2024 Transparency

Well, looks like it's that time of year again!

In January of each year, I write a post describing how I spent the money that I received through Patreon throughout the previous year, and my plans for the upcoming year.

There have been transparency reports for 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. And now, it's time for 2024!

Let's get straight into it. Here is how much money I received through Patreon over the course of 2024:

• January - $1,703.23

• February - $1,509.28

• March - $1,596.51

• April - $1,772.54

• May - $1,486.92

• June - $1,640.01

• July - $2,400.96

• August - $1,557.88

• September - $2,835.05

• October - $1,552.77

• November - $1,081.26

• December - $2,355.67

I made a total of $21,492.08 through Patreon in 2024.

Alright, let me get some boring technical stuff out of the way:

In 2015, I stated that, on any month where I made more than $3,500 through Patreon, all income past the $3,500 mark wouldn't go to me; it would be be put into a "fund" that would used to compensate the volunteers who contribute to the game. I called this fund "the surplus."

From 2015~2018, I always earned at least $3,500 per month through Patreon, so that surplus eventually grew to over $20,000. However, starting in 2019, my earnings dropped beneath $3,500 per month, so the surplus stopped growing, even though I kept using money from the surplus to compensate volunteers. At the end of last year, the surplus was at $19,366.84.

On most years, very few volunteers asked to be compensated for their work. In fact, there were actually years when less than $600 was taken out of the surplus! However, this year, the amount of money taken out of the surplus was higher than that; I'll detail it below.

On previous years, I listed the exact names of the people who I paid money to. However, I've decided to be more cautious from now on and withhold the names of the people I work with, just to make sure that nobody goes out of their way to harass them or anything like that.

• Anonymous modeler - $25 + $150 + $25 + $5 + $500 + $30 + $30 + $150

• Anonymous composer - $400

• Anonymous voice actress - $146

• Anonymous artist - $50 + $50

• Anonymous modeler - $100

• Anonymous modeler - $315

• Anonymous voice actress - $21

That's $1,997 in total. The remaining money left over in the surplus is $13,569.04.

2024 Progress 

As I mentioned in my 2023 transparency post, I began 2024 with a very specific question in mind: If I started working on Amai right now, with the resources I currently have access to, how long would it take to complete her, and what would be the quality level of the final result?

I had to know! So, starting on February 1st, I focused 100% of my attention on Amai. She was released 3 months later, on May 1st. Well, that answers the first question - "how long would it take to complete her?" - which leaves us with the second question - "what would be the quality level of the final result?"

Unfortunately, Amai's release had a mixed reception. Some people told me I did a great job, but other people felt disappointed. Personally, I'm proud of some aspects of Amai's week, but overall, I lean more towards disappointment. I feel that Amai's release was underwhelming.

I've already elaborated about the reasons why on my blog, but I'll summarize it here quickly: Amai's week lacks voice acting and unique animations for her events, which causes her week to feel "cheap," more like a fan-made mod than an official addition to the game. Amai's week also feels inferior to Osana's week because there are less events and less character interactions.

Instead of beginning development of the next rival immediately, I decided to spend some time fixing bugs and making general improvements to the game. I called it an "Inter-Rival Period." During this period, I made a lot of big improvements to the game that I'm very proud of! I listed many of them in this blog post here.

However, during the Inter-Rival Period, it became quite clear just how disappointing Amai's week felt. This led me to reach the conclusion that, instead of moving on to Kizana, I should spend some time raising the quality level of Amai's week, instead.

2025 Plans

My primary goals for the first half of 2025 are:

• Finish off this "Inter-Rival Period" by making a series of player-requested improvements to Custom Mode.

• Make a series of additions and improvements to Amai's Week.

• Hire professional voice actors to voice the cast of Amai's week.

My secondary goals are:

• Once I'm proud of Amai and consider her to be truly complete, make my long-awaited return to YouTube, and upload some videos documenting everything that I've added to the game since the release of 1980s Mode.

• Begin developing Kizana.

I feel like some of these goals are going to speed by, but it's difficult to predict how long it will take to accomplish goals that require me to hire people. I would really love to declare that Kizana will be finished within the year 2025, but I'm afraid of making promises and then failing to keep them. It really depends on how long the process of hiring voice actors takes.

In The Near Future

On February 1st, I'll be posting a lengthy and detailed blog post describing everything that I got done over the last 2 weeks. It's going to be a looooong post, and I hope you find it to be educational and informative!

I haven't been posting much content to Patreon recently, but that's about to change - some very exciting new assets have been created for the game recently, and I plan to share pictures and videos of them on Patreon. The amount of content you'll see will depend on your tier; the payment scheme might be something like...

• $3 will see text

• $5 will see images

• $10 will see videos

• $20 will see additional videos

Not sure yet, but you'll only have to wait a day to see what I decide to go with!

In Closing

Honestly, I can't really think of very much to say that I haven't already said in previous years. Even though I've said this before, it's still just as true as ever, so I'll say it again: I'm extremely grateful to have your support, and I appreciate your continued generosity very much!

Thank you for supporting the development of Yandere Simulator!