Shutting down the Patreon

After spending the last 5 months working a contract gig, I’m taking stock of the Patreon to fund Fleshcult 2. It hasn’t exactly set the world on fire. As you might recall, I was only going to start payments after reaching a pledge total of $1500. Thanks to 45 stalwart fans, we managed $313, but it looks like it’ll plateau far short of $1500. Thanks again to everybody for getting me this far.

I’m of the opinion that failure to reach a funding threshold isn’t the worst thing that can happen in crowdfunding. In that case, you learn a bunch of things and walk away unscathed. The real worst case is low-balling the threshold, just barely getting funded, and then trying to meet a bunch of obligations without enough money. So no, I’m not going to reduce the threshold and try again.

What Now?

Get a haircut and get a real jooo-ooob*, I guess. Ridiculously, I still don’t have the infestation tome finished, which I’m sure didn’t help matters. I’ll continue to twiddle with that in my spare time. I also still want to do that client-side version of Fleshcult, but neither of these efforts have a timeline.

I doubt I’m completely finished with adult games, but I don’t know if I’d make another attempt without assembling a team first. At the least, a writer or artist as a business partner. Game programmers like myself often overestimate our ability to make an adult game solo, hand waving away the “content” needed. But nobody ever jacked off to a game mechanic, so it’s the art and writing that’s the bulk of the work.


* If you’re looking for a programmer for your adult game and you’ve got a budget to spend, I’d be interested to hear about it at jack@thegamename.com.

I have experience in C#, C++, Python, Java, HTML, CSS and have shipped games using Unity to Steam and to the web, as well as iOS/Android games using a custom engine.

23 thoughts on “Shutting down the Patreon

  1. art926 says:

    Patreon is not a Kickstarter. It’s more like a tips jar. People pay there only when they see a steady progress every month and you needed to advertise your Patreon page on adult site, so people know about it. That’s why you “failed”. But I wouldn’t even call it a fault. It was clear that there were people around believing in your ideas not even seeing any progress for many months.

  2. Event says:

    I really think that if you advertised more, you could have gotten to your goal. The fact that you gave an estimated date of returning to work mid-November and actually returned in February maybe was also a factor.
    And, yeah, Patreon is not Kickstarter. Even on Kickstarter, people are doing all they can to get their projects visible.
    Do you think you will make another go at Fleshcult 2 at some point (without lowering the threshold)?

    P.S.:
    >But nobody ever jacked off to a game mechanic, so it’s the art and writing that’s the bulk of the work.
    A lot of people can live with just writing, really.

  3. bo says:

    Hey man love your stuff and would be happy to contribute. My thing is, I feel like I would need to see actual progress on the game contet wise before I donate.

    The guys comment about patreon being a tip jar is spot on. People wanna see regular content first.

  4. rbx4 says:

    Yes, I think there would be massive interest in the game, but only after a product-for-pay model gets going and gets attention. Since the market is currently over-saturated with in progress adult games, people now wait for a project to launch itself and wait for pay. Waiting for pay and then launching is not a viable model in my opinion. I actually browse sites like f95zone to keep up with the “news” in adult games, and I think many others do that too. You kind of have to meet consumers more than halfway in advertising I think. Still, I think you have an excellent product in mind and I would be glad to pay for a new version of Fleshcult. You should of course be true to yourself and do what you wish, however.

  5. BD-Acht says:

    Hello, I saw you may be looking for a writer for this game? I’ve played it and thought it had a lot of promise and I’m interested in possibly writing for it. I tried emailing you at the link you left but for some reason the email wouldn’t go through. If you’re interested I’d love to discuss this with you.

    • jackoekaki says:

      Nope! Not right now. In this post I was asking if anybody was looking for a coder. (i.e. Me)

      • BD-Acht says:

        Oh I see, apologies for the misunderstanding. Good luck on your search!

      • Emily Mewens says:

        thats sad :c
        Was thinking of setting up for a writers position P:
        If we were to push towards another fleshculty styled game, id totally be on board.

        If youre ever looking to put together a team, i recommend a few writers to cover all the kink fields thoroughly.

  6. Fezza says:

    Not involved with the dev team, but as I understand the guys over at Venus Noir (http://venusnoiregames.com/) had a dev up and leave around December last year. I think they got a replacement but it still might be worth a shot? Their games are in similar aesthetic to Fleshcult so that doesn’t hurt.

  7. Tom Vyvey says:

    I’m actually not surprised the patreon thing didn’t work out. Like other people said no advertisement at all. I didn’t know you where alive after all this time. You could try again but for the love of god don’t make people try to find you on the darkest corners of the web.

    I would have pledged but only if I see some actual development.

  8. Anon says:

    I just remembered you existed a minute ago after several years of having forgotten and checked your blog. I initially funded your offbeatr when you first made it close to a decade ago and had been waiting for the infestation tome since. The fact that it never came, and was more insultingly just left in as a placeholder is why I stopped paying attention in the first place.
    It may be harsh to say, but I will have no interest in your future projects unless you can actually prove you can do everything you set out to in a timely fashion, or even at all.

  9. Brobo says:

    I’ve played Fleshcult for the first time years ago, liked it a lot, and like many others waited for the infestation tome or some kind of extra content like more story, events, etc…
    After years of 0% progress on the game (or the sequel) i’m not interested in any sort of funding, as we all know how many games end abandoned/on hold indefinitely due to *insert usual excuse* or just silence (i’m looking at you, simbro!), and this case seems to be the same exact situation of others.

    Don’t take this critique in a negative way even if it sounds harsh, i just hope you avoid ending like many money-grab “devs” and instead create awesome stuff just like Fleshcult, which is proof that you have great potential in this area.

  10. megahellreaper says:

    Check this site for the first time in years and I find out you had a patreon up. Like others have said, I don’t think you advertised for yourself well not to mention you were using patreon as a kickstarter. If you ever feel like doing this again, here’s my advice to you: First, use subscribestar, Patreon is having a crackdown on mind control content, pretty sure fleshcult kinda counts. Second, Patreon (and I think subscribestar, haven’t look too much into it yet) is either monthly payments or per major update. If you have the payments off you can literally wait an indefinite amount of time until you reach the goal you wanted. Third, there’s a plethora of forums where people are interested in your type of content. And you have a very well made proof-of-concept ready. If you went and advertised on forums such as those more aggressively, including not to mention especially forums you might not be familiar with I think you might have been able to reach your goal considering you reached the 300 without much advertising from what I could see. Fourth, again, that isn’t kickstarter. People want to see activity from the creator so that they know they aren’t just waiting in vain. If instead of waiting to reach your goal in money started maybe adding some content to the original, however minor it may be, even if it was just polish, there is no doubt in my mind you would have attracted more patrons. Anyway, that’s my opinion that seems to have come nearly half a year too late. Hope you get back into making sexy games at some point.

  11. zebrafluffer says:

    I’d have dropped 100 a month if I’d known you were back at it. Then I would have promoted you at other boards and shared you with friends.
    I honestly abandoned this site and only check in every year or so. Kinda sad to see I missed this.

  12. Art says:

    Hey!
    A quick question. Who was the first painter that drew the background for you? I remember you had a different version of the bg long time ago and then replaced it, but I can’t find the original. I was pretty hot.

  13. Orwell says:

    Hey, is this still being worked on in your spare time at all?

    • jackoekaki says:

      I’ve been poking around a little bit on the client side port, but by its nature there’s not much for players to see until it’s nearly done, and there’s still a large amount of work to go. No ETA there.

      • Orwell says:

        Thanks for responding, honestly thought this was completely dead which would be a real shame. It’s actually quite enjoyable.

      • Tasty says:

        It’s great that you still hit your blog even if this old gem of a great game isn’t being updated any longer. It’s still one of the best concept games out there after all these years.

  14. Claudio says:

    Hello. I tried to contact you on your mail but it doesn’t work. Could you share a working email address?

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