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Thanks for the results, and nice walking through them. Just my two cents on some points:

I don't think the horror FVN "popularity" comes from authors trying to please the audience or feeling pressure coming from them, but rather that it's more so the authors themselves the ones interested in the genre (kind of like the joke that FNV authors are more interested in incest than their audience, which this survey proves false).

As for the Patreon vs single payment question, while unfinished games and "bad actors making minor updates just to cash in" are a reality, another thing to consider is total investment. Sure, 1-5 USD a month may not feel like much and it helps with development by covering art/writing/etc. costs, but your average FVN takes years to finish (if it does in the first place), and it would not be unusual that you'd end up spending hundreds of dollars in total (for example, if you had backed Echo from the beginning at their lowest tier, that'd be 207 USD, which is over ten times what the results consider a fair price for a FVN that they absolutely love).

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People who make horror games with the intention of drawing an audience usually happens outside of the FVN community. As far as I can tell, no FVN that was made to please an audience are horror. It just so happened that the of the horror FVNs we have, a good portion of them became some of the most well known ones, like Echo and all the other VNs within its continuity, and Burrows.

And yeah, that is a good point I implied in the blog. If you look at Patreon as a service rather than a way to support your audience, it can be a bit flimsy and just buying it with a single purchase is a better value. Still, both have their own functions and Paid games are gated towards people who can't pay while free games (that are funded through Patreon) aren't. So there are reasons for either.

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Nothing against patreon but I'd rather just buy the game outright. I know $1-$3 doesn't sound like a lot but it adds up. Especially if you already don't make a lot of money to begin with. 

But I get its a way to support the team if you want