Important Announcement Regarding IA

We want to inform all of you what will be happening with IA in the near future. This is the message we are sending to all of our IA fans!

We apologize for this being a long post, but we felt it was the best way to explain everything.

First off, we would like to thank everyone in the IA community. Whether you have been with us since the very beginning, or have just joined us recently, IA would not be where it is today without the support and excitement generated by all of you! It makes us, the team, feel especially happy to see how many of you enjoy our game and its content. It's especially great to see during a time when the hostility towards the content of this kind of game has become extreme from other websites and businesses.

Thanks to your feedback and bug reporting, we've been able to improve upon IA and make it better and better. It feels great to be accepted and welcomed as adult developers on here, and it keeps us inspired to develop more adult games in the future!

As some of you may have heard, IA's development is nearing its completion soon. There will be at least one additional content update after this current build (0.0050) containing a new scene along with an epilogue image. There may be a few additional non-content updates in the future, (such as mod support) but any artwork related updates will be finished in the next build or two.

The primary reason for IA completing is because Soapmonster wanted to finish his tenure with IA, and move onto his own projects and work. He has been providing the character and scene art for IA for nearly 2.5 years! 1.5 years of that time being spent on drawing scenes and animations, for continuous monthly updates since IA first launched in August 2017. His decision is completely understandable considering how much artwork he has put into IA, and how long he has been with the project. This was not a sudden decision made by Soapmonster either, as he had discussed and agreed with the team some time ago that he would complete his artwork with IA after a certain length of time. Soapmonster actually went longer than was originally agreed upon, because he wanted to give a proper send-off for IA and its characters.

We felt it wouldn't feel right to replace Soapmonster with a completely different artist, and it also would be extremely difficult to find an artist capable of drawing and animating everything that Soap has. Artists willing to depict shota and loli are becoming more and more difficult to find, and with good reason; the internet has become very hostile towards that kind of art.

During the course of IA's development, there were several times where it almost was nuked. They were very close calls, where the team honestly debated whether or not we could continue with IA at all, after Patreon effectively de-platformed the game from their service. However, it's not just Patreon that's made developing these kinds of games more difficult, but payment processors in general. They effectively have been imposing their moral will on different crowdfunding platforms, and continue to do so. (An example of this is Paypal removing their service from Subscribestar.)

Back when we were put under review by Patreon for a second time in March 2018, Patreon effectively gave us an ultimatum that many other adult devs have faced: either remove all the content that violates our guidelines, or remove the game from our platform so it can't be funded by Patreon.

Many developers made the first choice, forcing them to change not only dialogue, but the very heart of their game. We never wanted to do this to IA, as it would have gutted everything that made the game what it is. As a result of our decision, we knew we could no longer mention, advertise, or link Patreon in any way, shape, or form in relation to IA. And it definitely hurt us financially.

While the topic of income is a taboo subject, it's important to point out just how much de-platforming can disrupt a developer. Before IA was removed from Patreon, our monthly income was steadily rising every month, reaching a peak of $4,000/month, a very healthy income. After the Patreon review, our income dropped, and now sits around $1400/month, more than a 1/3rd of the amount, and is still falling steadily every proceeding month.

We would have finished IA regardless of the financial situation, but it did play a role in determining what games we would develop down the road. Having a constant fear in the back of your mind of being reported by creating a game you feel passionately about is stressful to deal with, and no one should have to experience it. Sadly, it's the way the climate is right now, and it's difficult to see it reversing anytime soon.

In other words, IA will likely be the first, and only straight shota game we will ever make. Developing such a game, while also trying to earn an income, carries such a high risk, that ultimately it is not a viable option for the team.

We hope this gives you a better understanding as to what we've been through. It was always intended that IA would have an ending, and while there were things we wish could have been added, we feel our first game we ever developed turned out pretty well!

We are currently discussing plans to make IA moddable, after Soap's artwork is completed and the last content update is released. Our goal is to allow fans to expand IA further, and create their own crazy, sexy adventures!