Every year, I write a “Transparency Post” on Patreon. In these posts, I try to be as transparent as possible about factors that are slowing down the game’s development, obstacles I’m facing, etc.
That post is now up on my Patreon, but I’ve decided to write part of it here, because I’d like to communicate some of my thoughts using images and videos, and Patreon doesn’t allow me to embed images/videos within posts.
The primary goal of this post is to answer the three questions I hear the most frequently: “What’s taking so long?” “When’s Kizana?” and “When will the game be done?”
These questions can’t be answered honestly without acknowledging some very unpleasant topics. I generally try to avoid ever discussing anything negative in my blog posts, and I try to only share positive news: my latest progress.
As a matter of principle, I never discuss the obstacles I’m facing, because I don’t want to seem whiny. However, when I deliberately avoid ever talking about certain things, it makes me feel like I’m hiding things from you. It feels very opaque; the opposite of transparent.
This is not the “Smile And Pretend Everything Is Okay” Post; this is the “Transparency” Post, so I’m going to be transparent, even if it means talking about negative things that I usually avoid mentioning.
Click “Continue Reading” to hear all about it.
If you asked me, “Why is Yandere Simulator’s development so slow?” I’d write a 7,000-word-long blog post explaining why it’s not logical to describe it as “slow”. But, if you re-phrased the question to, “What are the factors that determine Yandere Simulator’s development speed?” I’d have a much different response.
The answer to that question depends on what year it’s asked in. For example: In 2014, what were the factors that determined Yandere Simulator’s development speed?
Well, there was really only one factor: At that point in time, my primary job was freelance programming work, and Yandere Simulator was just a cute little side-project that I occasionally worked on for fun in my spare time. Many days passed where I didn’t think about it or work on it at all.
So, what if we move ahead one year and enter 2015? What factors determined the speed of the game’s development then?
This is where I started treating Yandere Simulator like a full-time job – but that doesn’t mean it was the only thing I spent my time on. You see, here’s the important thing, the thing that most people never mention when they analyze the development speed of Yandere Simulator:
I was a Developer/YouTuber Hybrid.
50% of my time was spent developing, and 50% of my time was spent creating YouTube videos. This meant that the game’s development moved along at 50% of the speed of a normal game.
I made a lot of progress report videos, but I also made a lot of videos just for fun, like the Hatred Parody, Kuudere Sim, Super Yandere 64, I Want My Senpai Back, Yanvania, and two Christmas parodies. In addition to doing stuff like that, I also added a lot of easter eggs to the game, which many YouTubers seemed to enjoy a whole lot.
Looking back, it’s clear that I didn’t just want to be a developer; I wanted to be an entertainer. I wanted to make parodies, I wanted to surprise people with totally unexpected uploads, and I wanted to put stuff into the game purely to see YouTubers react to it.
(As I’ve said many times, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with doing things like that. I don’t think there’s any rule that says “If you’re developing a video game, you’re not allowed to do anything else with your time” or “If you’re developing a video game, absolutely everything you put into the game needs to be related to the core objective of the game.” I think it’s perfectly fine to be a Developer/YouTuber hybrid, or to develop the type of game that periodically gets updated with a wide variety of features.)
As time passed, more factors appeared that impacted development speed:
Scope creep. That was a big one. By far, the most significant factor that impacted the game’s development – not YouTube videos, not easter eggs – was the decision to increase the game’s scope far beyond what was originally planned. Deciding “I’m going to build a skyscraper instead of a log cabin” drastically increases the amount of time you’re going to spend constructing a building.
My decision to add voice acting and animated cutscenes to the game was a big one. Once I made that commitment, it meant that I was now developing the type of game that really ought to be made by a studio, not a single indie dev who was juggling game development with being a YouTuber.
Another factor was community interaction. I was famously “reachable” – I responded to feedback/suggestions/questions through e-mail, Reddit, and Twitter. I tried to do nice things for the community, like providing a website and launcher. I maintained a development blog to keep people updated on what was going on.
Most game developers don’t do all that. I can’t e-mail Shigeru Miyamoto and ask him questions. Hideo Kojima doesn’t answer questions from fans on Discord. And almost no developers publicly document their game development progress on a weekly basis. I provided a lot more community interaction than most devs do, which a lot of people really appreciated – but it came at the cost of less time available for development.
Oh, yeah, and this was the point in time when one other factor started to impact development. Just ignore it for now. That’s what I tried to do.
So, what about 2017?
This is where we see the ripple effects of increasing the game’s scope really start to impact development. Increased scope means the game needs more animations, more art, more models, more music, more voice acting. That means more time spent talking with animators, artists, modelers, composers, voice actors, etc. From here on out, the majority of my time would be spent managing a huge development team, and only the leftover time would be used to make progress on the game.
Huh…that mystery factor seems to be growing. Hmm. What could that be all about? Oh well. Let’s just move on to 2018.
Yeah, it’s basically the same thin – wait a minute. That mystery factor keeps growing. Huh. I wonder if that’ll be a trend. Let’s move on to 2019.
Holy hell, it’s like a tumor. Okay, so what happened in 2020?
Jesus fucking Christ. Kinda impossible to ignore it or sweep it under the rug anymore.
2020 was an extremely rough year for me. This was the year that a lot of Anti-YandereDev hate memes were born, a lot of Anti-YandereDev character assassination videos were made, and a lot of Anti-YandereDev false narratives began to circulate around the Internet. This is a big deal, because it directly impacts development speed.
Let’s get the obvious one out of the way first: if a bunch of weirdos on the Internet are spreading misinformation about you, you have to drop what you’re doing and spend your time clearing up false accusations. That eats away at time that could have been spent on game development.
However, it doesn’t end there. If you’ve been character assassinated, the entire Internet has been tricked into thinking that you’re a bad guy who doesn’t deserve support, and you’re being harassed every hour of the day, something happens: the people contributing to your project quit, and it becomes extremely difficult to replace them. This makes game development go slower.
Also – and this is the important one – being character assassinated and losing your allies is extremely demotivating, which slows down your progress even further.
That statement was important. Super important. I need to drill it into your head.
If you’re being harassed every hour of the day by people who are convinced that it’s morally correct to treat you like shit, your mental health with suffer. Your motivation will drop. Your morale will plummet like a rock.
If your mental health declines, your motivation is been taken away, and your morale is broken, guess what happens? You work slower. (This is important. You have to remember this. If you only take one thought away from this entire blog post, it should be this one.)
The worst part is that these problems compound on each other. If one YouTuber spreads misinformation about you and gets a lot of views, a bunch of other YouTubers will copy what he’s doing, because they want those delicious clicks and ad revenue. If one project member quits, his friends will probably quit too. If your declining mental health causes you to work slower, then people will harass you for working slowly, which will make your mental health suffer more.
Character assassination, declining mental health, hate, harassment, and misinformation are all “snowball” problems – once the problem appears and starts rolling, it only gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
That’s what the black part of the graph represents.
And from there, things only got worse and worse and worse with each passing year.
Hate and harassment destroyed a lot of my productivity. To make up for it, I started trimming down all of the other factors:
There! Making all of those adjustments should surely improve the situation, right?
Let’s see how the graph looks in 2025…
How nostalgic; we’ve almost returned to 2014 levels of “There is only one factor that is affecting the speed of the game’s development.”
I wish that I could be an invincible stoic statue who is never affected by the actions of other people. However, I’m not a rock; I’m a human. I have a heart beating in my chest and blood pumping through my veins. I have emotions. If you mistreat me, I’ll feel miserable. I’ll get depressed and demotivated, and my productivity will decline.
There was a period of time when, if people spammed me with verbally abusive messages, it inspired me to work harder. “I have to produce a lot of exciting updates really fast so that people see how hard I’m working! I want people to recognize that I’m not a bad developer, I’m not a scam artist, I’m not slow – I’m genuinely trying to make a good game!”
However, the number of verbally abusive messages I receive on a daily basis eventually crossed some sort of threshold where it no longer feels inspirational. “Why work hard? Why work fast? No matter how good my work ethic is, the abuse will never end. These people enjoy abusing others as a recreational activity, and they’re not going to give up their favorite activity just because I proved that I’m a hard worker.” This creates a perpetual sense of “Why bother? Why even try?” which is the opposite of the mentality you need in order to develop a video game in a timely fashion.
You’re gonna hate me for saying this. However…sometimes, how much you hate to hear something is directly proportional to how true it is:
The worse people treat me, the slower Yandere Simulator is developed. Yandere Simulator’s slow development is an indication of how badly I’ve been treated and continue to be treated.
“So, you’re blaming everyone else for your problems? It’s everyone else’s fault, and not yours?”
I understand that there’s a stigma against people who point out when their problems are being caused by other people. But, seriously, if I look at the majority of the problems I deal with…yes, my problems really are caused by other people creating completely unnecessary obstacles that didn’t need to exist. I could write hundreds of words about this topic.
In fact…I will.
And I know exactly where to begin.
I searched for a suitable voice actor to play the role of Taro Yamada for 685 days, and eventually found one on August 10th, 2025. I spent the next 30 days coaching him to get his Taro voice absolutely perfect. On September 30th, I released a build of the game featuring his voice. On October 6th, somebody sent him a screenshot of his house from Google Maps, and made a threat. This threat really spooked him, and, as a result, he quit the project.
In an instant, all of the hours that I spent coaching that voice actor were wasted, and I was reset back to the same state I was in for 685 days: no voice for Taro Yamada.
That problem is not my fault. That problem is not something that I created. That problem was created by someone who decided to threaten a voice actor.
Less than a month later, a similar situation happened. One of the project’s voice actresses was constantly being harassed by trolls during her live streams. The trolls were constantly asking her to comment on my past controversies, denounce me, stop supporting me, etc. Eventually, she couldn’t take it anymore. She quit the project so that people would stop harassing her and allow her to stream in peace.
That problem is not my fault. That problem is not something that I created. That problem was created by people who decided to harass a voice actress.
A member of my community was being cyberbullied. She wanted to make her bullies feel guilty for the way they were treating her, so he faked her own suicide. As a result, one of the voice actors freaked out. “Oh my god! In this community, people get bullied into suicide? I’m out of here! I quit this project! I don’t want to get bullied into suicide!”
That problem is not my fault. That problem is not something that I created. That problem was created by someone who decided to fake her own suicide.
An artist who was drawing amazing artwork for the game was contacted by some people who threatened to dox her if she continued contributing to the game. She quit the project.
That problem is not my fault. That problem is not something that I created. That problem was created by sociopaths on the Internet who threaten to dox people.
Are you starting to get a picture of the situation yet?
When someone quits the development team, I wish that I could just be indifferent towards it and not let it bother me. I wish I was the type of guy who could simply light up a cigar and say,
…but that’s not me at all. If someone quits the development team, it hurts a lot. It’s depressing, demotivating, demoralizing, all of the stuff you just heard me talk about up above. It makes me think, “Shit, I work super hard to recruit people and train people, and then they just abandon me in the end. What’s the point of even trying?” and when that’s your mentality, you struggle to find a reason to work hard. Productivity suffers. Development speed slows down.
Oh, and it’s not just that. There’s other shit, too.
Check out this video.
Yeah, nothing says “Completely serious and legitimate grooming accusation” like an AI voice, words that are delibately misspelled so TikTok doesn’t detect them, and “Yas queen slay” girlboss reaction faces.
Let’s analyze!
In what universe would I ever type “youre” “im” “youve” “werent” “wouldve” or fail to capitalize I?
Here’s a helpful tip when you’re making a scandal video: To maximize engagement, throw in something shocking and disgusting to really guarantee that people are going to leave comments. You know, like scat! Bathroom stuff!
So, what’s really going on here?
Here’s the entirety of my message history with this weirdo:
Wow – “Hi” and “I’m okay.” Such grooming.
I replied to this person a grand total of 2 times, and when they started being an obnoxious weirdo, I blocked them.
They got pissed at me for blocking them, so they made a bunch of fake “YandereDev is grooming me!” screenshots and uploaded a video to frame me as a child predator.
All of this happened back in September. The video was extremely easy to debunk, it was painfully obvious how fake the screenshots were, and the people spreading the lie gave up quickly, so it died fast and didn’t turn into a scandal.
However, later, in December, a troll wanted to see how much of a controversy he could cause, so he re-uploaded the video, which caused people to start reacting to it as if it was new.
Ready for some deja vu? That problem is not my fault. That problem is not something that I created. That problem was created by someone who decided to fabricate screenshots because they wanted to create a scandal.
Hey, want to see another video? Check this one out; it’s one of my most favorite videos of all time. I wholly endorse this video.
God, what a good fucking video. Such a god tier, SSS-rank video.
Do you see a pattern emerging here? Every one of the problems in my life is caused by cruel and sadistic sociopaths who take pleasure in abusing, harassing, and outright lying about others. All I want to do is make progress on my stupid little anime girl video game, but I can’t, because other people keep creating completely unnecessary problems for me.
“Uh…YandereDev, you do understand why people are willing to believe accusations like that about you, right?”
Yeah, it’s because they have a fucked-up mental image of me that doesn’t match reality.
I get like a dozen DMs like this every day:
Do you think I’m fucking stupid? It’s obvious that it’s a drama YouTuber trying to exploit me for content.
You know what I do when someone tries to bait me?
Report > Abuse > A minor is sending sexual messages
And a few minutes later…
Say goodbye to your fucking Discord account, shithead.
Hell, I don’t even respond positively when people offer to be friends.
Whenever I give people an ounce of trust, I am always backstabbed, betrayed, exploited, manipulated, tricked, and/or used. So, now I’m just cold to everyone.
Recently, someone who has been sending nice and supportive messages in the Yandere Simulator Discord server since 2020 revealed that they were actually a hater who was “going undercover” as a fan the entire time. When this type of thing happens, it makes me think, “Anyone who is being nice to me could actually secretly hate me!” It sounds like I’m describing paranoia, but if the paranoia is frequently proven to be correct, is it really paranoia?
I don’t trust anyone anymore. My guard is up 100% of the time. Anytime anyone contacts me, I immediately assume it’s a troll. I assume anything I type is being screenshotted. I assume anytime I enter a voice channel I’m being recorded. I block people over the slightest suspicion they have the intention of exploiting me. Fuck that shit.
Do you really think a guy like that is going to trust a minor? On the contrary; I trust minors the least out of everyone. Minors haven’t been alive long enough for proper morals to sink in, and minors lack impulse control, which makes them amoral and opportunistic. I’m not putting my fate in the hands of someone like that.
Look, this is a subject I deliberately avoid ever discussing, but just this once, I’m going to briefly visit a very ugly topic. I’ve become aware of the fact that, in this world, there are minors who go searching for vulnerable adults – autistic, depressed, lonely, mentally handicapped, suffering from mental illness, etc – and try their absolute fucking hardest to seduce the adult, and after the adult breaks and says something they shouldn’t, the minor starts blackmailing and extorting money out of the adult. Real felony shit.
Ever since I learned that people like that exist in this world, I’ve been just one degree away from being openly hostile to any minor that tries to talk to me. I see minors as landmines – best avoided at all costs, and if you absolutely must be near one, tiptoe around them as carefully as possible.
At this point, I assume everyone is a threat and that anybody trying to befriend me has the ultimate goal of backstabbing me and betraying me. It’s a lonely existence, but that’s the way it’s got to fucking be.
So, if some asshole makes a “YandereDev is trying to groom a kid!!” TikTok, and you fall for it, it’s not because the claim is plausible; it’s because you have a completely inaccurate mental image of me.
I grew up during the period of the Internet when everyone made fun of this woman:
She criticized games. People thought that her criticism sucked, so they criticized her. She complained that she was being harassed, which attracted a lot of hate: “She’s claiming that criticism is harassment! She doesn’t like being criticized, so she’s trying to discredit her critics by calling them harassers and trolls! She’s just trying to get people to pity her and donate to her! She’s a grifter!”
I was conditioned to believe that anyone who talks about experiencing harassment is untrustworthy. I was conditioned to think that, no matter what type of harassment you’re experiencing, you should absolutely never, EVER mention it.
It seems that I wasn’t the only person was conditioned to think this way; there’s a stigma against anyone who discusses the fact that they are being targeted for harassment on the Internet. “They’re not actually being harassed, they’re just being criticized! They’re just trying to get donations! Grifter grifter grifter!”
As a result, it’s extremely difficult to bring up the topic of harassment. You risk all sorts of new labels that will cause you to receive even more harassment.
I don’t know if there’s a “right” way to bring up the topic of harassment on the Internet, but I certainly know that there’s a wrong way. Don’t do it like this:
Or like this:
If you absolutely must acknowledge harassment, you can’t do it in a way that creates a spectacle, or provides sociopaths on the Internet with more ammunition. This knowledge has been distilled into a phrase: “Don’t feed the trolls.”
You might say that the only “correct response” to harassment is to absolutely never acknowledge it; to simply pretend it’s not there. “The trolls will eventually get bored and leave,” you might say. However – outside of one or two exceptions – “Don’t acknowledge it” and “Don’t respond to it” is exactly what I’ve been doing for the past 10 years, and it isn’t working; on the contrary, things have only been getting worse.
There are dozens of videos on YouTube that dehumanize me, demonize me, mischaracterize me, spread misinformation about me, and convince people that it’s morally correct to abuse me, bully me, and harass me on a daily basis. I don’t respond to these videos. My silence means that there is no counter-narrative to fight the false narratives. My silence has sent a message: “You can say all sorts of lies about YandereDev, and he’ll never defend himself, get your video taken down, or sue you. You can do whatever you want to this guy, and rake in the views!” So, maybe it’s time for me to consider a different approach.
If my team members are being pressured into quitting, my income is dropping every month, my motivation has fallen to zero, and everyone is just going to boycott the game anyway because everyone has been brainwashed to believe “YandereDev is a bad guy who doesn’t deserve your support,” Then perhaps my highest priority should be to release a series of videos that systematically debunk every “YandereDev is a bad guy” narrative, with receipts.
“Huh? You can’t debunk those videos! Those videos are backed up with evidence!”
What people call “evidence” is actually just ambiguous information that is being interpreted incorrectly. I’ll provide an example.
There was once a point in human history when this:
Was “evidence” that the Earth was flat. If the horizon looks like a straight line, then the Earth must be flat, right?
Well, no, actually, the Earth is NOT flat. The horizon appearing to be a straight line is simply an indication that the Earth is so huge, you can’t see the curvature from sea level.
The shape of the horizon is a piece of information that you can interpret as evidence that the Earth is flat, but is not proof that the Earth is actually flat.
Likewise, there are a lot of things that you can interpret as evidence that “YandereDev is a bad guy who doesn’t deserve your support,” but the overwhelming majority of those things can be debunked effortlessly.
Here’s an example:
In my 2017 Patreon Transparency Post, I made this statement:
This screenshot was then used to create a narrative; “YandereDev hired a programmer who was BETTER than him and tried to FIX his code, and YandereDev didn’t like someone fixing his BROKEN code, so he FIRED the programmer!!!”
No, that’s not what happened.
The screenshot is cropped to leave out some important details, which you can see here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/2017-16179684
And the full story was told here: https://yanderedev.wordpress.com/2018/06/10/hey-whatever-happened-with-that-whole-tinybuild-thing/
This information has been available since 2018, and drama YouTubers still keep spreading this easily-debunkable “YandereDev fired a programmer” lie.
A false accusation like this one is especially damaging, because it causes programmers to think, “Oh, he fires people for fixing his code? I guess I won’t ever try to work for him, then.” As a result, no programmers reach out to offer help to me, which harms the game’s development.
I’ve said it before, and every time it applies, I’ll say it again! That problem is not my fault. That problem is not something that I created. That problem was created by dishonest greedy clickbaiting drama YouTubers who spread false accusations and misinformation.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that every problem in my life really is caused by drama YouTubers character assassinating me. Everything always goes back to that.
Actually, I’m going to turn it into a meme:
This is a microcosm of every Anti-YandereDev accusation. This is what happens to absolutely every “YandereDev is a bad guy who did a bad thing!!” narrative, if you actually look into it. “Oh my god, look at this screenshot!! It’s evidence that YandereDev is a bad person!! …oh, wait. With about 2 seconds of research, you can learn that the screenshot is cropped and the true story has been available for years. YandereDev was lied about.”
If everything you know about the Earth comes from a Flat Earth video, you don’t know anything about the Earth.
If everything you know about a person comes from a TikTok, you don’t know anything about that person.
If everything you know about a person comes from a drama video, you don’t know anything about that person.
If everything you know about a person comes from a deranged cult-like hate forum of stalkers and serial harassers, you don’t know anything about that person.
I don’t want to spend my time making a two-hour “Everything You Believe About Me Is A Lie” video. I want to spend my time developing Yandere Simulator. But, if developing Yandere Simulator is impossible or pointless because of the sheer number of false narratives about me, then what’s the point of working on the game? Spending my time debunking lies feels like it should be the higher priority.
Here’s my plan: I’m going to finish making improvements to Amai’s week, and then I’m going to return to making YouTube videos. I’m not going to acknowledge the hate or harassment or false narratives at all; I’m just going to talk about game development, and that’s it. However, after releasing 5~6 videos about the progress I’ve made since the release of 1980s Mode, I am going to gauge how much hate and harassment there still is. If there’s a massive amount of hate, and it’s clear that it will be impossible for me to build a team of voice actors and animators or have a successful crowdfunding campaign, then it becomes clear that my top priority should be the creation of a “Debunking all the stupid shit you’ve been tricked into believing about me” video. However, if the amount of hate I’m receiving declines, voice actors are joining the project, and public sentiment regarding the game has turned positive again, then I won’t acknowledge the harassment at all, and I’ll just proceed with game development.
It seems like a solid plan to me, but I’m sure that you’re already considering an alternative:
If the biggest obstacle to the game’s development is the fact that character assassination and misinformation has permanently destroyed my reputation and that hate and harassment have destroyed my mental health and motivation, making it nearly impossible to make meaningful progress on the game…my first thought is, “Release a series of videos debunking the misinformation and vindicating myself,” but your first thought might be, “Just sell the game, dude.”
Alright, let’s begin unpacking this.
In order for me to sell Yandere Simulator to someone else, they would have to offer me an amount of money that strikes me as equivalent to the amount of money I’d make by finishing the game myself. For example: If I estimate that I would make $1,000,000 in profit by releasing a finished Yandere Simulator, someone has to come to me and offer me $1,000,000 for the game. Otherwise, I’m better off just developing the game myself.
Here’s the problem: Right now, nobody values Yandere Simulator at $1,000,000. Everyone values it at, like, $70,000. That’s because character assassination and misinformation have stained the game’s reputation. I value the game at its peak potential value, whereas others value it at where it sits right now, at its lowest point. As a result, any “I would like to buy the game from you…” conversation ends in a rejection. Nobody’s valuation of the game matches mine.
There’s another problem, as well. If I sell the game to someone, anybody who made an asset for the game can say, “Hey! I gave YandereDev permission to use my asset, but NOT you. You don’t have permission to use my asset in a commercial product. Remove it or I’ll get a lawyer involved!” Meaning that the new owner of Yandere Simulator would have to remove that asset – potentially all assets.
Nobody is going to spend $1,000,000 buying a project if there’s a possibility that everyone who contributed to the project is just going to force them to yank all the assets out of it.
I could ask every single person who ever contributed to Yandere Simulator sign a contract that says, “I hereby give you copyright ownership over my work and the right to commercially profit from my work, including the right to transfer ownership to another person if you choose” – but over 100 people have contributed assets to Yandere Simulator, and tracking down every last person and forcing them all to sign a contract would be a fucking nightmare. I just don’t want to do that.
So, who would actually buy Yandere Simulator? I guess it would have to be someone so rich that, even if it doesn’t work out, the amount of money they spent was inconsequential to them.
Like…I don’t know…an OnlyFans girl?
Yeah, have you guys heard about this? Apparently, these OnlyFans girls are out here making $1,000,000 per MONTH.
They could afford to buy Yandere Simulator, and if it doesn’t work out, oh well, doesn’t matter, they’ll have earned that money back in 30 days.
I’ll say this: If an OnlyFans millionaire contacts me and says “Hey, I want to buy the Yandere Simulator intellectual property and project files for $1,000,000, no strings attached, no questions asked,” I’ll say, “SOLD!”
At this point, the sheer amount of abuse I receive on a daily basis has made this project absolutely not worth working on anymore. So, if you’re friends with an extremely rich e-girl who grew up watching Yandere Simulator videos who wants to “save” the project from the evil dastardly villain YandereDev, tell her that it’s absolutely for sale, but not for cheap.
Well, as long as we’re discussing Money…
“Recently, your Patreon income dropped under $1,000 per month. What does this mean for the future of the game’s development?”
I feel bad about the Patreon. I always forget to post stuff there. When I do think “I bet the patrons on Patreon would love to see this…I should post it!” I immediately change my mind: “Well, it’ll just get leaked, so why even bother?” and then I end up just not posting anything. I would like to apologize my patrons, but every time I say, “I’ll try to do better and post more often!”, I relapse back into rarely making any posts at all.
After working on Yandere Sim every day for over 11 years, it has become kind of impossible for me to imagine a life where I don’t work on Yandere Sim. Seeing my income decline sucks, but I’ll just keep working on it, anyway, because working on Yandere Sim is my default state of being, and not working on Yandere Sim would feel ultra weird.
“Wait. If you’ll work on Yandere Sim no matter what, what’s the point of paying you money to work on it?”
Well, as my income declines, I’ll have to spent time searching for alternative sources of income, and thus, development speed will slow down even further.
Oh, hey, that reminds me – you know what I started doing recently?
You already know what Cameo is, right? I don’t need to define it for you, right? Right. Okay.
A few years ago, some guy tried to register the name “YandereDev” on Cameo. I didn’t want him to steal the username and start impersonating me, so I quickly registered an account and took the name so nobody else could. I didn’t actually plan to start doing Cameos regularly, so I didn’t mention it or advertise it anywhere.
Last month, I randomly got a Cameo request, despite the fact that I hadn’t told a soul that I was on the app. The request was kind of cute (sing my favorite song) so I did it. I thought it would be a one-off thing. But, apparently, it must have gotten uploaded somewhere, because now everyone knows I have a Cameo, and I get multiple requests every day.
As of today, I have now done 86 Cameos. Out of the 31,000 creators on Cameo, I am ranked 421st. As for how much money I’ve made…well, it’s less than I make per month on Patreon, but it’s significant.
I’ll continue doing Cameo videos. If my Patreon income continues to decline, I might actually start to advertise my Cameo. The less income I make, the more aggressively I’ll have to spend my time finding ways to make money.
I’m not saying, “Pay me money, or else I won’t work on Yandere Sim!!” but if my Patreon income declines, I’ll have to spend more time searching for other ways to make income…which is effectively the same outcome.
So, now that I’ve provided you with all of this information, I’m going to return to a question from earlier in the blog post:
“So, you’re blaming everyone else for your problems? It’s everyone else’s fault, and not yours?”
…well…
Yeah.
Yes.
Unironically, yes.
I did not put a gun to anyone’s head and force them to:
People chose to create those problems for me. All I want is to live in peace, but I can’t, because every type of weirdo on the Internet makes it their mission to fuck with my life in every possible way.
I don’t intend to discuss this topic very often, but I feel like I’m not being “Transparent” unless I acknowledge what is happening in my life, and this is the “Transparency Post,” so…there you go.
To the people who treat me like shit but simultaneously want the game’s development to go faster: maybe it’s time for a change of strategy. You’ve been trying “Treat YandereDev like shit to make him work harder” for the past 5~6 years, and it has only had the opposite effect, so maybe it’s time to try a new approach. Consider this: don’t be cruel and sadistic all the time. I know, I know, it’s a wild thought, but it’s just so crazy that it might actually work.
I mean…think about it. Is it logical to break a man’s legs and then complain that he’s slow? It’s sort of…your fault. So stop breaking his legs.
“You’re just making excuses!”
No, I’m describing reality.
If someone describes reality to you, and you dislike what you are hearing, you can’t just pretend it’s not valid by calling it an “excuse.”
If you refuse to acknowledge that harassment and lost morale will reduce someone’s productivity, you’re denying obvious and universally-recognized aspects of human nature.
Why would someone assassinate a political activist? Because they spend all their time in an online echo chamber that reinforces the notion that murdering the activist would be a good idea.
Why would someone send threats to a voice actor? Because they spend all their time in an online echo chamber that reinforces the notion that harassing/threatening anyone connected to a specific video game is a good idea.
If you are a member of a hateful echo chamber, I implore you to recognize that you are a member of a hate-cult and to get the hell out of there, because participating in such communities only produces one outcome: it brainwashes you into becoming a disgusting person who rationalizes words and behavior that should never be considered rational.
The #1 factor contributing to Yandere Simulator’s slow development speed is the abuse, bullying, harassment, and sabotage stemming from hateful echo chambers. If it wasn’t for those factors, then most of the problems that have plagued the game’s development over the past decade would not exist, and I would be able to develop the game without constantly facing new and entirely unnecessary obstacles.
No other game developer has to deal with this shit to this extent. Only me.
If you spew hateful remarks about Yandere Simulator and encourage an atmosphere of ridicule and shame surrounding the game, you are directly responsible for causing the events that have set back the game’s development and reduced the game’s development speed. If it wasn’t for you and your hate, the game would have been completed years ago.
The removal of hateful echo chambers from the Internet would drastically speed up Yandere Simulator’s development. If you are aware of such echo chambers, I implore you to scan them for content that violates the rules of the website or service they’re hosted on, and report them so that they get shut down forever. It’s unbelievable that these places are even allowed to exist in the first place.
“If thousands of people are abusing and bullying and harassing you, it must mean that you’re an awful person who deserves it!”
That’s a pretty wild thing to say. Imagine a man who beats his wife saying, “If I hit you, it means you deserve it!” If this really is your point of view, consider the possibility that you might be the bad guy here.
If you regularly think “every cruel and abusive thing I’m doing right now is morally justified, because the Internet told me this guy is a bad person!” please re-evaluate your fucking life.
“When will you begin working on Kizana? When will the game be finished?”
It doesn’t depend on me. It depends on the actions of other people.
It depends on how many volunteers quit due to receiving harassment from weird sociopaths. It depends on how many volunteers from 10 years ago contact me and tell me to remove their assets, leading to a huge waste of development time. It depends on how much income I lose due to the spread of misinformation and false accusations. It depends on how much time I have to spend debunking the latest photoshopped fake screenshots. It depends on how many people backstab me and betray me. It depends on how depressed and demotivated I get from the latest abuse and harassment.
It depends on you, your actions, your behavior, your choices, your decisions.
When people abuse me, bully me, harass me, and troll me, I get depressed and demotivated. The more demoralized I am, the more development speed slows down.
When artists and composers and modelers and voice actors quit my project because they are being harassed by people who hate the game, development speed slows down.
When people spread misinformation about me, which causes supporters to stop donating to me, I lose the ability to pay team members, and development speed slows down.
“When will you begin working on Kizana? When will the game be finished?”
That depends entirely on the cruelty of other people, not on me.
My personal work ethic is only 5% of the equation.
The other 95% depends on the choices that other people make.
Let’s be real here.
Most people in my position would have given up by now.
I think I stick around purely out of curiosity – “Wow, everything is so fucked! How much worse can things possibly get??” – rather than any belief that things are going to turn out okay.
I’ve spent the entire blog post talking about the people who spam me with harassment and discouraging messages, how my motivation has dropped to zero, etc. However, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the exact opposite.
In the midst of all this hate and harassment and bullshit, there is something to be happy about and grateful for.
Every time I get one of these messages, I take a screenshot.
I have a folder with hundreds of these.
Every day, I receive messages from people telling me that they appreciate my game and they’re grateful for what I’ve created.
Some of these people are nice enough to send me a kind message once per day. Some of these people even hand-write their messages to show their sincerity.
I don’t want these people to think, “Was it a pointless to try to cheer him up? He only focuses on the negative messages. My positive message was a waste of time, I guess.” So, I’m taking a moment to acknowledge them.
If it wasn’t for the people who DM me and e-mail me and leave comments just to say something nice, maybe I really would have given up by now. It’s because of these people that Yandere Simulator is still in development.
Your messages matter to me a lot.
Thank you.
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