Future of Patreon

Hello!

So as you know, I kept my job and have been getting on with programming day 2. it’s been slow going with my day job, but musician Hop Skip and the Chew Toys made an amazing track for me! I will add it shortly!

While programming Day 2, I’ve been seeking out musicians to create not just incidental tracks, but a more cohesive sound track. Something with a leitmotif, and tracks that will amplify a certain set of scenes in the upcoming update.

I’ve found someone who is interested but I won’t name them yet until we hash things out but I’m excited to have a consistent soundscape.

this brings me to the purpose of this poll: upon consideration, and as deeply truly grateful as I am that people are continuing to support me despite the slow updates, I am thinking of either pausing my patreon entirely or switching to only getting paid upon a release.

My reasoning is as follows: getting money from folks while I struggle to work on the project weighs on my mind. The money isn’t being squandered; God knows the money I’ve gotten from the entire time I’ve run it has covered maybe a fraction of what I’ve spent so far. I never intended this to be a way to make a profit. It was always intended to be a way to help offset costs to accelerate the commissions I required to make the project work.

And yet, knowing people are sending me money, even as I need to concentrate on my work life makes me uneasy. ive never spent patreon money on anything but project costs but to a patron who isn’t seeing updates for almost a year, I can see why that would be frustrating and concerning.

so the poll is as follows: I can continue as-is, unchanged. Secondly, I can shut it down entirely, possibly to reopen it when my update schedule is more stable. Third: I switch over to only getting paid on a release.

while the first two are self explanatory, the third might need some context: the money I get via patreon is undoubtably helpful and has helped me offset the costs of BGs, sprite updates and stock music and sound effects. switching to only getting paid per update would likely require me to massively up the cost of each tier. I haven’t thought of or figured yet as this is still in a sort of consultancy stage. That said, every month that goes by without an update fills me with guilt, and I feel that that obligation is stressing me and potentially even making me make decisions when writing I might not normally do.

I need to stress that even if everyone stopped contributing tomorrow, the project would not end, I have no intentions of putting it on hiatus, at least not as “I’m going to ignore the project for x months”. This purely for my own psychological needs.

I also need to stress that patrons will still get added to the games credits, even if they have since cancelled or will cancel their contributions!

so with that in mind, I encourage you to vote!