I imagine some factors are:
- Not liking a game’s engine whether it’s Unity, Ren’Py, or RPGM
- Projects using a subscription model through Patreon and potentially having to track which games have been largely abandoned or are slow to receive updates
- Potentially needing to back too many projects
- Previously buying into games that have been abandoned and being wary of it happening again
- The visual style (ex. Daz3D, Blender, 2D, and so on)
- Grammatical mistakes
- Preferring a linear or open world experience
- A lack of choice or too much choice
- Not enough lewd scenes or bad lewd scenes
- Lots of text explaining actions and thoughts versus showing it visually
- A focus on kinks you aren’t interested in
- Being concerned your friends will see it even though Steam recently started letting people hide games from their public library
There could be all kinds of reasons. I’d like to hear what people value the most and some examples of what made you stop playing, following, or financially contributing to a game.
For example I stopped playing Being a DIK during season two because I made the mistake of sleeping with a character locking me out of interactions with another character. I didn’t realize until later and felt like I’d need a game guide to get the maximum sized harem and all the associated scenes.
I think a lot of games on Patreon seem to be asking for rather outlandish prices. A new beta version of the game for about the same price as a subscription to some streaming services.
I’m also frustrated at the lack of sub-focused stuff. If there is kink, it’s usually dommy slave owner stuff. Or breeding; that seems to be a surprisingly common theme in furry stuff at least, and it’s something I’m just not into.
Your first point is super accurate ime. I’ve definitely seen instances where a dev is asking for $15-30 monthly just to have access to an EA or beta version that might take anywhere from six weeks to six months (or more) to arrive.
Like I get that game dev isn’t easy, and I definitely wanna support you, but my dude, I’m not paying you hundreds to (potentially) thousands of dollars over the years to play an incomplete game that’s still gonna take you seven more years to complete, if it ever even gets completed.