Changes To Gar1onriva Patreon (Feedback Desired)

Helllllo Rivans!

This is a post I've been thinking about and planning for about a month. I would like to make big changes and all but overhaul how I do my Patreon. I want to change up some unpopular rewards, inject a bit of character into the tiers and find new ways to interact with you guys and give you what you want.

One thing at a time.

**REWARD TIERS**

My current rewards are as follows. Remember that each subsequent tier includes the rewards for all previous ones:

$1: Patreon Feed - Gain access to my Patreon feed and see any posts I write for patrons.
$3: Video Voting - A monthly vote to decide a First Impressions I'll make the following month.
$5: Main Series PokéSins - A password that gives access to all main series episodes of PokéSins which are currently all Seasons 1 and 2 episodes.
$10: Unreleased PokéSins - A password that gives access to ALL PokéSins. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are all included.
$15: Newsletter - A monthly newsletter about what I do, play and watch away from the channel.
$25: Monthly Gaming - A monthly gaming session with me and maybe some of my friends too.
$50: Monthly Private Chat - A monthly skype/discord voice chat where we can discuss basically anything.

Of these, three tier rewards are either not used at all or are barely used. Well...four, really, but I never really expected the $50 tier to be massively busy. Ignoring that one the ones that need tweaking are $3, $15 and $25. The $5 and $10 PokéSins tiers are my most popular, so I will not be making any changes to those.

**TIER IDEAS - ITIERS, IF YOU WILL**

Let’s start at the lower end. I like the Video Voting reward. I like that viewers have some direct control over which games I play and I look forward to bringing the Top 5s back into the vote. That’s why it saddens me that I get maybe three people voting each month. In addition, there is currently no one actually on the $3 tier; everyone who votes is a $5 or higher patron. That tells me that it isn’t appealing enough.

I got some feedback about the Video Vote last month, so in the future I’ll try to offer a wider selection of games as options and then inform voters of the winner.

What I would like to do, however, is move the Video Voting reward to be on the $1 tier instead. My reasons for this are twofold; firstly it’ll increase the pool of potential voters. Secondly since I stopped writing update posts on the progress of videos, there isn’t an awful lot that $1 patrons get for their support. If every single person who pledges could cast a vote for what videos get made, that would be a very tangible return on their pledge.

If I moved the vote to $1, however, that would leave the $3 tier empty. I have an idea for that. You may or may not be aware that a viewer set up a Gar1onriva Fans Discord server for viewers to chat and interact. It’s been great having a community like that; I go on every couple of days to catch up and chat a bit.

What about if I set up an Official Gar1onriva Discord server and changed the $3 reward to a special Discord role? I’ll be honest that I don’t have a lot of experience with Discord or running a proper server, but I’ve enjoyed the company in the Gar1onriva Fans Discord and I’m willing to give this a go.

Any thoughts on that?

As for the $15 and $25 tiers...I don’t have much in mind. While I enjoy writing the monthly newsletter, again there aren’t many people on that tier (or higher) to read it. Plus I’m seriously considering starting a podcast that would all but make it redundant.

I get that monthly pledges this high aren’t going to be a common thing, but I feel that inadequate rewards may be playing a role.

Any ideas whatsoever (except PokéSins-related things as discussed below) are welcome as to what I could offer for $15 and $25.

I know some people will suggest making changes to the PokéSins rewards; reducing them, adding more, making more episodes, etc. I’m afraid that I am vetoing all such suggestions. I’m very happy with the way I’m currently handling the main series and it pains me to say that I’ve fallen behind on the Johto episodes for $10 (which I plan to make up for somewhat this month... More on that another day).

My channel has daily content and most of it is gaming stuff. It may not be as popular as my PokéSins stuff, but I really enjoy making it. I’m also moving more towards scripted reviews and heavily-edited scripted gaming series, and don’t forget that I plan to start livestreaming on a very regular basis in the new year. My point is there is lots of stuff that I can do that isn’t connected to PokéSins, so please think outside that particular box.

**STYLE OVERHAUL**

You may have seen on other Patreon Creator pages that you can put an image for each tier, giving them some character and making them more eye-catching. I love that. I really want to do that. Thinking along those lines also gave me an idea; I think it’s finally time to ‘name’ my reward tiers.

At the moment I refer to the different pledge tiers by the dollars per month or the reward; $10s are Unreleased PokeSins, $3s are Video Vote, etc. I propose that each tier is given a name and character, taking from the pool of series and art that I’ve done on my channel. I’d very much like patrons of each tier to help pick their tier’s mascot and for the character to have something to do with the tier if possible.

At the top of this post are icons I very quickly made from the various characters who have (or will soon) appeared on my channel. I’m also open to having new icons made to represent series I’ve not had official art made for before, if there’s a particular favourite.

I have some ideas for pairings already.

For the $1 pledge the only option I really see is ‘Rivan’, and it can use one of the versions of my avatar. I thought this because anyone who pledges is playing a very active role in keeping me doing what I’m doing; they are a true Rivan without a doubt.

For the $5 and $10 pledges, it’s gotta be Plusle and Minun in some form, right? The way round that occurred to me was Minun at $5 and Plusle at $10, but I’m open to alternatives. Perhaps FEEBAS at $5 and Yin & Yang at $10? Pokémon-related, definitely.

Not thought much about the others. I’m inclined to let my one current $50 patron have almost free pick for that tier, though I suspect the ‘Tabby Tier’ might be a favourite. Same for the few $15 patrons for their tier.

The other tiers I’m completely open to ideas. Which of my characters do you think should represent the different tiers?

**TLDR**

I’m looking for a lot of feedback here. Rewards, pledges, characters... Can’t really sum this one up much. This was a rather rambling post, but it’s hard to streamline an overhaul like this.

Please give me your thoughts and bear in mind what I’ve said. Whether you’re currently a patron or not and whatever tier you might be on, I value your opinion greatly. With your feedback I can mould this Patreon into something better than ever.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this and thank you even more if you give me your thoughts.

Your support keeps me and this channel going.

Caaaaatch you later,
Geran ‘Gar1onriva’