Yandere Sim 2015 Annual Report

2015 is almost over! Let’s review some data about the blog!

• In 2014, this blog was viewed 184,000 times.
• In 2015, this blog was viewed 30,000,000 times!
• In 2014, the busiest day of the year was July 2nd, with 10,441 views.
• In 2015, The busiest day of the year was August 22nd with 216,504 views!

(That’s probably because of a very popular video that Markiplier uploaded on August 21st!)

My longest “posting streak” was during the first 5 days of December, when I updated the blog 5 days in a row. In fact, I’ve probably made more blog posts this month than any other month!

The most-viewed blog posts were “Please Stop Sending Me Stupid E-mails!” “E-mail Problems and Download Problems” and “Things You Should Not E-mail YandereDev About“. Wow! I really did try my hardest to push that message, didn’t I?

The next most-viewed blog post was the School Atmosphere Update post. Before that, the most-viewed blog post was the Sanity In Yandere Sim post, waaaaay back in January!

Here’s where most of the blog’s traffic comes from.

Wow! More traffic comes from YouTube than all other sources combined. Yandere Simulator’s popularity can be directly attributed to Let’s Players. I’d like to extend my thanks to everyone who plays this game on YouTube!

This blog received a lot of traffic from AlphaBetaGamer. I think that’s because, for a very long time, this post on AlphaBetaGamer was the top Google search result for “Yandere Simulator Download”.

A lot of this blog’s traffic comes from Facebook. Why are you telling your friends and family that you bully schoolgirls and take panty shots?

There’s also a lot of traffic coming from VK, which is basically the Russian equivalent of Facebook. Wow! It looks like there’s a very active Yandere Simulator community in Russia!

I wonder why there is so much traffic coming from a Brazilian site called Baixaki? Probably because someone is hosting a really old build of the game there. But that build is from June! How embarrassing!

People from 223 different countries have viewed this blog! Here are the top 10:

Mexico, Brazil, France, Argentina, Spain, Chile, Thailand…wow! There are a lot of non-English speakers that enjoy Yandere Simulator! I’m looking forward to the day when I finalize the English script so that I can begin to provide the option to change the language that the game is displayed in.

Hmm…so, what are the countries that have viewed this blog the lowest number of times? Let’s take a look.

There is ONE dude in Samoa who knows what Yandere Simulator is. Who is it? Is it this guy?

Wait a second! This blog has been viewed 25 times in North Korea. But, Internet access in North Korea is limited to government usage only. Does this mean that someone in the North Korean government is a fan of Yandere Simulator? Could it be…Glorious Leader Himself?!

In 2015, the people who made the most comments on this blog were:

• Glb Jlznv, with 462 comments.
• Irosuhana, with 359 comments.
• poofymushroom, with 312 comments.

Wow! Thank you for taking such an interest in Yandere Simulator! But…I wonder…what have they been commenting about? I hope they weren’t just spamming “YandereDev is a loser!” the whole time…

Over the course of the past year, the latest debug build of the game has been hosted on several different websites: Mediafire, Mega, yanderesimulator.com, Google Docs, and yanderegame.com. So, how many times has the game been downloaded?

• Downloads from Mediafire: 3,722,039
• Downloads from Mega: 865,744
• Downloads from YandereSimulator.com: 242,564
• Downloads from Google Docs: 97,681
• Downloads from Yanderegame.com: 63,290

If we add up all of those numbers, then we can conclude that…

WOW! I’ve created a game that has been downloaded almost 5 million times! That’s pretty awesome!

(….most game developers probably would have started charging for the game by this point…)

Just imagine: What if I had received $1 for each download? The entire game would definitely have been funded by now!

So, what did I write at the end of last year’s Annual Report?

“I’m hoping to release a playable demo by March 1st, and launch a Kickstarter by April 2nd.”

…well, that sure didn’t happen. I’d love to finish implementing all core gameplay mechanics by March 1st of this year, and launch a Kickstarter by April 2nd of this year, but I definitely don’t want to make any promises. (After all, it didn’t work the last time…)

The only thing I CAN promise is that there will be a new build of the game uploaded on January 1st!

Here is the last time you’ll hear me say this in 2015: Thank you very much for following the development of Yandere Simulator!

Yandere-chan Is Coming To Town

It’s Christmas! Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope that you’re all having a wonderful day! Yandere-chan certainly seems to be experiencing some Christmas cheer in this beautiful illustration by Valeria S-Martin:

I hope you’re not tired of Christmas-themed videos yet, because I’ve got one more to share with you!

And with that, I think I’m officially out of Christmas-themed content to share with you all. I hope that these videos and illustrations have brought a little extra happiness into your life!

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Murder

It’s Christmas Eve! Long-time fans of Yandere Simulator might remember last year’s blog post, in which I expressed a desire to create a yandere-themed Christmas carol. Well, it’s been a full year, but my dream has finally come true!

I hope that everyone out there is enjoying the holiday season. Here’s some artwork from Noxina depicting Yandere-chan in a particularly festive mood!

I still have one more surprise planned for Christmas. If everything goes according to schedule, then I’ll have something else to share with you tomorrow. I hope that it works out!

Until then…Happy Holidays!

Senpai Baby

It’s the holiday season! I was planning on making a bunch of cool things for Christmas, like a Santa costume for Yandere-chan and an easter egg that would make it snow at school, but in the end, I decided that it would be a better use of my time to focus on progressing the game’s development, instead. I definitely have SOMETHING festive planned…but it’s not ready yet. Until then, I have something else to share with you!

The talented Princess Rizu has performed a Yandere-inspired parody of a famous Christmas song – it’s called “Senpai Baby”, and I’d love to share it with you!

I got a real kick out of those lyrics! What did you think?

I’m focusing the majority of my time on implementing the game’s next planned features…but I hope to share some more Christmas-themed content with you over the next few days!

Short Comic

Hello! I’m still hard at work on the next Yandere Simulator update. I’m probably going to work on it throughout the rest of December so that when I finally post it on January 1st, it’s as polished as it can be.

In the meantime, I have a short comic to share with you!

Some of you may remember a tweet from several months ago which contained a short story that was meant to demonstrate the fact that there’s no boundary Yandere-chan wouldn’t cross to protect Senpai.

That short story has now been illustrated by an artist with the pen-name of Achromatic, and I feel that it’s worth sharing with you!

Remember to read from right to left, since that’s how manga are printed.

Enjoy!

Yandere-chan is ice cold, isn’t she?

I wonder what other old tweets could be turned into a two-page manga…

In any event, I’m sorry that the next build still isn’t ready yet. However, there is some good news: I have something special planned for Christmas! I really hope that you will enjoy it!

Goodbye for now, and thanks for following the development of Yandere Simulator!

December 15th Progress Update

Aw, shucks! I was a few minutes too late to meet the “before midnight” deadline (in my timezone).

As usual, the latest YouTube video is the best way to learn about the latest progress:

Yes, you heard that right; there’s no new build available, and I cannot provide an estimate for when the next build will be available. Game development is too unpredictable. I keep running into unexpected hurdles that take lots of time to overcome. It’s probably time to drop the “every 2 weeks” update schedule.

I’d love to have a new build available within the next few days, but I can’t provide any guarantees. However, I feel very certain that there will be a new build by January 1st.

The only thing I can guarantee is that if I receive less e-mails, I’ll have more time to work on the game. Have I said that enough lately? Maybe I haven’t said it enough. Maybe I should write a few dozen blog posts about how much I hate receiving stupid e-mails. Hey, guess what? I hate stupid e-mails. Please stop sending me stupid e-mails.

Next Update Video: The Night of December 15th

I usually upload a new video and a new build on the 1st and 15th day of every month, right when the clock strikes midnight and the date switches to the 1st or the 15th (in my timezone, which is PST). However, the next video won’t be ready within the next 6 hours. I need somewhere between 24 and 30 more hours to prepare the next update video.

I’m sorry for the wait!

I think that you guys are going to enjoy seeing the content that will be shown off in the next video, though!

Things You Should Not Email YandereDev About

Maybe nobody reads this blog post because it’s too long. I’ll try to write a shorter version.

• Don’t ask me questions.
• Don’t send me crash logs.
• Don’t send me suggestions.
• Don’t offer to translate the game.
• Don’t tell me that the game won’t run on your computer.

If you contact me about any of those things, I’m just going to link you to the “Stop Sending Stupid E-mails!” blog post.

In short, don’t ever contact me unless:

• You’re volunteering.
• You’re reporting a bug.
• You represent a company or a publication.
• You’re reporting someone who is impersonating me.
• You’re sharing fan art or cosplay.

And, only report bugs if you’re willing to follow the instructions written on this page.

This should be obvious, but every minute I spend reading your e-mail is a minute I am NOT developing the game. You don’t want to delay the game, do you? Then, only send me an e-mail me if you have something very important to say, or if your e-mail does not require a reply.

(I’m sorry to sound curt in this blog post, but I have to keep it as short as possible, or else people won’t read it.)

About Original Characters

For many years, my biggest aspiration in life was to one day create a game that would inspire people to illustrate fan art, write fan fiction, and wear cosplay. I’m absolutely thrilled to see that a fandom has sprouted up around Yandere Simulator! I’m filled with glee whenever I see fan-made artwork or stories that were inspired by Yandere Sim, and I think that seeing people dress up as Yandere-chan is the coolest thing in the world!

Sometimes, people even imagine new characters for Yandere-chan’s school, or imagine new rivals for Yandere-chan to defeat. I think this is just as cool as all other fan creations! However, there’s something that I should mention: You’re welcome to share your creations with me, but I can’t include any of your original characters in Yandere Simulator. The reason why is a little bit complicated, so I’m going to explain using an anecdote.

Juju

Are you familiar with Skullgirls? It’s my favorite fighting game!

The character named Parasoul commands a group of soldiers, one of whom is a sniper. Shortly after Parasol was announced, a fan of the game made a post on the Skullgirls Facebook page, stating that Parasoul’s sniper should be named “Juju”, be a Chinese assassin, and have a talking rifle.

As a nod to this fan’s suggestion, the voice line “Take the shot, Juju!” was added to Skullgirls.

During Skullgirls’ IndieGogo campaign, the developers of the game allowed fans to vote for which characters should become playable in the future. Juju showed up on the poll as a potential playable character.

The fan who originally proposed the concept of Juju then made a Facebook post stating that he wished to be compensated for designing a character who was being used in a commercial product. The creators of Skullgirls began negotiating with this fan to get the rights to his character. However, it was very difficult for these two parties to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement, and acquiring the rights to Juju turned into a messy legal battle that lasted for several months.

After “continued disruptive and unprofessional conduct” from the fan who created Juju, the creators of Lab Zero decided to completely axe the character. “Take the shot, Juju!” was removed from the game, and the character was declared non-canon.

The moral of this story is that if you’re a game developer, and you use a fan-created character in your game without formally acquiring the rights to that character, you’re potentially setting yourself up for a legal nightmare.

If someone wants to design a character for Yandere Simulator, I must require them to sign a copyright transfer agreement which grants me the unlimited and exclusive right to sell, modify, produce derivative works of, display, distribute, or otherwise use their design in any form and by any method, within Yandere Simulator and all directly related media. Anything less than that, and I’m painting a target on my forehead and inviting them to sue me.

In other words, I refuse to let Yandere Simulator get “Juju’d”.

Learning from Juju

If you’ve designed a character for Yandere Simulator, and want to see your character appear in the game, I’m flattered – but I can’t use your design.

It’s possible that, one day, in the future, when I launch the Yandere Simulator crowd-funding campaign, one of the “backer rewards” will be the privilege of designing a student who will appear in the game. The backer will be able to choose the student’s name, personality, and schedule. This may be expensive. If there are extremely few “open character slots”, if it takes a lot of time and effort to implement a new student, and if Yandere Simulator requires a lot of money to be fully funded, then you would have to donate a very significant amount of money to see your character appear in the game.

The bottom line: I’m always delighted to see an original character that someone has designed for fun, but at this point in time, I can’t put your original characters into Yandere Sim. As stated above, I’ve learned important lessons from Juju, and I need to protect myself from those who would seek to take advantage of me.

Clarifying Yesterday’s Blog Post

Yesterday’s blog post received a much higher number of comments than the average blog post. Several people voiced some concerns, and I’d like to address them.

“YandereDev literally just threatened to publicly humiliate and slander any volunteer who asks for compensation!”

I re-read the relevant paragraph in yesterday’s blog post, and I think I can understand how someone would interpret it that way. Allow me to clarify.

Since the exact moment I accepted help from the very first volunteer, I acknowledged that every volunteer owns every asset they create, and that any volunteer, at any point in time, can say “You no longer have permission to use my work in your game.” Unless we’ve both signed a copyright transfer agreement or a contract that gives me the legal right to use their work in a commercial product, any volunteer can say “Remove my work from Yandere Simulator immediately” and I’d be obligated to obey them.

Because of this situation, it would be extremely easy for an unscrupulous volunteer to try and take advantage of me by saying, “Pay me $1000 right now, or else you must remove all of my assets from your game” one hour before I plan to post a new build of the game. I’d face the choice of making a “delay apology” video, removing their assets from the game, and scrambling to replace those assets…or just paying them $1,000.

In this situation, of course, I would not give in to their ransom demands. I would delete their assets, post a “Delay Apology” video, and explain that the new build is delayed because of someone’s greed. If a volunteer holds the game hostage, they are not just screwing me over, they are also delaying the game for the literally hundreds of thousands of people who play this game. If someone screws over the entire Yandere Simulator fanbase, I’m going to let you know that they did it.

All volunteers have the right to tell me I can’t use their work anymore. All volunteers have the right to charge money for their work. If a volunteer says “Hey YandereDev, I’ve been doing a lot of work for you, can we discuss compensation?” I’d happily discuss it with them.

If a volunteer asks for an absurd amount of money at an inconvenient time because they are attempting to extort money out of me, they won’t be able to do so without 300,000 people hearing about it.

Greed can make people do horrible things. If I don’t publicly state that I’m not going to let people push me around, then people are definitely going to try to push me around. Volunteers shouldn’t be scared to discuss money with me, but anyone who tries to double-cross me or extort me should not believe they can do so without consequences.

If you’re curious, every volunteer who I’ve spoken to since I wrote yesterday’s blog post has reacted positively to the news. Nobody has told me that they find it to be unfair.

“It’s rude to post someone’s artwork as an example of bad artwork!”

I understand why you would feel that way. Instead of linking to someone’s artwork and using it as an example of artwork that doesn’t meet my standards, I probably should have personally drawn an illustration to demonstrate what bad artwork looks like, since my own artwork looks even worse than the example I posted yesterday. Nobody appreciates their work being held up as an example of “bad” work.

This should go without saying, but I’ll say it just in case it’s not apparent: I really appreciate the fact that people generously offer to help me develop Yandere Simulator. I’m very grateful for that. I’m super thankful for that. The entire project relies on that.

However, far too much of my time is wasted reading e-mails from amateur artists who want to volunteer for the game despite the fact that their artwork is obviously not high-quality enough to appear in a commercial product. It really needs to stop. If your artwork is at this level of quality, please do not volunteer for the game; you’re wasting my time, and your time, as well.

If you feel sad that your artwork is considered “low-quality”, don’t get bitter; get better. Turn that sadness into a burning passion for self-improvement that drives you to grow as an artist and become the type of person who can eventually contribute meaningfully to a video game.

“YandereDev is rude to fans of the game.”

I can promise to make you a video game. I can’t promise to have an infinite amount of patience and friendliness at all times. Being a fan of Yandere Simulator does not give you a free pass to waste my time. Being a fan of Yandere Simulator does not mean that you are entitled to special treatment. If you send me a stupid question, a stupid suggestion, or waste my time, I will strongly discourage you from ever doing it again. I am YandereDev, not SoftFluffyGentleDev. I’m here to make a video game, not to handle every person who speaks to me with kid gloves.

With that said, 99% of the interactions that I have with fans over e-mail and Twitter are actually very pleasant and fun. 1% of the time, I do have to tell someone that they are being obnoxious and tell them to stop bothering me, but it’s honestly not a frequent occurrence.

If you really think I’m rude, you should research other indie game developers and find out what a rude developer REALLY sounds like.

“The game has been in development for 2 years, and it’s still so far from completion!”

I’m not Bethesda. I’m not CD Projekt Red. I’m not From Software. I’m not Kojima Productions. I’m not Nintendo. I’m one programmer with the support of some volunteers. I’m programming one feature at a time. If you want to see a game come out faster, I recommend following a game that is being developed by a company, instead.

“This game uses store-bought assets!”

I believe that the number of original assets far outnumbers the number of store-bought assets. Hopefully, the final game will contain 100% original assets.

“Yandere Simulator is just a bunch of code making some assets dance around, it’s not a real game.”

Correct. That’s what a game is like before it’s finished. If you want a finished game, please check back in the future.

“It’s foolish to not hire a secretary!”

No, it’s really not. It’s honestly a bad idea to hire a secretary. I’ve covered this topic before. It’s frustrating to see this subject get brought up so frequently. Anyone who suggests this is not thinking it through.

In Closing

If I started making defensive blog posts every day, this blog would quickly become a very lame place. I won’t make posts like this very often, but I feel like I had to speak up after reading the comments on yesterday’s blog post.

If someone has a problem with me, I really wish that I could have a dialogue with them and assuage their concerns. They might learn that they have misunderstood me or have misjudged me. However, I simply don’t have enough spare time to have a conversation with every single person who has formed a negative opinion of me. As a result, the comment section of every blog post might be absolutely full of misunderstandings and misinterpretations that lead to arguments and insults. This is extremely unfortunate.

All I can ask is that, before you write a giant scathing post about how I’m literally worse than Hitler and Satan combined, just consider the possibility that a couple of brief statements from me would actually clear everything up.