make it; and was actually enjoying myself a bit. With a bit of refinement, and with Rubs off the ballot, this one is my early pick to win the next ballot (if it gets nominated again, that is) ^^.

RUB FOR MORE WISHES

[62, 33, 12, 12, 9, 3, 3]

Ah, now this is the true people's champion. Just take a look at those beautiful numbers; my pareon supporters are throwing roses at its feet. Rub for more wishes is the winner in a landslide of historic proportions.

I expected this to do well, but didn't think it would win. Turns out I misunderestimated my patreon's love for dragons and sex growth; which now I write about it, makes me sound kind of moronic. I don't think that it's a coincidence that the first and second options focus on dragons. People fucking love dragons. What more needs to be said?

As a side note, of my two nominations, one came first, the other last. I am a man of extremes it would seem ^^

Final Thoughts:

There you go! That is my thoughts and analysis on each option. One last observation; the counting script allows me to play with a few 'what if' scenarios, and I decided to try what would have happened, based on preference information, if each winning option was never nominated. This is a far more accurate way of determining the final rankings of each option, as it shows accurate predictions on what would have happened. Here are the final rankings:

1. RUB FOR MORE WISHES

2. GROWDOM

3. GROWING NEEDS

4. LIZARD GROWTH

5. SHORTCUTS

6. ELEVATOR GROWTH

7. THE LAB

As you can see, Growing needs cannoned in from sixth to third, and would have won the ballot had the two dragon options not been there. Conversely, 'shortcuts' slipped to fifth, and 'the lab' falls to last. I swear I made this list after writing my analysis lol; it does vindicate a lot of what I was saying in there. I didn’t cheat though, I guess I am just good at reading numbers XD. 

Now that's some spicy insight which only preferential voting can give you ^^.