So browsing through the Patreon posts on Kemono I noticed a poll from February...
View attachment 4844555
...and noticed that the Patrons appear to favor Option A. I cannot, in words, express how bad of an idea that would be. It's one thing to offer extra behind the scenes stuff to patrons but it's a whole other to paywall "extra" content in the core product you're offering. At the end of the day this won't encourage new patrons and discourage pirates, it will do basically the exact opposite and likely kill interest in the game altogether.
True, but unfortunately, the monthly income is already more than enough to close the loop and turn this project into another case of:
Let me take a deep breath (metaphorically speaking):
"A project that closes with its loyal followers thinking that with just the supporters they have now are more than enough to live on, and so it gives them exclusive content to make them think they're superior. But at the end of the day, they end up being the same as always, and therefore any mistake you make or something that the vast majority doesn't like will end up causing all the supporters to suddenly leave. And since by that point you've generated such a bad reputation abroad due to all the cut content, no one new wants to join, and the project ends up abandoned."
More or less the same old story, except it varies depending on whether it's due to illness, the project ran out of budget, or simply "there were" creative problems.
Seriously, what does it cost new projects to replicate what others before them did and made it work?
If it's hard to get attention at first, I understand, but when you get to the point where you have a decent enough income, the answer isn't to consider whether to make content exclusive or not, or, like other well-known projects, to make game elements exclusive like a gallery or exclusive store with all the items or make it less "work" for some and more for others.
The answer is to give it little importance (unless there's a major drop, although that rarely happens), allow content for everyone, and ensure there's a huge variation among supporters, since they don't need to be loyal and have donated from start to finish. All you need is to ensure there's always a good amount, regardless of whether they're the same people or not.
And to do that, you need to ensure there's steady traffic, so the more open the path, the better. Not the other way around, and depending on which "group" you belong to, you go one way or another. With that, you only mark out the types of people who consume your content, and no one is happy about that, and that's why it's because established projects almost never paid attention to that type of ideas and they finish or are very close to finish without the matter how many years the carry already.