Others Patreon and incest advice.

[Corvus G.]

Title pretty much describes it. I'm making a visual novel where one of the characters is intended to be the MC's little sister. This is crucial to the story, since most of her route will be the family drama that comes with their relationship. I intend to use patron to try to monetize the game, so my question is:

1 - Is it true that patreon looks through your code, or is that an urban legend? I plan to use the usual name substitution patch thing. AKA the game defines the relationship as "roomate" then the unofficial patch changes it to "sister." Unfortunately that means patreon can just look at the code and figure out it was intended to be that way in the first place?

2- On the same vein, do nsfw renders with the sister have to go on the patch? Or can it be hardcoded into the game?

3 - Is there a way to redirect people who don't have the patch towards the patch, in game? Like, will patreon ban you for having a character casually break the fourth wall to mention there is an unofficial mod that does it? Because like I said, little sister is the intended relationship and the whole dynamic between both characters just doesn't work without that taboo. I'm kinda worried people will just skip the fact that the patch exists and start playing the game without it only to get hit with "you can't sleep with your roomate" and get confused lmao

That's pretty much it. Thanks in advance.

PD: On the question three, this is what I mean. One of the characters is talking, breaking the fourth wall and giving a few disclaimers. I really don't think this will fly if patreon decides to push it, but just in case, can anyone confirm it? Here is the dialogue in question.

 

[Count Morado]

Title pretty much describes it. I'm making a visual novel where one of the characters is intended to be the MC's little sister. This is crucial to the story, since most of her route will be the family drama that comes with their relationship. I intend to use patron to try to monetize the game, so my question is:

1 - Is it true that patreon looks through your code, or is that an urban legend? I plan to use the usual name substitution patch thing. AKA the game defines the relationship as "roomate" then the unofficial patch changes it to "sister." Unfortunately that means patreon can just look at the code and figure out it was intended to be that way in the first place?

2- On the same vein, do nsfw renders with the sister have to go on the patch? Or can it be hardcoded into the game?

3 - Is there a way to redirect people who don't have the patch towards the patch, in game? Like, will patreon ban you for having a character casually break the fourth wall to mention there is an unofficial mod that does it? Because like I said, little sister is the intended relationship and the whole dynamic between both characters just doesn't work without that taboo. I'm kinda worried people will just skip the fact that the patch exists and start playing the game without it only to get hit with "you can't sleep with your roomate" and get confused lmao

That's pretty much it. Thanks in advance.

If you are that concerned - you should use Subscribestar. Sure, there are examples of games which are flying under the radar, but then there are many more games which get nicked.

Patreon is against any reference to a patch (in game, on their site, etc) getting around their TOU that appears to be official. They are against incest. They are against underage characters in sexual situations. You might get by for a short period of time - but all it takes is one report from a disgruntled fan (for not doing their preferred scene or for focusing on someone who isn't their favorite NPC, or for you taking a week too long for their patience for you to release the next update) for your entire world to come crashing down, when it comes to Patreon and your donations.

 

[Corvus G.]

If you are that concerned - you should use Subscribestar. Sure, there are examples of games which are flying under the radar, but then there are many more games which get nicked.

The problem is that subscribestar doesn't really have that much of a userbase; certainly not as much as patreon.

They are against underage characters in sexual situations

No underage characters. I'm not that suicidal lmao.

Thanks for the reply. I don't plan to fly under the radar, I understand someone will eventually noticed. I just wanna know how far I can push and give light to the real content of the game before patreon decides there is no plausible deniability.

 

[GNVE]

If you need to ask the question you probably know the answer.

If you go down this route it will mean you can never rely on Patreon for your source of income. It will always need to be fun money. Now most likely this will never be a dilemma you need to deal with as most Dev's won't even crack the $10 mark let alone make a real income. But what if you do? Can you really keep 1K of money as fun money? what about 3K?
Can you honestly say you will keep working another job if you make 10K a month on Patreon? Do you really want the stress of potentially losing all of your Patreons at a moments notice without any warning? Especially when you need that money to pay your mortgage?
Again most likely it is not a problem you need to deal with but what if you do? I know it happened to a few Dev's doubt it was a relaxed time for them.

 

[watermankaku]

Fans are very smart, they will find their own way.

 

[peterppp]

PD: On the question three, this is what I mean. One of the characters is talking, breaking the fourth wall and giving a few disclaimers. I really don't think this will fly if patreon decides to push it, but just in case, can anyone confirm it? Here is the dialogue in question.
View attachment 2378288

It's weird that you want patreon to let you get away with a patch by pretending the patch is made by a fan while doing your best to say very obviously between the lines that it is your patch while throwing some insults at patreon. Make up your mind if it's more important to give patreon the finger or a way to look the other way.

 

[Corvus G.]

It's weird that you want patreon to let you get away with a patch by pretending the patch is made by a fan while doing your best to say very obviously between the lines that it is your patch while throwing some insults at patreon. Make up your mind if it's more important to give patreon the finger or a way to look the other way.

Yeah i guess you do have a point there lmao. Should just keep my head low then.

 

[Corvus G.]

If you need to ask the question you probably know the answer.

If you go down this route it will mean you can never rely on Patreon for your source of income. It will always need to be fun money. Now most likely this will never be a dilemma you need to deal with as most Dev's won't even crack the $10 mark let alone make a real income. But what if you do? Can you really keep 1K of money as fun money? what about 3K?
Can you honestly say you will keep working another job if you make 10K a month on Patreon? Do you really want the stress of potentially losing all of your Patreons at a moments notice without any warning? Especially when you need that money to pay your mortgage?
Again most likely it is not a problem you need to deal with but what if you do? I know it happened to a few Dev's doubt it was a relaxed time for them.

Is patreon banning games like this really that common? Genuine question. Because from the looks of it several games have 10k+ incomes through patreon while having clear incest in the game.

 

[GNVE]

Is patreon banning games like this really that common? Genuine question. Because from the looks of it several games have 10k+ incomes through patreon while having clear incest in the game.

I think I have seen 1-2 persons get banned completely and 3-4 get a temporary ban and I can't say I religiously track every creator on Patreon.

 

[Synx]

Is patreon banning games like this really that common? Genuine question. Because from the looks of it several games have 10k+ incomes through patreon while having clear incest in the game.

Yeah if it's a new developer since patreon doesn't lose much if they get banned.

For big earners Patreon seem much more lenient. I think moat of them have switched out the incest to a patch,m now though. Maybe not for older games.

 

[RedPillBlues]

1 - Is it true that patreon looks through your code, or is that an urban legend? I plan to use the usual name substitution patch thing. AKA the game defines the relationship as "roomate" then the unofficial patch changes it to "sister." Unfortunately that means patreon can just look at the code and figure out it was intended to be that way in the first place?

Almost 100% sure thats an urban legend. Patreon is such a large website, and adult games arent even a quarter of it. To think that the staff would be required to be able to look through code just to police a policy that was forced upon them seems far fetched. Not to mention the time it would take when they have so much content to look through. However, that doesnt mean that the person reporting your game for incest wont provide them with that info though. So while they probably don't do it themselves, it could still be used against you.

 

[Corvus G.]

I think I have seen 1-2 persons get banned completely and 3-4 get a temporary ban and I can't say I religiously track every creator on Patreon.

Yeah if it's a new developer since patreon doesn't lose much if they get banned.

For big earners Patreon seem much more lenient. I think moat of them have switched out the incest to a patch,m now though. Maybe not for older games.

Well, fuck. If that's an actual risk then I guess I give up on the patch. Can I use the whole 'you name the relationship' with this character thing, then? Maybe throw a close uo of a family picture to give the hint of what is the intended relationship. Would that work?

Almost 100% sure thats an urban legend. Patreon is such a large website, and adult games arent even a quarter of it. To think that the staff would be required to be able to look through code just to police a policy that was forced upon them seems far fetched. Not to mention the time it would take when they have so much content to look through. However, that doesnt mean that the person reporting your game for incest wont provide them with that info though. So while they probably don't do it themselves, it could still be used against you.

Jesus I hope no one is mad enough about my game to go around looking through the code lmao

 

[Count Morado]

Is patreon banning games like this really that common? Genuine question. Because from the looks of it several games have 10k+ incomes through patreon while having clear incest in the game.

Yes, it's that common. "But I'm the Bad Guy" was removed this week, as an example. Other games have received warnings and had to agree to certain terms for their creator accounts to remain -- for example, Mr. Dots had to remove all mention of one of his games, "Dating My Daughter" and never promote it on Patreon or have any links to it. I think that was about the same time as the big crack down in 2018 when DC removed all incest content from "Summertime Saga" and Uberpie did the same for "Taffy Tales." This was before Patreon became more strict, because these sites predated their current TOU. Either way - if you get a report against you, depending upon the severity you should expect the page to at least be suspended while you respond to Patreon's questions, meaning you'd be unable to accept funds during that time.

Can I use the whole 'you name the relationship' with this character thing, then?

Yes. But you don't need to offer hints like you mention - people will get the idea when you offer that option. That said, you will need to make sure all your dialogue/narrative works with relationships properly. For example, it would be ridiculous for you to have this as a line of dialogue:
(young lady): "MC we can't do that, we're <relationship>. It would be wrong."
Because there will be enough fans who aren't going to want to have the characters have the relationship you are writing for. It's obvious that if someone uses roommates/buddies/bff's then it makes that dialogue awkward and breaks immersion. You would do well to study some of the scripts of NaughtyRoad's "Light of My Life" to see how some creators handle relationship naming options (as well as other colloquialism options).

Jesus I hope no one is mad enough about my game to go around looking through the code lmao

You should expect people to do that, not hope they won't. You'll be better prepared.

The problem is that subscribestar doesn't really have that much of a userbase; certainly not as much as patreon.

Correct, but your consumer target demographic isn't the whole userbase of Patreon or Subscribestar. BreadmanGames decided to not use Patreon because of his intent of having incest content in "Demon Deals." That was October 2021. He's over $7k per month on Subscribestar less than a year and a half later.

But again, if you're getting into this to make a living --- you should be ready to live on peanut butter and crackers for a very long time before you break even, let alone be able to pay rent. About half of Patreon adult game creators bring in more than $100 per month.

So, if the median creator is bringing in less than $100 per month - it really doesn't matter if the creator is on Patreon or Subscribestar.

Spoiler: Patreon earnings breakdown in December 2022

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[MissFortune]

You might get by for a short period of time - but all it takes is one report from a disgruntled fan (for not doing their preferred scene or for focusing on someone who isn't their favorite NPC, or for you taking a week too long for their patience for you to release the next update) for your entire world to come crashing down, when it comes to Patreon and your donations.

Patreon will nearly always temp-suspend your Patreon landing page and give you a shot to pull all violating content from your game/VN and then allow you to get back on. Obviously following a playthrough by someone on their staff. If you refuse to remove it, they're obviously going to kick you. I imagine it'd be the same for someone who pulled said content, got let back on, and the put it back on afterwards.

"But I'm The Bad Guy?" had clear violations to begin with. Rape, loli, incest, and bestiality. It basically painted a target on its own back without a patch, honestly.

 

[Count Morado]

Patreon will nearly always temp-suspend your Patreon landing page and give you a shot to pull all violating content from your game/VN and then allow you to get back on. Obviously following a playthrough by someone on their staff. If you refuse to remove it, they're obviously going to kick you. I imagine it'd be the same for someone who pulled said content, got let back on, and the put it back on afterwards.

"But I'm The Bad Guy?" had clear violations to begin with. Rape, loli, incest, and bestiality. It basically painted a target on its own back without a patch, honestly.

Yup, I'm aware and I agree. Those were the first solid examples that came to mind since the OP was wondering if 'banning games like this was common.' It's common enough: "Doraemon X" (has incest content) - dev announced yesterday it was removed by Patreon (2 weeks after initial release)... and I can't remember another developer, but last week I saw a thread on F95 talking about how that other developer got a notice from Patreon to pull violating content and/or also remove any Patreon links about the game in question.

This all goes back to the OP's concept of "I know it's against TOU, but I'm going to tempt fate anyway." A person might get away with it for months or for years... but when Patreon does find out, is it worth the risk to everything built to that point?

 

[79flavors]

As far as I know, Patreon aren't looking at code. But they will react to content that is reported to them... and someone WILL report things to them.

They are also known to react to "patches" clearly created by the game's author. Even if that patch is never even mentioned on Patreon and hosted elsewhere.

If I were writing something, I'd create a "complies with the Terms of Use" game on Patreon and then release a patch on a site like F95 using a different account with a completely unconnected name. At least that way you can claim the patch is nothing to do with you and just fan created content you have no control over.

How you create the patch though really depends on whether you expect someone at Patreon to look at your "vanilla" code. I don't think they do. But then I could be wrong.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I think I have seen 1-2 persons get banned completely and 3-4 get a temporary ban and I can't say I religiously track every creator on Patreon.

There's more on both side. But mostly they are games with near to no attention, so it's not surprising that you missed their misadventures. Anyone who take his game a bit seriously is cautious enough to not break Patreon's rules too obviously and, therefore, stay below their radar.

 

[GNVE]

There's more on both side. But mostly they are games with near to no attention, so it's not surprising that you missed their misadventures. Anyone who take his game a bit seriously is cautious enough to not break Patreon's rules too obviously and, therefore, stay below their radar.

Yeah I'm not surprised. Most people think make Patreon get profit without doing any research about anything. I just didn't want to inflate the numbers so I only counted the examples I witnessed first hand. I have helped out some people with their Patreon in the past who did something against the TOU in smaller clearly unintentional ways (i.e. showing off their art with too much skin showing for instance).

 

[osanaiko]

I'll second the subscribestar and/or itch.io route: I only support developers on these platforms now. Not because of some revolutionary intent to make a stand against patreon's moral rules, but because their site is basically broken for me. Can't add support for new creators. Can't change support amount. Can't add new payment method. I suspect it's some intentional block put in place by the banking system in my home country.

Patreon proved the business model but have two big problems: one, they are based in the USA, and two, they are big targets using stripe as their payment provider. They have zero room to push back against visa/mastercard moralization rules that are enforced by stripe.

I'm dreaming of the day I can support game creators using some sort of easy + transparent crypto that isn't shady-as-fuck. The downside is that any system that lets me support game creators outside the credit card system is also perfect for actual bad guys (real life pedos).

 

[GNVE]

Trouble is that you don't have a payment processing platform if either Mastercard or Visa pull their support from your platform. I don't know the percentage of transactions that goes through one of those platforms but it is very high. Not pushing back against both moral codes is just good business sense. In the porn industry there are literal companies who help producers to toe the line of the TOU of these companies. (literally do not use term X but Y is probably ok).

When companies are so powerful that they have a literal duopoly it is impossible to make a stance. Yes you *can* make a stance but they have the power to shut down your company. In case of a payment processer they have the power to throw a large chuck of the online economy into turmoil by withdrawing support. (imagine 1000's of businesses having to find another payment processer on short notice.)

I agree with you on the Company being based out of the US though. In Europe sexual norms are a lot more relaxed in general compared to the US (or Anglo-Saxon countries in general). But if the roles where reversed we would have people from the US complaining here about how little violence is allowed in movies/games etc. as that is a lot more restricted in Europe when compared to the US. (The joke here is that we teach teens how to fuck each other and they teach teens how to kill each other).

Crypto for creators has it's own problems for me as a creator. The biggest benefit a platform like Patreon and Subscribestar have for me is that they take care of VAT. If I where to accept Paypal/Crypto or another form of direct donation I would be on the hook for paying VAT. I would need to know where the donation came from and pay VAT to that country. (And of course every country has it's own VAT percentage which I would need to know, keep on top of changes and look if for some reason I might be exempt from VAT in that country.) In short it is a B. And well I could ignore it of course but it is generally accepted to not fuck with the IRS no matter what country you are in.