I won't go into the game of how regressive all this look. My games have all their banned content. Making hardcore yet consensual stuff is my stock in trade. Everyone talks about how banning incest is stupid, but that's vanilla level on my side 8D
Anyway, the reason I'm making this post is mainly for other creators. I'm currently actively looking for an alternative to Patreon as everyday it looks more and more obvious that I'll end up suspended no matter what, even if I'm a small dev.
There ARE alternatives. The problem is: I don't know how reliable they are. There are two alternative sites that would need some deep analyzing to check if they could be used as Patreon's replacements.
I'll start with the first one I don't know anything about:
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. I must admit I didn't log in, create an account or whatever. Google keeps yelling at me that apparently the alt-right in US use this to promote their stuff (hell if I care), but I wasn't able to find an article stating the pros and cons of the site compared to Patreon. Their ToS doesn't mention anything about adult stuff (banned content is more logical (drugs, terrorism etc...)). So if anyone has more informations to share, I'd gladly hear about it.
However I must admit I'm a bit surprised no one mentionned the second site as it is for me the closest to Patreon we can find:
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. Enty's basically the Japanese patreon. It was created only two years ago when Japan probably realized there were money to be done with Patreon's success. Personally I've known it for quite some time as more and more of the Japanese artists I follow on Pixiv use Enty. There's an english version of the site, but as you'd expect, it's far from being perfect and a good chunk is still in Japanese only. Unlike Hatreon, I DID make an account there to check a bit how things would work. I litterally reuploaded everything I butchered on my Patreon page a few days ago :
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Since I used it, checked their ToS and browsed some stuff on it, here are the pros and cons of Enty:
Pros:
- Text editor is miles ahead of Patreon's. It's a real one and it feels good.
- It's mostly in english. For a Japanese site, this is pro, believe me.
- Adult stuff is allowed
- Since the site is mainly used by Japanese people, you could potentially have new followers who might discover your work through it (don't underestimate how many Japanese people rely on Japanese-only sites for their games). Though to be totally honest, most of the creators here make 3D renders and that doesn't sell as well as 2D (except if the 3D is "anime-like" which is the case for none of us westerners I think).
- If you're motivated enough, you can make a translated version of your front page for each language the site propose (English, Japanese, Taiwanese, Korean). This way, Japanese people will fall directly on the Japanese presentation, English-speaking people on the english one etc... Of course it's optional.
- Their search engine has a "R-18 included" (adult stuff) triggerable. So people can find you by browsing the site's search engine.
- It can be seen as a con for some people but basically, Enty has a system to prevent "unfairness". When you pledge to someone you can only access to the posts that are 30 days old at the maximum (to avoid the fact that someone pledging today will have access to the same stuff than the guy supporting the creator for 2 years). If you want to access older stuff you need to pay more. When making a post, though, you can deactivate that feature and mention "make this post available to anyone anytime"
Cons:
- It's to be expected from any site that is NOT Patreon, but of course, if the content is R-18, you can't pledge with Paypal, only via credit card.
- The setting of the pledge levels is buggy and less easy to set up than on Patreon (and I think you can't put pics, though I didn't try it)
- Some parts are still in Japanese only (while it's not a problem for a good chunk of the site, very important features like the options of a new post are still in Japanese only)
- For some people it's not a problem but for me, it's a big one: they transfer the funds directly on your bank account. Personally I give 75% of each month's earning to the people I work with. I don't want to see that money on my bank account to pay taxes for money that isn't even for me...
- This is Japan so any R-18 pic should be censored (I'm talking about the pics you post on the site, I don't think the games themselves need to be since you host them on western servers).
- Fees can go between 5% to 10% on the creator side and 3,6% on the pledger side.
- And the last con which is probably my main concern: When you make a new post, you have to tick two boxes at the very bottom that are in Japanese only (but I translated them). Thoses are to state that the content you post doesn't feature "Sex or Violence towards underaged characters (read lolis, we're in Japan, if the character is 13 it's probably ok x))", "Bestiality", "Scatology".
Well fuck me for that last con, my games have all those. BUT! Cause yeah, hope isn't lost. There's a but.
One of the Japanese artist I follow draws bestiality only so I checked his Enty. And God is it ugly. He simply blanked out the animals from all his pics. So his account is filled with half-pics (any newcomer can't know what he deals with). It's important to note that locked posts have a clear "preview" of the pic uploaded in it. Unlike Patreon, it's not blurry and you can see it even if not pledging (hence the security of removing the discutable content himself, I think). Considering he's been on Enty for more than a year, it doesn't seem to be a problem. I can't check his posts cause I'd need to be a pledger so there are probably only two ways he's dealing around the problem: Either he uploads his work on another site and Enty's used to get the links and/or the password to access those links (there's a password system though I don't understand how it works), or he directly gives the content on the locked posts as it's actually not a problem to share "forbidden" stuff as long as 1) It's beyond a paywall 2) There are no pics of it on the post. This way, he uses Pixiv to get known (he uploads some pics from time to time there and give a link to his Enty), and people going on his page on Enty know perfectly what's hidden behind the huge blank chunks of his pics and they pledge.
This last part is extremely important cause if the only thing to respect is: don't post pics of banned content, Enty makes a serious alternative. If even links towards games hosted on non-Japanese servers containing banned stuff aren't allowed, that's another story. Now, I'm saying this, but I'm aware that most of the creators around here don't deal with underaged characters, bestiality and/or scato, so it's more a concern of mine and a few minority. But that's a question I'd love to have a definitive answer even if chances are pretty low on my side to do anything on Enty (I did things in the wrong order, I made the page before checking their FAQ ^^')
Sorry for the very long post but I thought it was important to share what I knew about some alternatives.
If anyone has more infos about Hatreon, Enty or any other site like that, please share. We all need a plan B for the future.
