700+ members now

[JFR]

Wow. Over 700 members on the site. And 250 patrons. Cool!

Congrats. Seems like you might be doing something right.

[Wolfschadowe]

Thanks,

Wow. Over 700 members on the site

Truly though, I'm still amazed by the overall interest. When I posted the first prototype of the game over in the development section of http://the-new-lagoon.com, I was hoping that at least 20 people would play it, maybe. If they were bored. After I almost crapped myself on the reaction and feedback to the game, and I put out the first episode, I scaled my expectations up to hoping for 1000 people to play. When kexter told me the player stats...well, it was time for a change of clothes. heh. I don't remember the exact numbers, but they are significantly higher than 1000 people.

And 250 patrons. Cool!

This is what amazes me most. I never intended to charge money for the game or make a dime off of it. It's just a passion project and hobby for me that helps me relive the stresses of work and occasionally family (The mother-in-law come's by a bit too often for my taste.) So when someone asked me how they could make a donation, I was surprised, to say the least. I set up a PayPal for donations to come in, and when someone asked for a Patreon page...well, I said "What's Patreon?"

Well, to make a long story short (Too late, I know) I set up a Patreon page, not knowing the first thing about what I was doing and then set up the higher Patreon levels as kind of a joke to myself, never actually expecting someone to go for those. It took a couple of days before the first patron signed up, for $1.00, and I smiled to myself, nodding wisely that the upper "joke" pledges were certainly going to go unused. The second and third pledge came 5 and 6 days later for the "Lunch" level of $10, and I was surprised anyone hit that high so fast. I expected that would be the highest pledge I'd ever see...and then the next day Sebastian comes along with the 4th pledge and blows them all out of the water with his INSANE! pledge at $100 (I mention him by name only because he's on the forum and flagged INSANE already. Thanks Sebastian!). Of course, after I recovered from my heart-attack, I looked on that pledge dubiously, expecting it not to actually pay out for the first funding, but nearly everyone on that first funding was true to their pledge, only a couple of the $1.00 pledges failed.

The rest, as they say, is history. Here we are now, a little over a year later where I'm boring everyone with a recap of donations and pledges. All I can say is thank you to everyone for all of your support! I can't even express how much it means to me.

[Angelike]

I did the paypal one off as I dont really understand patreon. Next Pay Pal donation I make I might add my nick to it but probably will not

Patreon gave the option to limit the support to once a month yet the game is never updated once a month more like every six months or more due to its complexity.
I could understand that this would work with the small crappy games on Patreon which are nothing like this game and get minor updates monthly.
It made more sense to make a 6 month donation as the game is generally on a six month timescale.

On the other hand I am so glad it is getting supported on Patreon as its one of my fav games and i point people who like patreon to its Patreon page.

If I missunderstand Patreon and someone could educate me I am open to advice (

Excuse my English its the best I can do

Nice one Sebastian very generous donations sorry if you wish it to be annon

[Wolfschadowe]

f I missunderstand Patreon and someone could educate me I am open to advice

I can understand the confusion with Patreon.

Patreon has two modes of funding, set by the creator (that's me in this case)

Mode 1: A monthly subscription. In this mode, if someone pledges $10, Patreon will charge them $10 every month, or basically $120/yr. I don't use this mode.

Mode 2: A per deliverable pledge. In this mode, A patron is charged every time I press the "Paid Post" button to release content. This means that if someone pledges $10, and I press the button once every 3 months, that would be $40/yr.

On the other hand, If I decided to press that button once every week, that would be $10/wk every month, so $40 - $50/m or $520/yr. Well, imagine what would happen if I pressed that button every day? That would be $300/mo Yikes! That is what the monthly limit is for. If you set your pledge to $10, and your monthly limit at $20, then if I pressed the "Paid Post" button 30 times in a month, you would only pay $20 dollars as that's the max you set. Basically it protects people from creators abusing the paid post button, or pressing it more than expected.

I chose to use mode 2, so that patrons are charged every time I release an episode. I don't feel right taking money monthly if I'm not delivering something every month. In the case of BEW, that's about once every 3-6 months. There is nothing except my honor to stop me from pressing that button more often though, and that's the purpose of the monthly maximum.

I'm not really doing this for money anyway. All the funds so far, have gone back into making the game better, except about enough for me to actually by myself a couple beers and a couple dinners. Any amount is appreciated from the $1 pledge to those insane people that throw $100+ at me. Thank you everyone!

This year, for example, someone who pledges $1, will actually pay a total of about $3 for the year, and of that I will receive about $1.80 for the year after Patreon takes it's cut, due to fee's.

[Angelike]

Thank you for this explaination of your patreon Wolfschadowe.
I had no intention in suggesting that this was a money making mechanism (I think you deserve money:() ) I hope this is not what you thought.
This game was and is free from launch so I understand it is a work of love rather than a work of finance.
As they take a fee from you that is in its self annoying.
I went with the paypal option first time but I may mix them up a bit now I know how your Patreon works.
I kind of like paypals annon giving as unless i put my forum nick its unlikely anyone would guess my real name .
Again I thank you for clearing this up for me I am pretty useless at any social media even thoguh I support the platform for it in my daily job

[xcooler2]

I chose to use mode 2, so that patrons are charged every time I release an episode. I don't feel right taking money monthly if I'm not delivering something every month. In the case of BEW, that's about once every 3-6 months. There is nothing except my honor to stop me from pressing that button more often though, and that's the purpose of the monthly maximum.

I'm a 1$ Patreon.

I understand your position but I would like to tell you I wont feel betrayed if you hit the "Pay Post" button to NOT release an episode but to use that money on some "internal" tool that can help you in all the backend stuff ...

Just my opinion ...

xCooLer2

[Sebastian]

.and then the next day Sebastian comes along with the 4th pledge and blows them all out of the water with his INSANE! pledge at $100 (I mention him by name only because he's on the forum and flagged INSANE already. Thanks Sebastian!). Of course, after I recovered from my heart-attack, I looked on that pledge dubiously, expecting it not to actually pay out for the first funding, but nearly everyone on that first funding was true to their pledge

Brother no worries and you’re welcome. Even though I think the real thanks should go to you, Kexter, and the rest of the supporting staff. Y'all have and are continuing to expand on a fricken great game. I LOVE the way it’s written, with a chance to build relationships, that isn’t just about sex.

Nice one Sebastian very generous donations sorry if you wish it to be annon

No worries. I am fairly active on the forum, heck ask Wolfschadowe and some others, normally it’s hard to get me to shut the Eff up.

[JFR]

Bumping my own thread.

When I posted this back in July, I was pretty impressed with 700 forum members on a game site. Now it just hit 1,000! Not much activity but a lot of readers.

[Wolfschadowe]

When I posted this back in July, I was pretty impressed with 700 forum members on a game site. Now it just hit 1,000! Not much activity but a lot of readers.

I'm pretty impressed myself.

When I first posted a Proof of Concept version of this game over on the-new-lagoon.com, I expected that maybe 20-25 people would play the game. In my wildest dreams, if I was very, very lucky, and everyone was really, really bored, maybe 100 people at most. Dare I dream?

I am both amazed and honored that the actual player count is somewhere in the 6 digit range (I think) from the last info that Kexter shared with me.

I just don't have any words....

[Angelike]

Thats the post that got me hooked
The new lagoon one new-lagoon.com

[Winterwabbit]

Thats the post that got me hooked
The new lagoon one new-lagoon.com

Same way i learned of BEW

[boulimanus]

Well I don't know what the last numbers are, but I've been keeping an eye on the download counter for the past few weeks and it seems to have seen a recent significant increase.
Not sure how, maybe word of mouth, but it clearly is getting more popular as of late.

[JFR]

Well I don't know what the last numbers are, but I've been keeping an eye on the download counter for the past few weeks and it seems to have seen a recent significant increase.
Not sure how, maybe word of mouth, but it clearly is getting more popular as of late.

It is pretty humbling, that is for sure. Since I posted that "700+ members" a little over a year ago, it has now more than doubled to near 1450! And that is just how many have actually registered here on the forum. I know there are a lot of additional folks who read the site but never register and the actual player numbers are much, much higher. Kexter may be the only one who knows how high. I know there has been some chatter on The Lagoon about the upcoming new episode. That may have some effect on downloads by folks who want to get in on the game before it arrives and puts them even farther behind. Just my guess.

I think the thing that attracts so many players is the pure quality of gameplay and immersion in the story. Besides this site, there is a fair amount of discussion about BEW on Shark's Lagoon (where BEW actually had its start) and the AIF site. Other game sites also talk about it as well so I don't know if we can make any guesses about how the word has spread. It is pretty great though.

[Tao Dude]

I kind of like PayPal's anon giving as unless i put my forum nick its unlikely anyone would guess my real name .
Again I thank you for clearing this up for me I am pretty useless at any social media even though I support the platform for it in my daily job

My Patreon Nickname is the same as the one I use on here, in Shark's lagoon and on Discord and the game development and Udemy forums to which I belong. In my case, it's not really for anonymity, as I use my Facebook Id that has my real name to log into Patreon, and my Patreon ID has my real photo.

[Boogie]

Hello everyone. Well, I just signed up a few days ago and my profile number is 1550, so that plus any additional new members in the past few days is were we stand.

Like JFR suggested, I was one of the many anonymous readers of the site, and had been doing so for almost 2 years. I finally registered so that I could see the teaser pictures posted in that other thread. I usually drop by once a week but am definitely getting antsy in anticipation of a new episode coming soon.