Next Unreleased PokéSins Season

Helllllo Rivans

We are currently exactly 75% of the way through Season 2. I'm gonna be doing a G-Log in a few days discussing a certain PokéSins situation coming up (It's nothing bad. Just want people to be aware of it), and it made me realise that we should discuss what will happen to the $10 reward when the main series catches up.

It's not set in stone - things can always happen like delays, illness, emergency videos, etc - but I plan to have Season 2 wrapped up by the end of April. This will mean that the first Johto episode will release for free as part of the main series in early May. It will act just as Season 2 did; a set number of episodes at the start of the season will be completely free, then they'll begin to alternate between free and $5.

So what will happen to the $10 reward?

For obvious reasons, I won't be able to do Season 3 episodes for you guys... The main series will catch up too quickly. Instead, I propose that we jump ahead, past the other Johto Seasons, right to Hoenn in Season 6. My reasons for this are three-fold, but somewhat linked.

1. That way you guys aren't getting episodes taking place partway through a journey; there will still be at least fifteen episodes between the last one I covered and Season 4.

2. I won't be jumping in partway through a journey and having to work out what the canon is. This was an issue I found with a couple of my collaboration episodes; because I'd make them ahead of the others (due to the inherent delays in collaboration work), I'd sometimes miss that Ash did or didn't have a certain Pokemon with him. Similarly, inside/recurring jokes would be missing.
I expect main series viewers will find it jarring when suddenly I seem to switch back to my older style of episode when Season 3 begins. Subtitles, the old Plusle/Minun icons... A lot has changed since I started the $10 episodes.

3. A longer run before we need to skip ahead again. If I switched to Season 4 for you guys, I'd need to jump ahead to Season 5 before you knew it. Skipping ahead to Hoenn gives us a clean slate and a good long go of it.

As long as there aren't any deal-breaking objections (which I hope we could discuss if there are), that'll be the plan.

What About The Ones So Far?

This is a bit trickier. Honestly, I never considered this before I started writing this post, but I'm wondering if it'd make sense to not include the Unreleased Season 3 episodes in the $10 reward when Season 6 starts.
What I mean is that, upon the start of Season 3 as the main series and Season 6 as the Unreleased, the $10 reward will ONLY include Season 6 episodes. For the Season 3 episodes that you guys can view right now, you'd have to wait until their release as part of the main series.
I'm conflicted.

First-off, let me explain where I'm coming from. I value you guys and the series very highly. I wish, more than anything, to maintain my integrity as a creator and maintain the integrity of the entertainment I have created. For that reason I don't like the idea of taking away something that you can currently view.

Sadly not everyone has the integrity I wish they did.

More and more in the last year, I've been finding some patrons have been scamming the system. They pledge in such a way that they get all the rewards for as little money as possible. Either they stay at $5 normally and bump up to $10 once or twice a year to quickly watch all the Johto episodes then drop back down, or they pledge once at $5 or $10 then cancel entirely, only to return a few months later and repeat.

I consider this an unforgivable exploitation of Patreon's system and my trust. I have to be constantly vigilant against this behaviour to protect myself and you guys from being ripped off. While they're paying me as little as they can, they're also paying less to get the same rewards as you. That's not fair to any of us.

When I discover someone is doing this, I give them one warning that such an exploitation is not acceptable. If they refuse to stop or simply ignore me, I block them from pledging again. I could let them continue; I mean, hey, it's an extra $5 or $10 every few months, right? But to me the integrity of the service and the fairness to all of my other patrons is much more important.

But what does that have to do with Season 3?

Simply put, what would stop a $5 patron from upgrading to $10, watching ahead with 8 months worth of Johto episodes, then cancelling their pledge until the main series goes into new ground?

I don't like the idea of taking the episodes away from you guys - even temporarily - but I don't see any other way to stop a very easily exploitable system. The only possibility I can think of is going back to sending out passwords monthly, so only older patrons get access to the later Season 3 episodes, but that sounds like an organisational nightmare and, frankly, an unfair practice for new, sincere $10 patrons.

This is a very awkward situation, but I hope that you can understand my position and reasoning.

To sum up, I propose that the $10 episodes be Season 6 (Hoenn) episodes starting in May. I also propose, reluctantly, that, also starting in May, Season 3 episodes outside of the $5 main series ones no longer be included in the $10 reward.

Please give me your thoughts.

Thank you for reading.
- Geran