Late night thoughts...

As some of our patrons may have read in our latest early access post, I haven't been in the best frame of mind recently. This is due to a combination many things; real-life stresses, work-related pressures, and personal challenges. One of our pets falling ill, needed surgery, & leading to a huge vet bill, along with many other issues.

When I'm not working my arse off in real life, I'm at the computer working on sims content. When I'm not doing that, I'm trying to manage our socials, replying to messages, taking photos, posting content previews, and uploading publicly released content. On top of all this, we unfortunately have to deal with legal issues such as DMCA claims. Why? Because some people are selfish, entitled, and simply do not care.

If it's not people in the community bitching & spreading misinformation about us, it's people from other games ripping, converting, and reselling our models. It honestly feels like we can’t catch a break. Even when we try to do something nice, like releasing free content for all simmers, it still gets 'leaked' for no reason. It feels like we’re constantly facing negativity and disrespect from both the community and other gaming circles.

We follow the rules and treat everyone kindly, yet it seems to get us nowhere. If people have issues with us, why not talk to us directly instead of spreading toxicity?

This doesn’t apply to everyone; we've made some close friendships in the community and consider many of our long-term patrons and followers as friends. However, the negativity often overshadows the positive aspects.

We're only small creators. But what is the point in us working hard on content, just for people to be rude, entitled & disrespectful? Respect works BOTH ways. It's demoralizing, especially when people have zero morals and think it's ok to steal someone else's work / profit off it.

I'm reaching a point where I need to seriously consider if all this time, money & effort we put into creating content for The Sims, is worth it. I hate to think of us following in the footsteps of another creator who recently gave up, but when is enough, enough? 
Do we quit totally? Do we just create blender models & no .package files? Because then we'd somehow have more rights over what we make, for less work? Or do we just create for a small group of simmers, who we've grown friendships with? Simmers who actually keep us motivated, are kind & appreciative for what we do? This includes non-patron as well as patrons.

For now, that's something I feel I need to reflect on...