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Future of the Patreon (Patreon)

Published:
2021-01-04 14:28:51
Imported:
2021-01

Content

Happy new year everybody!

We all agree on making more games this year, but should we change the current pace?

Releasing a game every 2 weeks is doable, but leaves little room for updates and bigger side projects. Some have also mentioned that it's hard to keep up with the games, or would like for the Patreon games to be larger in scope.

So what if we started releasing one game a month instead of two?
If we would change the pace to one game a month, the price of the Patreon will stay the same and the individual games will go up to $6 as we expect them to be bigger/more polished in general.

Let us know what you would prefer!

- Sokpop

Comments

Anonymous

I'm ok with even less than 1 game a month if it means the scope is a bit bigger. 2 games a month is neck-breaking pace you guys have been keeping up for years, you are probably dying to commit more time to bigger projects.

Polyducks

I'm with Willem. I think having more time to polish and refine would not only increase the quality, balance and longevity of your beautiful games, but also give you guys as creators time to rest and recouperate to keep your ideas fresh.

Brianna Allen

Stay 2 games a month, but have some months (maybe 1 each) to focus on 1 big game. Perhaps quarterly.

Anonymous

I would prefer something along the lines of a "per release" price, but I'm fine with both options (one per month / two per month) too.

ShidaPenns

Why not develop one game, but also provide an old game that new people like me don't have? I know that's not as good for your older subscribers, though.

sokpop
>>50751024

Although making really small games is still very enjoyable to me, I would love to explore some of the ideas I had that simply require more time to do justice!

G. Atos

for me, one game per month is great if it is guaranteed to be a bigger and more developed game, but it would be nice that sometimes you launch small games besides the big one of the month.

Anonymous

How about a $5 game a month since it’s a nice round number

Martin K

1)Could you allow us to buy old source code/games to play at an additional cost tier? 2) Can you add some light business games hybrids? like mow the grass/ plow snow and business into mix?

Anonymous

I would suggest 1 game minimum and give yourself the opportunity for 1 bigger game or 3 little postcard games or two Sokpop gems. I vote variable geometry !!!

sokpop
>>50751277

We do have some ideas about this that we might start doing later this year! Something like getting tokens that you can exchange for an older game of your choice.

Anonymous

While it may seem counterintuitive to vote for a price increase, I love your work and really struggle to get to two games a month to do them justice. A slower pace where you're happier with the scope and polish of the product sounds right to me.

Anonymous

I love the idea of you all spending time making a singular game! For newer subscribers, it would be so cool to be able to claim one older game a month, but not sure what you could offer your older subscribers? I saw the token idea above, maybe there could be different types of rewards? Thanks for everything you all do!

Anonymous

Haven't been subscribed for too long but I've really enjoyed what I've seen so far and it would be super interesting to see what could come out if you guys had a little bit more time. I greedily second the idea about getting access to some of those older titles as my subscription lengthens, perhaps as part of the higher tiers if that would provide more help to yourselves.

Anonymous

It’s awesome that you’re asking the patrons, but I think you should just do what feels right for each game idea! As a game developer I know that the games will turn out best that way. I love that most of the games are short-form, but I would rather play something the developer took joy in creating, rather than there being such a time crunch that it felt like a chore for them (because this will show through in the game’s quality).

Anonymous

I personally prefer two games a month. Simply because I like that the games are nice and short and not something I need to invest time to get into. And if I don't like a game there is always a new one coming up soon. If it was one game a month and you happened to not like the genre of the last game for example that would effectively mean a two month waiting period between games you want to play. One option would be to have the months tick-tock. Two small games one month (at $3 each for individual purchase), and one bigger the next month (at $6 for individual purchase). That would mean a nice amount of games, but still leave room for bigger projects.

sokpop
>>50751806

funny enough, if we would go to one a month we would also have more time to make stuff like the tokens!

Anonymous

I don't think you need to have a change that's set in stone. But I'm very supportive of you trying out 1 game a month for some time and then see what you and others think about it. I also like the idea Martin had of being able to get access to source code of older games, maybe in exhange of the tokens that were mentioned in another comment.

Richard Boeser

I'd say your current pace is incredible and very inspiring, but at the same time feels like it will put a very high demand on you all. And it makes you less flexible. Even committing to one game a month is quite demanding still, especially if you then aim for bigger games and more polish. I don't have the solution here, but would suggest to try and move towards a way where you have a lot of freedom to explore whatever comes on your paths. ♥️

Anonymous

Hi ! As long as you are enjoying what you are doing, make a living and stay safe. Best wishes for this new year <3

Anonymous

heck i'm waiting for the day you guys can take lotsa time to commit to a bigbigbig scope game :'-( it would be so amazing!! but 1 a month would be nice to see what the extra time can produce :-D

Anonymous

While I like the idea of a bigger game, it would just be exchanging one time constraint for another. Maybe you'll sometimes wish you could do a game even bigger, or a smaller one like you're doing right now. Honestly, I don't really have a perfect solution, but I thought of this. The token solution for older games could be extended to current games as well. Each month, subscribers would get enough tokens for 2 small games, 1 mid game, or maybe half of an even bigger one. Then, you'd be free to release games of whatever size you want, when you're happy with them, and the subscribers would still get a monthly reward. The downside I see is that not every subscriber would get every new game, which would be a problem for multiplayer, as well as for visibility since fewer people would talk about it.

Anonymous

Definitely enjoy the small sketch nature of the games and prefer seeing games more often, but it’s your thing so do what’s right for you guys!

sokpop
>>50753471

we are still working on larger projects on the side that have no time constraints! the time constraints themselves however have the very functional purpose of setting a real deadline to work towards. without those, we have a hard time finishing anything haha i think the mix of bigger projects on the side and smaller projects with a set deadline is nice, but lately we haven't seen much progress on the bigger projects.

Anonymous

One game a month but the scope is the same.

Anonymous

I voted for 1 game a month- but I think it would be best to ask; Would it be feasible to do a month with 1 game, then a month with 2, just to kind of see what the difference between them quality or content-wise would be?

Oke

I voted "something else", cause I think a couple of shorter games every year would be lovely too. But I can stand behind 1 game a month as well, as that would improve their quality probably and lets you elaborate on certain ideas more. Also, I like the idea to have the possibility to get older games with some tokens or discount.

Anonymous

I only just subscribed (thank you for your generous JingleJam contribution!) so it’s hard for me to say which I’d prefer, but the idea from other patrons of mixing it up of having small games some months and large games the other months seems interesting. But in the end, y’all should definitely do what feels right to you. Your passion is what makes Sokpop so special!

sokpop
>>50754218

i think we'd rather of have or the other so it's clear for everyone what we do in a few words (i.e. we make two games a month and not "we make one game a month one month and the two games the other month"). and also because it evens our work schedule, otherwise 2 people would make 2 games a month and the other 2 only one, which would make for a weird balance in our team.

sokpop
>>50754761

thank you! :) yeah, i think changing to one game a month would give us the option to either make it bigger, more polished or even make second smaller game or an update of an older game alongside it, but we'll see!

Anonymous

Maybe you do one small game and update one existing game each month - you've got some great games out there, they just need a bit of love

Anonymous

Love the current model, but I feel if this will continue for as long as possible, we need to ensure it's sustainable. One game a month is still a huge lift. Keep up the great work! Love all the games.

Anonymous

Time to level up: once every other month.

Anonymous

Does it ever happen that the experience of building a new game gives you an idea on how you could have made a previous game better? So how about this: each month you spend 2 weeks building a new game, just like now, and 2 weeks refining or expanding an existing game? The second two weeks can be spent further developing the game from the first half, if you really want a one-month game, but it can also be spent building on any previous game. It's still simple and elegant and easy-to-explain, but it gives you lots of flexibility to work on different sizes and scales of projects. Eventually some games might get expanded several times over, while other games might never get returned to if you feel like you manged to fully explore their concept in only two weeks.

sokpop
>>50756533

yeah that's somewhat what we want to achieve with one game a month! it just gives us more freedom to do lots of different things.

OhHaiMe

I would like to see a mix, even if it wasn't on a set schedule. Like if one of you wants to make a bigger game and you can only release 1 small game or even nothing one month, but more the next month. Just as long as it evens out to be 12+ games a year. I also like the idea that you could give an older game if you had nothing else that month because I've only been subscribed since King Pins. I subscribe to a similar Patron for a company called Button Shy that makes a small card game every month. And because of the inevitable delays of printing physical media(especially now with all the shipping troubles) stuff doesn't always go out every month, But we get it eventually and most people don't mind much.

hobbit do Shire

I'm a bit split. One one hand I do like that some games are a bit more fleshed out and so the frequency of games released reduces. But on the other hand, the "quick n dirty" wacky prototype approach is part of what makes all of this kind of special. Maybe a mixed model: sometimes 1 game + 1 flesh out, sometimes 2, sometimes 1 bigger. But then again, that's not very easy to translate in terms of patreon $, unless its the flat $6, that would translate to the total regardless of combination... EDIT: I'll vote OTHER but regardless of what you choose I'm with you! You've already proved your creative freedoms pays off in the end.

sokpop
>>50757476

yeah we would have a minimum of 12 games a year and random stuff on top of that like updates, side projects and maybe older games in some way.

Anonymous

What if you made one game every other month and each off month you go back to previously released title and add more content to it. I would kill for more capy hoky. Worst case scenario, one game a month would be totally fine with me.

Anonymous

I like the idea of slightly bigger games coming 1 per month, especially if you would then have time to go back and add new levels or features to old favorites.

Tower Lachesism

Yeah as cool as "two games a month!" is, one more polished, bigger experience would probably be better

Anonymous

I think it would be great to release 1 game a month that is more polished and bigger in scope with most of the team working on it and have a small part of the team work on updates and bug fixes for other games. Divide and conquer.

Jacob Grossman

I got a lot out of the video that got made for the maps based game. Would it be possible that during months that you're not releasing a game you make a post about the logic behind a system, or perhaps a Q&A about the dev process on your last game?

Anonymous

One game a month is impressive on its own! Two games would obviously be tempting, but it's not worth it if it means less time for other things.

Anonymous

One game a month sounds great! Don't feel like you should have to make much bigger games because of it though. If it ends up being one game a month, I really hope you take the time not to double the size but double the polish or extra time to simmer on the ideas and put love into it (and make time for yourselves!). Love the work you're all doing. My only fear downgrading to one game a month is it might discourage new people from signing up to the Patreon in the future. But I'm sure it will be fine. Happy new year to all the members of my favourite boy band <3

Anonymous

I am fine with one a month, but we could also split the difference and add a longer one every other month...

Anonymous

I'm fine with 1 game per 2 months even. Focus on (local) multiplayer, controller support, and general polish would be welcome - not bigger games.

Geedo7

maybe every game should be priced of 4-5 dollars, I think 6 is a bit too much

Geedo7

I would like better and bigger local co-op games

Anonymous

I would actually have time to play 1 game a month. 2 games is too many. Do 1 a month.

Anonymous

A mix will be good. Went have a potential games concept its good to take 1games/month. If have a small idea for smaller games, it's ok to have 2games/month. I love simmiland, soko loco deluxe, pyramida. I think it can be a bigger games and so many potential if have more times to develop it.

Anonymous
>>50787844

Seconding this. If something needs more time in the oven, I'd rather it get the time it needs.

Anonymous

I'd be just as happy with one game a month as 2. More effort on each game can only be a benefit.

Anonymous
>>50787844

Thirding this. I think it can alternate depending on what ideas are on the table that month.

Anonymous

I like one game a month, with bigger scope for many games. But they don't need to all be big, small ones are good, too. Sokpop games are a lot of fun! I don't think it needs to be a mix of frequency (though a bonus treat sometimes is nice!). And there can still be small ones in there!

Anonymous

I'm working my way through playing every one of your games, and while many have been complete ideas and enjoyable experiences, there are definitely a few I've gone "I would have liked more of this". So I am fine with one game a month. That gives you more time to focus on the details and additional content after you've got the systems put together. (Side note, I'd totally be ok with sequel games too. More levels in Ollie & Bollie, Kart Kids, and Hoppa would be awesome!)

Anonymous

Feel like you guys should just feel it out with your projects, committing to one a month/two a month is impressive but ultimately if you've got a slightly larger project and you wanna take 2 months (so one game in two months), that would be exciting not annoying. I think just try and communicate clearly what your plans on as far forward as you can but other than that I just wanna see you do what you wanna do without the shackles.

Skalmantas Šimėnas

"we expect them to be bigger/more polished in general" Don't. Just do what is appropriate. If one of you is working on a bigger project, you can still do the same old $3 games at half the intensity and that's fine!

Daniel Russell

Big fan of all the Sokpop games and recently became a Patreon, but I think if you take it month by month, that might be the best approach. Committing to 1 big game might restrict you from creating those fun little games that we know and love. And committing to 2 small games restricts you from the bigger projects like you said. I'd be totally happy with one month getting 1 big game and the next month getting 2 fun smaller games. Regardless I enjoy all that you peeps make. So thank you much!