Do you have a source for the more than 5%? I would more say currency conversion is an acceptable fee, but it shouldn't be more than 2%-3% of what the take would be. I'm also not sure what you mean by "transaction fees" since the person being funded isn't paying for the service. Patreon exists as a crowdfunding platform and makes its money off that 5%-8%. You would only incur transaction fees from doing business outside of payment. I'm not even aware of any employer inside and outside the US or Canada who bills you for paying you, so I'm really confused what "transaction fees" you're talking about.
Threshold doesn't live in the US afaik, so self-employment taxes wouldn't apply. Or, they could, but it's more speculative on if where he lives does tax self-employment.
Spend any amount of time browsing Patreon creator posts on places like Medium, Reddit, and even Patreon itself and many will break down exactly what they pay. For example from here:
You must be registered to see the links
Patreon fee = 8%, Patreon currency conversion fee = 2.5%, Transaction fee (per patron) = 2.5%(cant remember the exact amount) + $0.35 (set amount)
Lets assume you have a $1 tier (get rid of it if you do)
$1.00 * 10.5% (Patreon + transaction) = $0.11
$1.00 - $0.11 = $0.89
Okay, that's not bad. But here's where you actually get hit hard
$0.89 - $0.35(set amount transfer fee) = $0.54
You now have an effective fee of 46%
and if you factor in 15% income tax, you actually get less then half of what is pledged.
It's the lower tiers that really kill your fee rate. This is why I upped my $2 tier to $3. Ill do the same math with the $3 tier so you can get a better idea on how big of a difference it is.
$3.00 * 10.5% (Patreon + transaction) = $0.32
$3.00 - $0.32 = $2.68
$2.68 - $0.35(set amount transfer fee) = $2.33
You now have an effective fee of 22%
Or per here they cite 14-17%:
You must be registered to see the links
Finding larger sample sizes is admittedly tricky, but if you look, in willing to bet it'll be very hard to find any actually only having a 5-8% cut. This is particularly true with the changes to the Apple store taking a 30% cut off any supporter subscribing through the Apple app.
The average median income per household, which assumes two working adults, given the average wage was about $59k. The discrepancy from $59k to $80k indicates a trend, that being one member of the household is earning significantly less yearly than the other.
This is incorrect if using US Census data. While the median household income includes dual-earning households in its data, it does not include that as a universal assumption and includes single-earner households as well. It's a statistical measure of all actual households surveyed in the US Census. The fact that median household income is not a simple doubling of individual median income is potentially indicative both of unequal earners within dual-earner homes, but also the existence of single-earner homes as well as other various configurations.
I don't think we know Thresholds household configuration, so it's most reasonable to use the overall median and work with what we know rather than assume he has a high-earning partner.
Threshold is realistically making $3,200 per month after taxes and such, meaning he makes about $38k per year.
As mentioned above, that's based on a flawed understanding on Patreon fees. The 20% i listed might be on the higher end, but 15-20% pre-tax is realistic. Let's generously use 15%. That leaves $2,975 pre-tax. And very few countries would have a 0% tax rate.
I would say that's sustainable.
Average cost of living in the US is $2,433 for one person or $5,667 for a family of four. You stated Threshold doesn't live in the US, but not where he does live, so I'll continue to cite what I know since it's likely comparable for other similar countries. Average cost of living for Canada for an individual for example is $2,329.
So potentially sustainable for an individual, very tricky for a larger household. And that's cost of living, so no room for adding to savings.
Also, it's not called "AVN work" in America or anywhere else. You have to be a kid, cause no adult uses "AVN." We call it "porn" or "adult work" or "adult content."
Let's not be pedantic or result to ad hominem attacks by calling each other "kids". You understood what I meant. I'm referring specifically to supporting oneself by developing an adult game like this one.
In terms of adult content supporting anyone long-term, have you heard of a thing called "porn?" Or, that thing called "OnlyFans?" Or camgirls? Or, doujins? Or, fucking DLSITE? Like, it's not even a matter of "it might not work out." If someone has enough appeal, it can sustain them fairly well. There wouldn't be an entire global industry if porn didn't make money for everyone involved. That's some retard thinking there, bud.
I made no comment about adult content in general, just the uncertainty involved specifically in supporting yourself and possibly a family by developing an adult game such as this.
By mentioning OnlyFans, cam girls, and porn in general are you proposing that Threshold might shift to being a cam girl or starting an OnlyFans after finishing this game if he doesn't feel compelled to create another and doesn't have success doing so? If not, the appeal and success of that specific type of adult content is irrelevant to his ability to earn an income.
Threshold seems to be doing pretty well now. But the market space for games like this one is far narrower than adult content in general. And that makes it more financially risky.
$2,470 is livable depending on where you live. In Canada, you're obviously not buying a downtown apartment or condo in some cities. That said, a 1-bedroom in a more middle-class environment is sustainable.
It's potentially sustainable, sure. See the cost of living numbers i started above.
But you're assuming they live in or can relocate to an area where it is when that might but be the case. And you're assuming they'd be happy at a "sustainable" level rather than one that allows them to save for the future or they don't have things like medical expenses that increase their cost of living.
Also, you assume based on baseless conjecture that he's losing over $1,150 to "transaction fees" and currency conversion, which I highly doubt is the case. In fact, that would be insanely retarded for Patreon to charge, since a lot of content creators use them and losing over $1,000 per month isn't small change to a lot of them. Patreon would have been sued out the ass and shut down long ago if that were the case.
Not baseless conjecture. See earlier comments.
But also, for a direct quote, let's look at the Patreon details directly. Suppose they have a Pro plan (Founders is the plan with 5% base and only available to creators that joined before May 2019). Patreon takes:
8% of the income you earn on Patreon plus payment processing, currency conversion, payout fees, and applicable taxes.
Here's processing fees:
So now we're at 10.9% + $0.30 flat per supporter payment. Since most supporters of games like these are in the $2-5 range, that flat $0.30 is effectively another 6-15% cut for your typical dev.
Here's the average payment per supporter for Threshold:
So a $0.30 cut on $2.24 is roughly equivalent to another 13% on average. (In truth, they likely get charged a blend of the micro payment rate, which is effectively about 10% for them and the standard rate, which is about 16%).
He did actually launch Oct 2017 though, so let's change the 8% platform fee to 5% for potentially having Founder rates.
So 5% + 2.9% + 13% = 20.9%
Here's currency conversion fees:
So for foreign currency payments, it's now effectively 23.4%.
That's awfully close to the 20% I first mentioned, but actually even worse.
Payout fees are then added, but typically under $25 per payment processed to your account.
Meanwhile, he's where Apple changes a flat 30% fee
So payments via Apple have the privilege of being 30% + 8% platform fee cut off, minimum (unless you are grandfathered into Founder, in that case it's "only" 30% + 5%).
And this is all before any applicable taxes.
Patreon does this because they can and because many of these fees are typically on other platforms as well.
Basically this. Some places in Canada, there is absolutely no way to live in them unless you're making six figures per year, and even that's debatable. Other places are quite affordable with just above minimum wage.
See previous comment regarding you making assumptions that they live in or can easily relocate to a low cost of living area.
Or even that they or anyone they live with would want to for the sake of making an adult game faster by making it their full time job.
As far as Threshold specifically, I don't really have skin in the game. I found this game only pretty recently so am not as familiar with it's development history. But I get a bit worked up when people misrepresent how much devs are actually making as an argument that a dev
should make it their full time job.
In conclusion, I stand by my original point. The dev is likely losing about 20%+ to Patreon before even considering taxes. And if I was making $2,500 making an adult game (or heck, let's pretend they're actually getting $3,500), I wouldn't quit my day job and I understand why a dev might not either if their circumstances were similar.