kuja

This is so sad, Patreon...

Added 2018-01-28 11:45:40 +0000 UTC

[Abelius]: So here we come again...

Dating my Daughter and Big Brother have been forcibly shut down by Patreon.

I cannot express how frustrated and sad I feel at seeing those two great games going down, along with the livelihoods of their creators.

Some people say Patreon is not at fault, because they're only following the guidelines imposed by PayPal/Stripe, which in turn are companies that only care about money and the statistical risk commonly associated with adult-related transactions.

And sum to that that all those companies are based in a country (USA) that have made any depiction (yes, even fantasies) of an illegal sexual activity as illegal as their real world counterparts... and we have the perfect recipe for the epic witch hunt we're seeing in the last months.

I won't enter into a lengthy discussion about how incredibly fucked up it seems to me that fantasies are prohibited in the "Land of Freedom". My country is SO much more free than that...

However, from my point of view Patreon may be the executioner only, but their pro-activeness (Mr. Dots have been instructed to send his next game dialogues to them for prior approval!) in this matter could only be interpreted in one light: they have become mainstream enough that they don't care about adult creators anymore (they're already earning far more with mainstream creators than NSFW ones).

LOKR doesn't have (atm) any of those taboo topics, but I'm pretty sure that even if the rest of us fall in line and eliminate/refrain from adding all "questionable" content to our games, they'll attack us again at some point in the future until one day we wake up to a new ToS document stating that "Patreon doesn't allow any NSFW content".

Because at this point, Patreon's reassuring words are worth nothing to me.

That said, what we could do...? Well, I've been seeing into alternative financing methods like Hatreon and MakerSupport, even itch.io. But make no mistake: all of those are still US-based companies that will be slaves to payment processors when they become big enough.

Moreover, I don't think they have the same payment options as Patreon (Edit: itch.io has PayPal), both for patrons and creators. Patreon needed to convince PayPal allowing them to be used as option for NSFW projects, and only since one year ago. And payouts to Payoneer are also a necessity for us, being international creators.

Nevertheless, we've realized we cannot put all the eggs in the same basket, so I'm going to research into all those crowdfunding sites and return to you with an informed decision. Know, however, that LOKR will obviously continue on Patreon for as long as they allow our presence.

Trust me this is the last thing I needed: to spend even more of my limited time to ensure our livelihoods are not suddenly destroyed on a whim by some SJW "moderator". But they haven't left us any choice, I'm afraid. Hosting the game just here has become suicidal.

Anyway, I'll focus for now on completing 0.2 and we'll talk again after its launch, okay?

And thank you for all your support. I don't usually thank you enough for your faith in this project and us. Seeing how you stay with us month after month warms my heart. :-)