Patreon Account Selling Pirated Games - Developers Beware

Hyperserver

often the biggest step forward is to "step back"
Donor
Jun 30, 2018
2,903
7,710
well, that was really fast!
and as long as he uses his youtube channel:
and link there to "his" download pages, we are able to trace him.
(watch the descriptions he made on his videos)

EDIT: Btw - based on the content rules ( ) it was easy to shut him down
 

Carpe Stultus

Engaged Member
Sep 30, 2018
3,402
8,845
Long story short, people go and pay for games on someone's patreon, when there's this site here. Right here. . Where everything is completely free and no one asks for money?


Those people there sure are dumb. And also I think it's quite "illegal" somehow, since he/she's definitely profit from games which devs I highly doubt will ever give the green light, to profit other than them themselves for obvious reasons.
Thats probably because they don't know this side exists or think they are on the safe side when they pay for that.

Its one thing if dev's post their stuff here more or less out of free will, but if someone tries to make money out of it, except the dev, its just straight up scum.
 

gamersglory

Xpression Games
Donor
Game Developer
Aug 23, 2017
1,356
3,558
I've dedicated my life into makeing his a l
Thats probably because they don't know this side exists or think they are on the safe side when they pay for that.

Its one thing if dev's post their stuff here more or less out of free will, but if someone tries to make money out of it, except the dev, its just straight up scum.
Never happen with us we did do public releases of an older update but stopped because of the paid releases showing up here not long after it being posted on our patreon. So Ptolemy decided not to waste his time. We stopped Dana when we did because of piracy. he did not want to feed the pirates who were making money off of it. Our next games will be web-based after the current ones are over unless support goes way up
 

Carpe Stultus

Engaged Member
Sep 30, 2018
3,402
8,845
I've dedicated my life into makeing his a l


Never happen with us we did do public releases of an older update but stopped because of the paid releases showing up here not long after it being posted on our patreon. So Ptolemy decided not to waste his time. We stopped Dana when we did because of piracy. he did not want to feed the pirates who were making money off of it. Our next games will be web-based after the current ones are over unless support goes way up
Yeah thats what i mean. No one besides the dev should make money with piracy, i mean we all know its already a double edged sword with this side right here. On one hand it can bring a dev publicity and some more paying patreons, but it can also end up hurting them.
 

gamersglory

Xpression Games
Donor
Game Developer
Aug 23, 2017
1,356
3,558
Yeah thats what i mean. No one besides the dev should make money with piracy, i mean we all know its already a double edged sword with this side right here. On one hand it can bring a dev publicity and some more paying patreons, but it can also end up hurting them.
In our case millions of copies of Dana all over the web. never had more then 460 subs. Amount of lost money a ton
 

gamersglory

Xpression Games
Donor
Game Developer
Aug 23, 2017
1,356
3,558
Good luck I guess, just please don't be another Glamour.
We will offer a downloadable version for the public once and awhile. I'll personly deliver it to F95 Although glamor still makes a shit load of money
 

gamersglory

Xpression Games
Donor
Game Developer
Aug 23, 2017
1,356
3,558
Right now though All the games we currently make will still be released on Ren'py.
 

RomanHume

Sommelier of Pussy & Purveyor of Porn
Game Developer
Jan 5, 2018
2,390
13,340
We will offer a downloadable version for the public once and awhile. I'll personly deliver it to F95 Although glamor still makes a shit load of money
Yeah but per the public stats Dark Silver's player base dropped by half which is a big hit to revenue. So while he may be making a shit ton of money, It's less than when he a version that pirates could download.

We release a new version, there's some buzz and we get a little traction, but then a pirated version shows up on F95Zone and suddenly we get a mid-month spike in patrons. It's not a coincidence. Many of our patrons found us right here on F95Zone.

Sure that means our game appears in other places, but it would be much harder for us to sell people on the quality we're trying to produce if we kept our game hidden and just expected them to take a leap of faith by becoming a patron.

In the last year of production we've learned a very simple rule, if the players like you and they like your game, they'll support you. We've even decided that going forward we're just going to leave the console unlocked on our games. Fact of the matter is that the people who want to play it straight will play it straight and the people who want to tinker will tinker. Who are we to tell people how they should enjoy our game as long as they are enjoying it.

That's our angle anyway.
 

gamersglory

Xpression Games
Donor
Game Developer
Aug 23, 2017
1,356
3,558
Try telling that to Ptolemy. He thinks we lost more on Dana then we gained. He's trying to make it a business on his end. I might have to stop doing pr for him for a while to let him see what happens
 

Aesouh

Master Chief VNGineer
Modder
Game Developer
Sep 16, 2017
1,893
5,403
Try telling that to Ptolemy. He thinks we lost more on Dana then we gained. He's trying to make it a business on his end. I might have to stop doing pr for him for a while to let him see what happens
Only less than half percent of our player base are patrons, at least we hope for growth to sustain the project but, if you are _losing_ money you also need to evaluate your spending in the project.

We do a lot of investments in ours, it takes a long time to break even from that and we haven't yet, but you always have to be mindful where the money goes, i think a lot of creators out there that also makes games and patreon income is their only income, probably spend a lot of that money for the project on their living expenses...

They basically start the project due to the fact that they have no job and need to make money, not because they want to make a game and its a hobby, (at least many are like this, but i do know many start it as a hobby to)

Considering how some people drive their projects its not so strange to me that maybe they don't control the project budget funds that well either.

We never expect to get a 100% conversion of pirates to patrons, but at least we hope that those that can afford it would contribute a bit, and those who would never buy or afford it anyway, at least provides some exposure. Right now the battle is those that would and could pay but don't because there is a "free" alternative. :p
 

gamersglory

Xpression Games
Donor
Game Developer
Aug 23, 2017
1,356
3,558
half percent sounds about right As for him making a business he has a very well paying day job. He thinks he can change things so drastically and will still make what he does now. as for me getting money out of this, I don't get much so I'm cutting back. Not much else I can do as I'm disabled
 

Aesouh

Master Chief VNGineer
Modder
Game Developer
Sep 16, 2017
1,893
5,403
half percent sounds about right As for him making a business he has a very well paying day job. He thinks he can change things so drastically and will still make what he does now. as for me getting money out of this, I don't get much so I'm cutting back. Not much else I can do as I'm disabled
Well we were on less than 0.2% of conversion earlier, we had as many as 200 patrons on over 100k players, so you know, it takes time to convert, and also, make good games. make sure to always improve on your game not only on the story but the gameplay elements too etc. At least in our case there were a lot of gameplay problems before the engine change so of course we had to prove ourselves that we can deliver and what we are made of, which i think we have now for quite some time.

I also do have a very well paying job that requires a lot of me full time focus, and of course switching to only working on the project should at least yield somewhere in the similar range. Very individual goals I guess. But there's good and bad people everywhere, some people will always say hah we don't need as much, but then the quality is shit or they just milk the game and regardless of the funding they get they don't change anything.
 

gamersglory

Xpression Games
Donor
Game Developer
Aug 23, 2017
1,356
3,558
we have been at this for 2 years now made Dreaming of Dana as our first game millions of downloads no more than 360 patreons at any given time.