Special Update

Hey guys. This is a special update about the finances and future of Leaving DNA.

Let me start out by emphasizing that this is NOT a request for more support from you the people already supporting me. And I repeat as I have so many times before that I appreciate all of you. To have so much support already after only releasing one episode of the game has been such a surprise. Especially from those pledging at the higher levels it’s really humbling.

I also want to say that no one should ever feel awkward about cancelling their support for the game at any time. I understand that people’s financial situation can change, or sometimes you may just feel that you have already given enough to support the game. I will never take it personally or have my feelings hurt even if I see a supporter that I have been friendly with cancel their pledge.

I said in the beginning that I would finish Leaving DNA even if I did not get any financial support and that remains true because my primary motivation has always been to tell this story. But I have now spent many more thousands of dollars on the game than I ever thought I would. Between hardware, 3D assets, power, music rights, and now an animator, Leaving DNA has been a massive financial investment for me and I’m continuing to spend far more money than I take in from Patreon and SubscribeStar. And, looking at comparable games, I doubt that Leaving DNA will ever be popular enough for me to ever make that money back through supporters alone.

This is not a problem for development of the game. Although I am not rich, I am fortunate to be in a financial position that if needed, I can fund the game by myself all the way through the publication of the final episode. But having said that, if there is a simple way for me to avoid losing all of my savings on this, I am going to take it.

Enter Steam.

Initially I never planned on releasing Leaving DNA on Steam. There are multiple concerns I’ve had. One is trademark/copyright infringement issues. For example, the music I used is licensed, but several devs have lost their licenses after posting the game on Steam.  My bigger concern, though, is my content involving children. At least one Dev reported that simply having a child featured in an adult game was enough to get her game rejected.

I won’t go into a detailed discussion about it here, but I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get an exact sense of what is and is not allowed on Steam when it comes to children. And I’ve decided that the next release of Leaving DNA will be a good test. Although there are children in my game, in my opinion the content involving those children falls within Steam guidelines. But the only opinion that will matter is whichever Steam employee is assigned to review my game.

My decision to try to get the game on Steam will not impact the release of Episode Two. I do most of my programming and marketing while I’ve got render queues going. Actual content creation will always be the bottleneck in development and I'm not redoing anything about my already finished content specifically for Steam.

If my understanding of the Steam release process is accurate, this is what I expect to happen: Within the next couple of days, Steam will approve my page for Leaving DNA. That will allow me to begin accumulating wishlist adds from Steam users. After Episode Two of Leaving DNA is finished/released in a couple of months, I will upload it to Steam to be evaluated by the review people. If they reject it, my Steam page will be removed and that will be the end of it. I won’t remove the content involving children just to make it Steam eligible because I’m not going to compromise the story regardless of the financial consequences. But if Steam does accept the game, then my page will stay in Coming Soon status for several months until I decide to release the game for sale (probably when I release Episode Three).

(The reason I am going to release my page now without the game itself having been approved is because the key to having a successful game launch is to accumulate as many wishlists as possible, and so it's best to get the page up as early as possible.)

If you're wondering how this might affect you as a Patreon/SubscribeStar supporter, what I've seen other devs do is give launch day Steam keys to any supporter who has already contributed an amount equal to the price of the game on Steam, so that's my plan as well.  I'll flesh this out in more detail later.

Once my page has been approved, I will make a public announcement, but I wanted to reach out to my supporters first because you guys deserve a special explanation of what’s going on with the game financially.