2nd anniversary of In Her Service [PART 2]

This is PART2 of my article about In Her Service, myself, past, present and the future of project. You can read PART1 here.


Launch

The launch of In Her Service went pretty much as I expected: there was no interest because no one knew the game existed. As you may recall from Part 1, I have some experience in game development, and I know that making a game is only the first part of the process. The next step is letting people know about it. When I set my two-year goal, it was specifically to see if I could gather enough fans within those two years to support what I do.

I wrote about it in several places and made posts, but the start was pretty rough. As you can see in that chart, fewer than 25 people had subscribed (at the time, I only had tip pot, not paid subscriptions).

But that was fine. I knew it would be like this. With anything you do creatively in real life, it is always like that. People don't know who you are or what you make; it is your grit and skills that build your fanbase, nothing else.

Either way, even with such low numbers, I found my first supporters, for which I am immensely thankful. That is why I decided to test this road for two years to see if it is viable. I have seen too many projects fail because creators were so over the moon about their own creations that they failed to realize: a) people might not like what you do, and b) it is actually very hard for people to notice your work at all. And then reality hits them when they release game and there's no one there to even see it...

For those first few months, I worked hard to develop the game's content. I introduced new sex scenes (expanding from just one in the initial version), added the sound and music you hear now, created a gallery so players know which scenes are available, and continued working on the overall content.

First breakthrough

The first breakthrough came as a result of me updating the game enough so I could honestly ask you guys for some support (this is when I introduced tiers you see today) as early access to new events. The game finally had some meaty content, even if it was nowhere near what it is today.

Suddenly, after June, I had 50 fans who were willing to shell out money to support what I do. They found my game good enough to be worth anything at all. For the first time ever, I paid my phone bill with your guys' support that you gave me willingly to support what I do. It wasn't much, but in my plans, I hoped to get around 100 people supporting me by the end of the year. And after June, I had 50. So halfway there!

From that point, I knew my path. If 50 of you supported me, it means my game isn't bad. That means I need to put in more work, stay focused, and deliver as much as I can for you guys to enjoy my game.

And so I did. By the end of the year, I released V0.70; the game already had, in my opinion, solid gameplay time, and based on reviews and opinions, it was a pretty interesting game for you guys.

Second breakthrough

Around November I heard about site called https://www.oppaiman.com/ During time I released my first version I got to know few developers of erotic games myself (It's small circle) and someone suggested me to contact oppaiman and put up my game there. Guys from oppaiman also contacted me and gave me a chance listing their game there as well as giving me shoutout to their huge patreon community. And thanks to them it changed completely for me outlook for the future. I am infinitely thankful for those guys to promote my work and if you are my fans I beg you to give those guys a chance to see if their games will be good to you.

This is how it looked in practice:

As you can see from June, I had a constant uptick in fans due to frequent updates every two weeks and the game being unknown. It was a slow but gradual buildup. But December changed everything for me. This bump you see is after a year+, when Oppaiman promoted me; that bump was actually much higher, but it's just how Patreon counts supporters where it doesn't show properly after months of bumps. The point is: I crossed 200 supporters.

And this changed things for me. Suddenly it wasn't just the phone bill; it was actually most of the bills, and I had money left over. I felt amazing at that time: hard work making a difference, fans who love what I do. I still had to go to my day job, but at least now I was in a much better position. Me working half-time in my job also didn't sting that much anymore money-wise.

2025

I started 2025 supercharged. 2024 was a fantastic year in which you guys showed me that you like what I do. For 2025, I planned to finish the game and deliver In Her Service 1.0 to your hands by the end of 2025.

Each new month set a new record for support: 200 people, 300 people, and so on. It felt wonderful, especially in May.

That's when I introduced V0.80, which brought two things: the Handy Flowchart, which you surely know by heart now, and a cheat for the length of development. Secondly, because the Flowchart became a thing, I decided to reshape the game a bit and add POVs from characters other than Jack. I knew this would extend the timeline to finish In Her Service to 2026, but IMO, after trying a few POVs, I felt it was an addition worth the extra dev time. And I think you guys loved it too.

For the rest of the year, I focused on my work, delivering updates every two weeks.

Vacations were the best time for me, not in the sense that I took a vacation (I didn't), but in the sense that I reached a level where I could honestly say that I received decent money from you guys. This allowed me to pay my bills, upgrade my PC and VR headset (rocking an RTX 5090 + 4K headset), pay off some debts I owed (now debt-free, yahooo!), and still have savings left over from my day job. It was close to reaching the level where I could leave my day job and transition completely to working on my game full-time—a dream of mine and probably every creator.

First Snag

Around September, the Oppaiman team decided to change things on their site. They wanted to introduce separate billing for games outside of Patreon, and I was completely on board with that. As you can read, thanks to those guys, a lot of you my dear followers found me. I am always the kind of person who, like in good wuxia/wushu novels, receives something from someone and gives back ten times. Alas, there was a problem.

In my country where I live, the tax situation looks in a way that as long as I don't sell my game in a store I am allowed to operate tax free (to certain limit), means no need to make a company, no paper work, no legal work. In short as long as you guys support me monthly and me releasing public version I can operate without distractions. And oppaiman changes meant selling separate versions rather than subscribing...

It was with a heavy heart that I had to remove my game from the Oppaiman site, but alas, I was forced to do so by my country's tax code. I still love those guys and want to be there, but I can't do it.

And as you can see from the chart, support started to drop around September. It wasn't just a lack of opportunity promotion; it was also the fact that I was nearing 0.90 and needed to make a major update that I couldn't split into smaller parts, which required time. Thus, there were no updates for a month. At the start of December, an update was released to your praise, and you can see that on the chart. Alas, you can still see a downward trend.

I was super happy about 2025, but at the end of it, I started to feel a bit down. What if this was temporary? It was my first game, so I didn't know how Patreon or support-based game dev really works. Sure, I had some experience with game dev, but I don't know how this truly works; only people who work like that know that.

Did I find my peak? Aka the point where I won't go higher? Is this it? Or maybe it is a downturn, etc.? I haven't had enough data yet to make any sense of that. Thus, I waited.

2026

The start of the second year was pretty special. Despite the downturn at the end of last year, I felt amazing. I am reaching the end of development for my first game. If things go right in fall of 2026, In Her Service will have a 1.0 version, and I will be able to tell everyone that I managed to release a game: not work in progress, not hopes so, not tried. Released, and even had fans... you !

So with 2026 I started making the first endings. Those two months flew by, and after two months we had two endings. It's a bit slow, but some of the endings are variations of other endings or start in the middle of others, so after the main "core" endings, it is pretty easy to add more. Some of the endings are shorter, while some are longer.

First two months of this year:

As you can see, the downward trend continued during the first two months of this year. However, I am not really down about that anymore. When you think about it... it makes perfect sense. The lack of being on Opaiman certainly had an impact, as fewer people got to know about my project. But in my opinion, the real story is different:

1. The game is nearing its ending. This means that a lot of you have been waiting months, or sometimes even years, for your favorite ending before putting the game down. You were with me for months; some people are only interested in Talia's love ending, others in Sylvia's NTR ending, etc. With each new ending, some of you will stop following the project. I am grateful to you all for your support, even if you drop it now.

2. I asked around other devs, and usually the "hype" season is during the early and middle stages of game dev; the ending is usually when they see a downtrend. Good thing that I have other games planned, no? ;)

3. Tons of people tune out from development so close to the finish line and start waiting for 1.0 instead. Instead of an update, why not wait for 1.0? It's close either way, no?

As you can see it is logical. I make right now enough to pay my bills and I am happy. I still can't quit my day job but I am pretty comfortable and driven to finish 1.0...

...alas that would be the case if not for the something else that happened like a month ago.

Second Snag

Remember how I told you about my country's tax laws just above? Turns out that with the start of this year, the tax office started to interpret the law differently, despite the law not changing. I started visiting a tax advisor and learned that with the tax filing deadline in April of this year, I might be running afoul of the law if I do not take certain actions. Unfortunately, tax law in my country is not clear, and the path forward isn't clear either. So here are the issues:

1. With the recent change in my country's tax law interpretation by the tax office, your support is no longer considered "support" but a sale. It doesn't matter if I release my game for free to the public. What matters is whether you provide your first and last names. Yeah, you heard that right. Somehow, I need your private data for my tax office to consider tips from you as a sale or not. It's stupid, but that is the tax law interpretation in my country, and I can't do anything about it.

2. Obviously, I cannot ask you for your first and last names. That is private data I wouldn't even be comfortable asking for in the first place.

3. Since I cannot legally treat your support as "support," I have to consider it a sale. This means I can't run my Patreon privately. I have to operate as a company, as selling anything in my country requires a business entity. Which means I have to start a company :/

4. Because I need to start a company, this automatically means taxes, insurance, paperwork, legal work, and so on. From what I discussed with my tax advisor, the tax burden ranges from 9% to almost 30–40%, depending on the type of company I create.

5. The "cheapest" company types to run also require the most paperwork to maintain. So, I have a choice between a high-tax company with the least amount of monthly paperwork to deal with, and a tax-efficient one that requires a lot of paperwork. Ideally, I would love to have zero paperwork, but that's not possible.

Overall, it means that no matter what I do now, I will have to send a major part of your support to my country's tax office and complete some extra work monthly to operate the company. So it's a double whammy: I can do less work in the two weeks I dedicate to my game monthly (as I work the other two weeks at my day job), and I have to send part of what I make to the tax office.

So... not good. And that's not the end of it.

Because it was a change in interpretation rather than a change in law, it means that it covers my past earnings from you as well :/. So, a triple whammy: not only do I have to do more work and get less money, but I also have to cover taxes for the past months since the moment I start the company.

That sounds dire, but I saved most of the extra money you gave me (I am a pretty frugal guy) and didn't spend money on stupid stuff so I can thankfully cover those back taxes completely. I shudder to think what would happen if I had to suddenly pay those and didn't have savings...

I still have time until the end of March to think through everything carefully, but for sure in April I will have to reorganize everything.

So as you can see, I have some things on my mind right now regarding the future as I work on the next update (which should normally come in the middle of this month).

As always, I am infinitely thankful for all of you who follow my project and my work. Without you, I wouldn't be in the place I am currently. While this last paragraph sounds pretty bad, it's not all that bad; there is also a ray of light in it that might actually be beneficial for the future. I hope you liked inside view on the project. Whatever you are: aspiring game creator yourself or just fan who follow my work, I owe it to you guys transparency in everything I do.

PART 3 about future in coming days... when I will finalize our course :) Stay tuned.