Eh.. I got my money, and there’s no putting that genie back in the bottle.
I’ve been pretty adamant about not pricing people out of early access to the game. Which is why my highest tier is $15. And as time’s gone on, I’ve taken steps to make my tiers more affordable. The $50 tier I had at the beginning dropped to $15, because I honestly felt some anxiety over some kind souls giving me $50/mo. My $15 weekly “sneak peek” feature dropped to $5 this year.
If I really wanted to start fighting piracy, I’d start releasing it at $30, $40, $50, embargoing it for a month or more, sending out DMCA notices, and being a general skinflint dick about it. Orrrr I can keep doing what I’ve been doing, and focus on delivering solid weekly content to my regular supporters who have been so very, very good to me.
I like making stuff, and I like cultivating a nice little community. I don’t necessarily see the chapter releases as the sole product. It’s the weekly dev updates I do for free, the $2 NSFW art feature I do bi-weekly, the $5 weekly ‘sneak peek’ posts with script samples and advance art, the $15 playtester builds, and THEN the chapter releases. Plus whatever nonsense I post on Discord.
So, am I thrilled people don’t want to wait for the improved $5 release in a few days? Not really! But, it’s out of my hands, so I’m not going to sulk about it.
Pirate sites continue to drive a lot of traffic towards me. So, I’ll take the good from that and try to entice as many people to sign up and support me, by delivering the best possible content I can week-to-week. Because that’s really the only thing that I can control! No use sweating the rest.