2018 Transparency

In 2016, 2017, and 2018, I wrote blog posts titled "Transparency" to provide information about how the Patreon money was being spent. Now that we're at the beginning of a new year, it's time for 2019's "Transparency Post"!

First, let's start off with an important fact: No matter how much money I make through Patreon, my personal monthly salary is capped at $3,500, and any money past $3,500 is stored as a surplus so that it can be used to compensate volunteers. Last year, this surplus was at $22,863.30.

 Here is how much money was raised over the course of 2018: 

• January - $4,706.84
• February - $4,393.51
• March - $4,499.29
• April - $4,574.03
• May - $4,554.77
• June  - $4,383.12
• July - $3,900.78
• August - $3,562.47
• September - $3,347.13
• October - $3,306.64
• November - $3,683.17
• December - $3,701.11

That's a total of $48,612.86. Since I'm capped at 3.5k per month, $42,000 of that went to me, and the other $6,612.86 went into the surplus for paying volunteers, bringing the total to $29,476.16.

In 2017, only three volunteers asked for any form of compensation at all. However, in 2018, a lot more money was sent to volunteers:

• QVA - $1,020 (3D Modelling)
• Sheltor - $1,100 (3D Animations)
• Hikari - $600 (2D Artwork)
• MysticBlare - $200 (Music)
• Mom0ki- $125 (Panther Vocals)
• Tyler Gonelli - $250 (Panther Instrumental)
• Marissa Lenti - $154 (Guidance Counselor voice)

That's $3,449 in total. Subtract that from $29,476.16, and the surplus is currently at $26,027.16.

EDIT: I'd like to share another fact about the surplus. If Yandere Simulator needs $100k in order to become a reality, and I have a surplus of $26k, then I only need to ask for $74k when I do the crowdfunding campaign. No matter what, this money is going towards the game's development.

Patreon Decline

If you compare this year to last year, you'll observe that the health of my Patreon is declining. There are several potential reasons for this:

• A lot of people are choosing to boycott Patreon as a result of Patreon de-platforming certain people for their political beliefs.
• A lot of people's Patreon pledges are being canceled by their banks, who mistakenly believe that the payments are unauthorized.
• In June, Patreon re-categorized Yandere Simulator as an "adult game" (even though it's not), preventing people from being able to access the Patreon page as easily as before.
• Unlike most other creators on Patreon, I don't offer rewards to backers, such as early access to builds, sneak peeks at upcoming content, access to development streams, etc.
• Because the only two tiers are $1 and $100, many people may have developed the impression that they are only allowed to donate either $1 or $100, and that there is no in-between.
• I practically never mention my Patreon or ask people to support it; most people probably don't even know that it exists.
• The game's development has lasted much longer than originally anticipated, and some of the game's supporters are starting to lose faith in me.
• I am the target of a smear campaign designed to brainwash people into thinking that I'm an evil villain.

The Patreon's decline is probably due to a combination of all the above factors. However, it's worth noting that the Patreon took a sharp nosedive after June, which was when the smear campaign went viral and reached hundreds of thousands of people. The Patreon began to recover in November, after I defended myself and offered to debunk a lot of the false claims that were being made about me. As a result, it seem safe to conclude that the smear campaign is clearly the primary cause of the Patreon's decline.

Unfortunately, I'm in a situation that is pretty difficult to recover from. Once it becomes trendy for people to trash-talk you, it's impossible for you to become more popular; only less popular. Once you have been made an object of shame and ridicule, nobody is willing to listen to your side of the story, or believe anything you say. As time passes, more and more people are exposed to the propaganda against you, causing the hate-bandwagon to grow larger. Your potential to achieve success will only drop lower over time. 

A significant number of people have swallowed the Anti-YandereDev narrative, and are determined to indoctrinate as many people as possible into the Anti-YandereDev cult. A pessimistic - yet realistic - view of the situation is that the Patreon will continue to decline, and will never return to its previous heights.

It's worth mentioning that I never actually attempt to draw attention to my Patreon. I don't mention it in blog posts, I don't mention it in my videos, and I don't mention it within the game. (This instantly debunks the theory that I'm a scam artist intentionally prolonging development to milk the Patreon.)

It's possible that if I did begin promoting the Patreon, then it would recover to its previous state. However, promoting the Patreon would also fuel the narrative that I'm greedy and only care about money. So, my hands are tied.

I'm sure you're wondering how the health of the Patreon correlates to development. I'll describe several scenarios:

• What happens if the Patreon drops below $3,000? I'll keep working on the game, but I'll probably start releasing more YouTube videos in order to increase my income.
• What happens if the Patreon drops below $2,000? I'll start making more of an effort to promote the Patreon, and I'll probably start offering some form of backer rewards, as well.
• What happens if the Patreon drops below $1,000? Yandere Simulator will cease to be my full-time job, and will become a hobby that I occasionally work on. I have a lot of simple game ideas (games that should take less than a year to develop) and I would shift my focus to these games instead of Yandere Sim.

Development Speed

Why is Yandere Simulator's development taking so long? As stated above, it's due to a combination of multiple factors:

• Yandere Simulator is an open-world sandbox game; the most complex type of game to develop, with the longest development cycle out of all game genres. It's extremely uncommon for a small indie team to take on a project like this one.
• After working on a single project for 4.5+ years, you begin to lose motivation and enthusiasm, which reduces productivity.
• Being the target of a multiple-year-long character assassination and harassment campaign is guaranteed to make you miserable and depressed, which severely reduces productivity.

Imagine trying to run a marathon, but you have heavy weights tied to your legs, making it difficult to take a single step - and those weights are invisible, so nobody can tell what's slowing you down. As a result, you're accused of being slow and lazy, which actually makes the weights become heavier. That's the best metaphor I can make for this situation.

In Closing

It feels wrong to end the post on a dreary note, so I'll try to be optimistic:

• The Patreon has been on an upward trend since October!
• Although I was experiencing a lot of harassment for the majority of 2018, it diminished in the final months of the year.
• Now that there are very few things remaining before I can finally implement Osana, a lot of my motivation and enthusiasm for working on the game is finally starting to return.

If you have any questions about anything I mentioned in this blog post, you're welcome to ask in the comments below!

Thank you for following the development of Yandere Simulator!