Thank you all for your continued support. Recently, progress has not been going very smoothly, and I’m sure many of you have noticed that. On one hand, we’ve run into some UI bugs. On the other hand, the future development of the game has also encountered some problems. I wanted to talk with everyone about the situation and hear your thoughts.
Since Patreon has already paused new supporters, I believe everyone who can see this post has been supporting the game for a long time. I’m truly grateful for that.
When I first started making this game, it was simply because I personally liked GTS. I made a small UE5 test demo, people liked it, and step by step it became what it is today. In 2024, I found Micah on Twitter. He had developed a destruction system that happened to fit our game very well, so I wanted to invite him to join the project. At first, his price was $2,000, but later the discussion gradually changed into developing the game together, and I accepted that. After all, I’m just an individual developer, and I honestly didn’t know UE5’s systems that deeply at the time. Having someone to help seemed like a good thing.
We signed a contract. I paid a one-time fee, and he asked to take 50% of the future revenue from the Epic and Steam releases, under the condition that we would develop the game together and also share the development costs together. Later, realizing that the Epic and Steam releases would still take quite a long time, he also asked for 50% of Patreon revenue. I did not agree to that, and after discussion we lowered it to 25%.
In the beginning, the collaboration was still quite pleasant. Micah integrated the plugin into the game, and after Tim Sweeney reposted it, more people started to know about the game. We also received more support and attention. Things seemed to be moving in a good direction, and I really hoped we could polish the game further and let everyone see an interesting GTS game, rather than just a simple fetish game.
But from that point on, I think our visions started to diverge. I wanted to polish the game more and improve the gameplay, while Micah wanted to release it as soon as possible, since the potential revenue from Epic and Steam would be significant. So in September 2025, the game was released on Epic somewhat hastily. During that period, I asked many friends to help with translation, purchased many new character models, and hired several relatively well-known VAs for voice acting. The cost was over $8,000, and I did not count any of that as shared development cost. I covered all of it myself.
After the Epic release, I was actually quite happy. We had over 8,000 wishlists and more than 5,000 sales. But this may not have met Micah’s revenue expectations, so he started suggesting that we change the skins from free content into paid DLC, and split the gameplay into several separate games to sell individually. I rejected those ideas because I still wanted to make one complete and enjoyable GTS game.
After that, most of the development work fell onto me: fixing bugs, changing the UI, and improving the game. Slowly, I started to feel less like the owner of the game and more like an employee working for him. The Epic revenue is under his company, and externally, media outlets also seem to see Micah as the author of the game. To be honest, those things don’t matter that much to me. I never wanted to become famous because of the game or anything like that.
But later, the situation became more and more serious. This year, UI development has been very difficult. Micah kept pushing for the Steam release, while I wanted to finish the destruction system for Mega City and complete the new gameplay for Tiny Mode. We argued about this several times, and in the end I continued developing alone. The Mega City destruction system still has not been made by him.
To be honest, I don’t even know what kind of help I’m asking from everyone. It’s just that this game has changed from a project I loved into a job that causes me a lot of pain. What really hurt me today was this: because of an unresolved bug, I asked Micah for advice. He said he could ask a friend to help fix it, and the quote was $3-400. When I said I didn’t have the cash to pay for it, he said this was “a big problem we need to figure out first.” That completely broke me. Since working with him, I have already paid countless amounts like that, not to mention doing almost all of the development alone over the past year. I feel like I have become his employee, or a machine that makes money for him.
I don’t want to abandon this project. But because there is a contract, and because the Steam and Epic releases are currently in his hands, if I directly break things off with him, there is a high chance that the future of this game will no longer belong to me.
So what I want to tell everyone is that I may plan to polish what I have already made, release one update on Patreon and Epic, and then pause this project here. I also don't plan to continue with the Steam release, because honestly, I no longer have the desire or motivation to keep completing it.
I know this will disappoint everyone who has supported me. But if things continue like this, I truly feel like my mental state is close to breaking down.
So I hesitated for a long time before deciding to write this and explain the situation to everyone.
Maybe from Micah’s perspective, this is a money-making project. But from my perspective, I always hoped it could become an interesting game, and that more people in the GTS community could play a fun and well-made GTS game.
I’m truly sorry to suddenly bring everyone this news. I would like to give anyone a refund if this disappointed you. One more thing I would like to ask: I have not yet decided whether I want to make this situation public outside of Patreon. For now, I am only sharing this with the people who have been directly supporting the project here, because I feel you deserve to understand what is happening.
I would really appreciate it if everyone could keep the discussion within Patreon for the time being, and not repost, screenshot, or spread this publicly elsewhere. I am still trying to handle the situation carefully, and I need some time to decide what the next step should be.
Thank you so much for understanding.感谢大家一直以来的支持，最近进展不是很顺利，想必大家也看到了…… 一方面是遇到了一些UI上的bug，另外一方面是其实游戏的后续遇到了一些问题，也想和大家聊聊看，听一下各位的意见。 因为patreon已经暂停新用户赞助了，能看到这个post的想必都是一直支持游戏的，很感谢大家。 最开始做这个游戏其实只是因为自己喜欢gts，当初用ue5测试的demo大家觉得不错就一步步走到了现在。2024年的时候在推上知道了Micah，他开发了一个破坏的系统，刚好适配我们的游戏，于是想邀请他加入。当时他开出的价格从最开始的2000美金后续一直涨到了要一起开发游戏，我接受了。毕竟我只是个个人开发者，确实对于UE5这个系统没有特别了解，有帮手加入确实也是好事。 我们签了合同，一次性支付了一笔钱然后又说好了epic和steam未来发布的收入50%归Micah所有，但是条件是我们共同开发，以及共同承担游戏的成本支出。之后因为发现epic和steam的发行时间还会比较久，所以他和我追加了要50%patreon的收入，我没有同意，最后商量后降至25%。 最开始的时候合作还算愉快，Micah把插件集成进了游戏，随着Tim Sweeney的转发游戏开始被更多人知道，也有了更多人支持和关注我们，事情在往好的方向发展，我也很希望可以把这个游戏打磨得更好，让大家能看到一个有趣的gts游戏，而不是一个单纯的fetish game。 从这里开始可能我们之间就有了分歧，我想要把游戏打磨好一些，把玩法完善，而Micah想要尽快发布，毕竟epic和steam的收入会比较客观。于是25年9月，游戏有点匆忙的在epic上上线了。这期间我麻烦了很多朋友帮忙翻译、购买了很多新的角色模型、以及找几个比较有影响力的VA做了配音。成本大概花了5000多美金，这些我没有计入成本，都独自承担了。 上线epic后，其实我自己还是蛮开心的，我们有8000多的wishlist，也转化了5000多的sales。但是这个可能没有达到Micah的预期收益，所以他开始提出要把皮肤从免费的改成付费DLC，将游戏玩法拆分成几个单独的游戏每一个独立销售，都被我否决了…… 因为我还是想要一个完整的，好玩的gts游戏。 后续的开发任务都落在了我的身上，修复各种bug，修改UI，完善游戏。我感觉我慢慢的游戏的owner，变成了给他打工的员工，因为epic的收益在他的公司，对外媒体也都觉得Micah是这个游戏的作者，这些倒也无所谓，我并不想因为游戏出名或者怎么样。 后面的情况开始愈演愈烈，今年的UI开发很不顺利，Micah一直想要push推进steam的上线，而我想把mega city的破坏系统完成，以及完成tiny mode下的新游戏玩法，为了这个事情我们argue过几次，最后就是我继续独自开发。mega city的破坏到现在他也没有进行制作。 实话说我不知道我想要寻求各位的什么帮助，只是游戏从最开始我喜欢的一个项目变成了一个让我很痛苦的工作。今天让我很难受的是，因为一个没有解决的bug我问了Micah寻求意见，他说他可以找个朋友帮忙解决，然后报价400美金，当我说我没有cash来支付的时候，他表示这是个big problem we need to figure out first…… 这让我彻底爆发了，因为我在和他合作后已经支付了不知道多少个400美金，包括这一年的独立开发，我感觉自己成了他的员工，给他赚钱的机器…… 我不想抛弃这个项目，但是因为有合同在，以及因为现在steam和epic的发行都在他的手上，我如果和他直接闹掰大概率这个游戏的后续就不属于我了。所有我想和大家说，我可能想计划把现有我做的东西完善，然后发布一个更新，这个更新会在patreon和epic上，然后我想把这个项目就此暂停了。 我了解这会让所有支持我的人很失望。但是这样下去我自己的心态真的快崩溃了 所以我犹豫了很久，想把这个情况写给大家，说明这个问题。 可能从Micah的角度而言，这是一个赚钱的项目，但是从我而言，我希望他能成为一个有趣的游戏，让gts圈子更多人玩到好玩的游戏。实在抱歉突然和大家说这个消息…… 如果需要退款的话可以给我留言。我还没有想好要不要公开这个消息，所以还请麻烦大家把讨论只停留在patreon内部。我也还在纠结下一步要怎么做…… 我相信各位在patreon上支持的人也应该了解究竟发生了什么，所以写了如此长的内容…… 感谢大家的理解