Oliver Wendell Homely
Active Member
- May 9, 2020
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Gotta agree with GrigoriRasputin and also say that patrons are not the same as customers. Neither are they the same as investors. They are supporters in the grandest sense of the word. From antiquity to the present day, most great artists (e.g. Van Gogh) starved. The lucky ones (e.g. Mozart and Beethoven) relied on one or a few generous patrons to survive. Patreon is just a modern-day way to spread patronage around and bundle the generosity of thousands of small tokens of support.
No one is compelled to be a patron. Artists, in turn, aren't beholden to their patrons. During Mozart's time, young budding composers--if they wanted to eat--got a job with the Church writing hymns and the like. Mozart was too unruly for the Church and wasn't interested in composing only hymns and church music. Fortunately for him, a noble named Baron Gottfried van Swieten was a wealthy fan of music who not only paid Mozart a salary, he provided generous gratuities. He paid for performances where Mozart could display his works and gain new patrons. Thanks to the Baron, during Mozart's relatively brief life he was able to compose almost 600 pieces of music, among them some of the most well-known and celebrated works ever written.
Now, of course EvaKiss is not Mozart. EvaKiss is making a pornographic visual novel. Music afficionados weep listening to Mozart. Horny dudes jack off playing EvaKiss. Even if society continues in the direction of "Idiocracy," neither ORS nor any other title on this site is likely to stand the test of time. But the patronage idea is the same.
If EvaKiss abandons the game and disappears, a la ICSTOR, she will lose her patrons. But until then, patrons will continue supporting her as she creates her vision. Same as Baron van Swieten let Mozart create his masterpieces. We're all entitled to our opinions and frustrations about delays etc., but given that the people here aren't even customers (since they're not paying for anything), our views on EvaKiss' work ethic etc. really don't matter.
