Remember when Bella Thorne blew up OnlyFans and made more money in a day than most of OF makes in a month combined?
There were a lot of chargebacks because she promised "nudes" and gave them handbra pics.
So that's a ton of transactions, followed the next day by a ton of transaction reversals.
That's considered suspicious activity, and it got the payment processors anxious. Not too long after that, CP was found on PornHub, and that put the processors on the offensive, and they went after OnlyFans even though OF is probably the single platform that goes out of its way to be FOSTA/SESTA compliant.
Forced with changing their terms of service as VISA's whims or going crypto-only, they chose the former. Unlike PH, OF was still small enough that going crypto-only would have been suicide. Honeslty, they knew when they made that decision that either one could wind up going poorly. So they threw a hail mary.
"Hey, we changed our terms of service as you requested, and the models are leaving in droves to smaller platforms that aren't FOSTA/SESTA compliant, have fun with that"
It worked. The payment processors let them change their terms of service back. At least for now. The damage is done to OF's reputation, but at least they're still in business.
Which runs afoul of Patreon's "If ANYTHING you do ANYWHERE offends us, we will shut you down" policy.
It does. As with most of these games, they're trying their best to fly under the radar. Some of them fly too high and get shut down. But most of the cosplayers on Patreon don't offer full nudes on ANY platform, so they're not even really at risk.
The issue is that the problem is going to dog us until it is somehow dealt with- if it even can be.
Remember when Bella Thorne blew up OnlyFans and made more money in a day than most of OF makes in a month combined?
There were a lot of chargebacks because she promised "nudes" and gave them handbra pics.
So that's a ton of transactions, followed the next day by a ton of transaction reversals.
That's considered suspicious activity, and it got the payment processors anxious. Not too long after that, CP was found on PornHub, and that put the processors on the offensive, and they went after OnlyFans even though OF is probably the single platform that goes out of its way to be FOSTA/SESTA compliant.
Forced with changing their terms of service as VISA's whims or going crypto-only, they chose the former. Unlike PH, OF was still small enough that going crypto-only would have been suicide. Honeslty, they knew when they made that decision that either one could wind up going poorly. So they threw a hail mary.
"Hey, we changed our terms of service as you requested, and the models are leaving in droves to smaller platforms that aren't FOSTA/SESTA compliant, have fun with that"
It worked. The payment processors let them change their terms of service back. At least for now. The damage is done to OF's reputation, but at least they're still in business.
It does. As with most of these games, they're trying their best to fly under the radar. Some of them fly too high and get shut down. But most of the cosplayers on Patreon don't offer full nudes on ANY platform, so they're not even really at risk.
That would require the underpinninig laws to change. It's the laws that drive everything else.
OF changed their rules, set limits on how much a model could charge, and put holds on international transactions that would make it easier to void them if the customer demanded a return (since those were the transactions that OF took a bath on), and those all hurt everyone else on the platform BUT her.
That worked for OnlyFans because %90 of its content is porn, so when all the adult content creators started moving their content elsewhere, it was an existential threat.
Patreon is not dependent upon revenue from adult content creators. Most of their creators are YouTubers, streamers, musicians, artists, authors, etc. Yeah, there's a lot of cosplayers, but most of the erotic cosplayers I am aware use Patreon for their non-erotic content and OF for their erotic content. Adult content creators are a very small fraction of their base, and one they can afford to lose. Abandoning VISA/paypal to retain the porn game business would alienate the majority of their base, who would move to a more convenient platform.
It's best to just recognize that Patreon is a bad platform for this type of content, always has been, and move on.
They won't miss us, and why waste energy on a club that doesn't want us as members?
They are not solely for adult content, but here's the thing, neither was LiL, yet Selebus lost 70% of his income. While they aren't entirely reliant, it WILL be significant if it happens to them. Not only that, but this censorship issue WOULD affect YouTubers as well as this is an issue that hits pretty close to home thanks to Google's rampant enforcement bots. If there is one thing you DON'T want to be known for in the YouTube community, censorship is it.
Here's the problem with just moving on, we have no idea how many of the patrons for LiL will leave with the game and move over and THAT is why Selebus is in so much of a bind right now, he stands to lose a significant portion of his income, possibly enough that it makes developing the game no longer feasible for his own survival. To be fair to the other side of that coin, I have seen a few people here and on Discord specifically say they canceled their Patreon and/or moved to SubscribeStar and have seen literally no one say they won't be supporting the game anymore specifically for lack of Patreon. I have already done the same and my account is awaiting action on a data erasure request.
What do you mean by "stuck"? Extra French Fries is in the middle of an event chain. You don't have to do anything to see the next event, and you shouldn't be able to spend *any* days on it.
We have some good news for once....sort of. It sounds like Selebus is starting to make moves toward an entirely SubscribeStar focused income and he has added goals to that page. The first goal, 50% recovery of lost income, is well on its way already to being filled. The second, 75% recovery and the ability to license/commission music returning, also has a signifcant portion of its bar filled. The third, full recovery to 2021 level income, is not quite half way.
I don't want to jump to conclusions here, but the game may not be in as much danger of ceasing production as originally feared, emphasis on MAY. Things could still go south, so don't take what I am saying as definitely what is going to happen in the end. Always wait until the final result is in.
We have some good news for once....sort of. It sounds like Selebus is starting to make moves toward an entirely SubscribeStar focused income and he has added goals to that page. The first goal, 50% recovery of lost income, is well on its way already to being filled. The second, 75% recovery and the ability to license/commission music returning, also has a signifcant portion of its bar filled. The third, full recovery to 2021 level income, is not quite half way.
I don't want to jump to conclusions here, but the game may not be in as much danger of ceasing production as originally feared, emphasis on MAY. Things could still go south, so don't take what I am saying as definitely what is going to happen in the end. Always wait until the final result is in.
He was making $2666 through subscribestar at that time. Not sure what it was immediately before patreon took the game down, but probably was a bit higher since he did just release a new version. So he recovered < $2000/month of lost income, when he was previously making $7k+ through patreon alone ($10k+ before the first takedown) on top of the other revenue sources.
On top of that, the game is going on a multiple month hiatus and just had an update that deliberately trolled the audience. He won't be broke (hell, he's making just about as much money through subscribestar as I do and I'm pretty comfortable with my standard of living), but he won't get back to the previous numbers any time soon.
He was making $2666 through subscribestar at that time. Not sure what it was immediately before patreon took the game down, but probably was a bit higher since he did just release a new version. So he recovered < $2000/month of lost income, when he was previously making $7k+ through patreon alone ($10k+ before the first takedown) on top of the other revenue sources.
On top of that, the game is going on a multiple month hiatus and just had an update that deliberately trolled the audience. He won't be broke (hell, he's making just about as much money through subscribestar as I do and I'm pretty comfortable with my standard of living), but he won't get back to the previous numbers any time soon.
Like I said in the third goal, 2021 level, which was before the first strike against the game. He was making quite a bit more back then than he has been up to this latest issue. The most important part is that he would recover enough to not have to worry about ceasing production of the game, which is a very real danger at the moment.
As for that last part, the update itself wasn't a troll update, there was trolling going on from the Discord, but the update was fully intentional as part of the story. It came together pretty nicely in a way that makes it seem like something does not want Sensei to reach that roof, but Sensei has made it every time so far. Each reset gets harder on Sensei as whoever or whatever wants Sensei to fail gets more desperate to stop him and, as a result, so do the puzzles.
He's going on a multiple month release hiatus, that does not mean he is stopping work on the game, he is reworking over 150 different events to varying degrees of change and that is what the hiatus is for, it would not make sense for him to release it as normal with a rework this large.
As for his standard of living, you do understand that he basically put all focus on the game, right? His entire income is the game right now, so if the game goes, he makes nothing and loses however much he pays in expenses per month, resulting in a net loss that may or may not be enough to handle on a negative income even for a single month. I won't compare where you live to where he lives because, out of the two of you, I only know what country he lives in since he outright said it back during the very first delay in the game's history, which came because of a large snowstorm that was causing power outages and other issues that were unsuitable conditions for game development.
As you can see in the above example, simply making $2,000 a month or whatever number a developer is making is not as good as you think once you take into account everything that comes out of that number before it ever reaches his pocket. If it weren't for these expenses, this situation would not be nearly as bad as it is for the game or for him. The game would not be in danger if he didn't have these expenses. The thing is he does, they are unavoidable. And here I didn't even get into any licensing that he may be paying for music, which REALLY gets expensive quick.
An annoying wrinkle of this situation is that it's very likely that there are many people who supported him through patreon who haven't even noticed it's been taken down yet.
It still shows him in my subscriptions like nothings wrong, I have to actually open his page before it says it's been removed.
Anyone who doesn't go either here or to the Discord likely doesn't even know that anything has happened.
As you can see in the above example, simply making $2,000 a month or whatever number a developer is making is not as good as you think once you take into account everything that comes out of that number before it ever reaches his pocket. If it weren't for these expenses, this situation would not be nearly as bad as it is for the game or for him. The game would not be in danger if he didn't have these expenses. The thing is he does, they are unavoidable. And here I didn't even get into any licensing that he may be paying for music, which REALLY gets expensive quick.
Last I checked, $4500 / month is considerably more than $2000/month. Those expenses you name are pretty much what anyone in the US would be paying, so I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make.
No. I'm not commenting on whether the $ amount is too much or too little for making a visual novel. Only that the amount he's making is enough to have a decent standard of living in the US.
As you can see in the above example, simply making $2,000 a month or whatever number a developer is making is not as good as you think once you take into account everything that comes out of that number before it ever reaches his pocket. If it weren't for these expenses, this situation would not be nearly as bad as it is for the game or for him. The game would not be in danger if he didn't have these expenses. The thing is he does, they are unavoidable. And here I didn't even get into any licensing that he may be paying for music, which REALLY gets expensive quick.
Last I checked, $4500 / month is considerably more than $2000/month. And assuming he wasn't completely idiotic with the few hundred grand he made before this, he should have plenty of money saved up to weather tougher times. Those expenses you name are pretty much what anyone in the US would be paying, so I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make there. He's also in Texas which famously has no state income tax and has some of the lowest cost of living in this country.
He's going on a multiple month release hiatus, that does not mean he is stopping work on the game, he is reworking over 150 different events to varying degrees of change and that is what the hiatus is for, it would not make sense for him to release it as normal with a rework this large.
Sure, but except for superfans like yourself, people don't really care about that. You're generally not going to attract new subscribers when there's a hiatus in content.
An annoying wrinkle of this situation is that it's very likely that there are many people who supported him through patreon who haven't even noticed it's been taken down yet.
It still shows him in my subscriptions like nothings wrong, I have to actually open his page before it says it's been removed.
Anyone who doesn't go either here or to the Discord likely doesn't even know that anything has happened.
Last I checked, $4500 / month is considerably more than $2000/month. Those expenses you name are pretty much what anyone in the US would be paying, so I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make.
Nice, stay safe out there, physicians aren't exactly the safest profession to be at the moment.
Like I said, "As you can see in the above example..." I did not use real numbers from actual data on the game, it was merely for example purposes. The point I was trying to make is that what revenue is actually coming in through SubscribeStar is considerably more than what he actually gets into his pocket due to things he still has to pay even before receiving any profit. I also didn't name every expense a lone game developer has to pay, I would have been typing that comment still even now if I did.
No, I'm a physician. Resident, hence the relatively low, but completely livable wage (albeit works out to something like $15/hour when putting the hours into account).
Last I checked, $4500 / month is considerably more than $2000/month. And assuming he wasn't completely idiotic with the few hundred grand he made before this, he should have plenty of money saved up to weather tougher times. Those expenses you name are pretty much what anyone in the US would be paying, so I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make there. He's also in Texas which famously has no state income tax and has some of the lowest cost of living in this country.
Sure, but except for superfans like yourself, people don't really care about that. You're generally not going to attract new subscribers when there's a hiatus in content.
Also, not a superfan, a superfan wouldn't oppose the developer regardless of what he did. A superfan would even support milking if the developer were to set that up. I have already been on record twice opposing him or his Discord. The first being because of specific scenes being removed in the rework that, to me, set up Ayane's early character before she starts to develop into what she is now (yes, the bathroom scene, and yes, I AM still opposed to that being removed). The second was when that troll was talking about the thing to delete a player's entire save data with no distinction being made between patrons who use this site, people who use this site simply as a forum and wait for the public versions, and actual pirates. I went off on the guy pretty hard and the only thing that stopped me from going over to the Discord and raising a stink directly to Selebus, who was not directly involved and made very little reaction to the trolling, was the very troll who made the comment coming here, allowing me to do what needed to be done without going straight to Selebus in a VERY foul mood. Funny enough, they've been oddly quiet over there at least in terms of any trolling on the same level as the one I went off on.
As for others who 'won't care,' they should because this is a gigantic update, the biggest in the game's history, that's why there's a hiatus. It isn't like all development is stopping or he's setting up to milk patrons. This is all coming together into something huge that will make the game flow better than it ever has plot wise. Anyone who doesn't care about plot development has simply found the wrong game for them, this is and always has been a plot focused game. The story has to make sense as does any event in it.
Last I checked, $4500 / month is considerably more than $2000/month. Those expenses you name are pretty much what anyone in the US would be paying, so I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make.
Oh I'm dumb. For some reason I mis-parsed your sentence as 'that's about what I earn ON SUBSCRIBESTAR'. As opposed to 'that's what I earn at my normal job'.
I guess I'm just thirsty for anything to play about now.
Sure, but except for superfans like yourself, people don't really care about that. You're generally not going to attract new subscribers when there's a hiatus in content.
Last I checked, $4500 / month is considerably more than $2000/month. And assuming he wasn't completely idiotic with the few hundred grand he made before this, he should have plenty of money saved up to weather tougher times. Those expenses you name are pretty much what anyone in the US would be paying, so I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make there. He's also in Texas which famously has no state income tax and has some of the lowest cost of living in this country.
Low in the rural parts of the state, manageable in most of the cities, and suddenly really expensive in Austin. Not sure where in the state he is. I know he took a break from the game to move last summer, so he may not even still be in Texas anymore.
That said, $4500 is enough anywhere in Texas, including Austin, for a single adult to get a one bedroom apartment and support themselves provided they're not underwater debt-wise. If he's also supporting a kid and/or partner with that, it starts to get a little dicey (in Austin, at least, considerably less so if you're an hour or longer out from one of the major cities).
But I get what he says about it being stressful. Even if half of what he was making is liveable under normal circumstance, losing over half your income is still losing over half your income, and that shit's disruptive as fuck no matter who you are.
