Patreon is not comparable to the medium of the artist - what kind of nonsense argument is that?
And the owners matter since working around given laws is easy. Patreon ownership is open and transparent thus also understandable why and how their services are restrictive. Without having a clear understanding of ownership of a service it can be used for anything from money laundring to terrorist financing for all we know.
It's meant as an implied metaphor. I'm not literally saying Patreon is an artistic medium. You really can't see any elements that are even remotely similar at all?
Metaphor: Restrictions exist for sculptors working with stone. Any sculptor using stone must work within the limits of that medium. Hence, for anyone wanting to create a sculpture out of stone, those limits are a challenge they need to overcome.
Comparison: Restrictions exist on Patreon. Anyone using Patreon must adhere to those restrictions. Hence, for anyone wanting to create with incest in their game who chooses to use the platform, those restrictions are a challenge they need to overcome.
My point has nothing to do with the reason for restrictions, the dangers of allowing anything at all on Patreon, etc. My
only point in bringing up their restrictions is that the obstacles exist because of the nature of the platform. The
nature of the thing — not whether the restrictions are justified, not whether the creators shouldn't look elsewhere, not anything else — is a part of the reason for creators "hiding" the implied incest.
It would be far less common to have "my best friend's daughter who is staying with us" than just "my daughter" if restrictions on distribution / crowdfunding platforms didn't exist. Thus, the platforms are the major reason this is even in discussion in the first place.
That's basically what's happened with Cassie in
Dr. Amana – Sexual Therapist. I remember that, in considerably earlier versions of this game, Cassie was absolutely without a doubt the daughter of the MC. When you entered your MC's surname at the beginning, she would then show the same surname in her character profile. Now, it's changed to showing something like, "H . . . some last name" or however exactly it's worded. I always go with a default MC name if it's provided, so I don't know whether the first letter matches with whatever the player enters as a custom surname. But the default name was Roger Harrington, so it's obvious she's supposed to be the daughter still. RomanHume only changed stuff like this after some time, and I'm pretty sure it's because policies on Patreon changed.
Patreon doesn't care about incest, they just ban it because their payment processors do not allow it. If Patreon actually took the initiative to ban content than broke their TOS, they'd have to ban 90% of the adult game content on there. I'd bet my house that at least a handful of Patreon employees play these games themselves. Maybe even have accounts on this site.
They don't ban anything unless it's reported to them. Some current games are unpatched and on the site (like Bad Memories) or Haley's Story that lasted for years before it was patched. Why? Because Patreon don't do anything unless it gets reported.
People who can't get around Patreon TOS aren't trying. And Patreon themselves are largely not trying to uphold it either.
This is likely also true, although I can't corroborate it since I don't have any kind of stats to demonstrate its veracity. But this again goes to the point that the platform itself creates the restrictions. Whether it's based on laws, shareholders being squeamish, or anything else really isn't my point. My point is just that it exists. Because it exists, if you use the platform you have to deal with it. Developers may often deal with it poorly, but they wouldn't have awkward dialogue, etc., to begin with if the platforms didn't impose restrictions.
