Thanks for that! As for patronage, like I told your chummers InsaneErotica and (I think I did to) MiZtyl as well, I patron and have patroned books and games before. But I have stopped "patronage" of Patreon the company, because they are developing towards being a greedy, hypocrite curse for artists the moment you don´t bow to their fracked-up and arbitrarly enforced rules.
Their last "genius" move is trying to pressure artists to follow patreon rules outside of Patreon, where these a... have zero to say! So no, thank you for throwing money down their throat.
I still patron artists with alternate options for patronage and wait for the free versions of the games developed by patreon-only Devs, like e.g. Pale Carnations, which I would support directly if they had other options. In cases like yours (where it is often not really clear what is the free version and the leaked one) I wait, as a nod to your work, with playing it until the version has aged a bit, so no play if it is leaked on the same day as first-tiers get it.
I am a hobby writer myself, so I know quite well what goes into creating something, which is why I limit myself to patroned and free or aged games.
I don't know what you told miztyl, but I saw what happened with mfw.
I have a subscriberstar account, but I don't use it because it requires credit card. I have cards, but I use paypal because it's not wise to receive money directly to a bank in a country that doesn't allow porn.
Patreon's customer service told me they don't care what's happening outside Patreon. Which means if I developed another version of Summer of Love and posted it on other forums, they wouldn't ask me to take it down even if there was incest in it.
As for supporting, this is my thought:
1. Without piracy (F95, thepiratebay...), a lot of developers wouldn't have appeared because they don't know they can develop like this as well as no free assets to use. Example: if I didn't play Culture Shock & My Girlfriend's Amnesia, there wouldn't be The Engagement, Summer of Love.
2. After having money from supporters, developers go back to buy on daz3d to support the original creators of the assets.
3. These sites are the place to promote the games. Without these sites, no one knows the games.
It's a cycle, which helps beginners start developing without having to submit to tycoons in the business.
