Patreon: Untenable model for game development?

[Doorknob22]

Hi. I'm a developer, so I'll try to bring by 2 cents.

I develop my game because I'm obsessed with it. I will develop it even if I'm the only person in the world who will play it. I am committed to make it awesome. Not for my fans or backers, for me.

I have a Subscribstar and thankfully, a growing roster of backers. The backers pay me as it is their way of saying "dude, we like what you do, please continue doing it.". I take their money becasue:
1. 3d resources, music and extra dev help cost money.
2. I hope, one day, to quit my day job and focus on making porn.

I have no intention of screwing my backers and from the games and artists I back up (on Patreon and Subscribestar), the majority of developers are very committed to get the game out, in the highest quality possible. I'm lucky to have a steady job and insane obsession to spend every free minute I have for almost a year now to work on the game. Others are not so lucky and have little time to work on their projects, so your point about studios slaving for years then releasing full games is not very realistic, I'm afraid. On the other hand, I never understood why some backers allow developers to "take them hostage". There's a shitload of great porn around, if a developer is not taking you seriously, why do you take them seriously? Can't wrap my head around this weird Stockholm syndrome.

Bottom line: back the developers you see are serious and committed because they make the games you enjoy and don't hesitate to stop backing up up developers who act like assholes.

 

[elizzyviolet]

As a game developer, I've always seen patreon as a sort of tip jar thing: i use patreon to donate to a few things I really like, and I mostly intend my own patreon to be a tip jar. So it's strange for me to see all these projects where people are supposed to pay like $10 a month to get early releases for a game that will be in development for 24 months: that's $240 spent over the game's development lifespan, and the game isn't guaranteed to be good! And i've seen some porn games be in development for far longer than 24 months, and with patreon tiers much higher than $10...

To me, it feels WEIRD when patreons are set up with the explicit purpose of having people sign up for long things like this to get access to the latest builds, rather than having patreons be a "i like your stuff, here's some money for you, i expect very little in return" thing. The fact that patreon itself seems to encourage this also feels strange.

I much prefer it when games are made and sold via more traditional means, even if they use an early access model, or a kickstarter, or even if the game is free and there's also a patreon tied in with the game that's framed as more of a tip jar. Subscription-based models seem more sensible for products, not services; imagine having a subscription-based model for any other "product", like a block of cheese.

"subscribe to my block of cheese at the $5 tier for early access" just feels weird, man.

I know i'm 100% giving my opinion here rather than giving any real facts and that other people likely feel differently, but I just had to get this out there.

 

[F4C430]

Isn't it kind of hypocritical to make an argument against Patreon when you use it yourself? It has that "do as i say, not as i do" feel to it. If you think Patreon is bad for game development then don't use it, simple as that. If other people disagree with you and choose to use Patreon, that's their choice.

 

[GingerSweetGirl]

Patreons long-term viability as a funding source is going to be dependent on the enforcement of their rules. As Patreon matures as a business and becomes more mainstream, there could be conflicts with some of the adult content produced via Patreon. I can see in the medium-term Patreon cracking down on developers who are ignoring or circumventing the rules. In that regard I think you'll see Patreon move to tighten their enforcement in the coming years, so if your game is based around incest then Patreon is not a long-term solution.

 

[Jofur]

Patreon is a middleman, yes, but they are also the reason why the western porn game industry is stagnating.

There also wasn't much of a western porn game industry before Patreon became more mainstream. It was more or less Japan or nothing.

It's like Steam and PC gaming. Sure, you had a couple of great western indie titles before it and it had a niche following. But despite it's many issues of shitty Unity asset flips, early access trash and oversaturation of 2D platformers, it can't go unsaid that indie gaming would never have eclipsed AAA games in quality and entertainment if it wasn't for Steam.

 

[Luderos]

Meanwhile, there are games created by and published by established studios that hire developers, artists and pay salaries to them, take all the risks and release a complete game, including support and patches for ca. $25.

The potential size of the market keeps this from really being relevant though. I think people miss this point a lot when thinking about the relative worth of games. GTA V was $60 at release because the publisher bet that it would sell 10-20 million copies. The smaller the market, the more each unit needs to cost for an equivalent product. Of course, adult games aren't GTA V, but they're also only selling to a relative handful of people. If you want a product that isn't mainstream, then you either get to put up with lower quality or higher prices (or likely both in some measure). You should really be thanking Patreon for enabling people who are really into certain kinds of content to essentially subsidize people who think all games should be $25 at most. Most of the top games here likely wouldn't exist without Patreon (or something similar).

 

[GingerSweetGirl]

The potential size of the market keeps this from really being relevant though. I think people miss this point a lot when thinking about the relative worth of games. GTA V was $60 at release because the publisher bet that it would sell 10-20 million copies. The smaller the market, the more each unit needs to cost for an equivalent product. Of course, adult games aren't GTA V, but they're also only selling to a relative handful of people. If you want a product that isn't mainstream, then you either get to put up with lower quality or higher prices (or likely both in some measure). You should really be thanking Patreon for enabling people who are really into certain kinds of content to essentially subsidize people who think all games should be $25 at most. Most of the top games here likely wouldn't exist without Patreon (or something similar).

Adult games are definitely a bougie niche market for those that have substantial amounts of disposable income.

 

[morphnet]

Patreon is a middleman, yes, but they are also the reason why the western porn game industry is stagnating. But people here aren't going to acknowledge that and will defend Patreon to their dying breath because a cock in the hand is worth two in the bush.

That makes no sense, Patreon did not start to help porn game dev's support themselves, porn games are only a small part of of that community. Music, writing, film making, cooking, art etc. make up the majority of that community and if patreon soley existed to support game dev's then there could be no defending them for most of the choices they have made towards porn games, the fact is dev's chose patreon as a service and supporters chose to go along with it.
Unless you blame the payment services EA use when they turn out a bad game, you can't blame patreon for "why the western porn game industry is stagnating" if a game is bad or the dev is and people still support it, then the blame is on the people who support it. They are clearly sending the message if one dev / company can get away with it then why not others.

 

[big numbers]

There also wasn't much of a western porn game industry before Patreon became more mainstream. It was more or less Japan or nothing.

And there still isn't, but that's besides the point. You see causation, I see just correlation.

It's like Steam and PC gaming. Sure, you had a couple of great western indie titles before it and it had a niche following. But despite it's many issues of shitty Unity asset flips, early access trash and oversaturation of 2D platformers, it can't go unsaid that indie gaming would never have eclipsed AAA games in quality and entertainment if it wasn't for Steam.

You're skipping a lot of historical context. PC gaming got its start from the video game crash of 1983. It wasn't until Sony and Microsoft entered the scene with the PS2 and Xbox that PC gaming started stagnating and needed Valve and Steam to come in to save it. I'd say that Patreon has more in common with Games For Windows than Steam, but the situation as a whole is really pretty apples to oranges.

That makes no sense, Patreon did not start to help porn game dev's support themselves, porn games are only a small part of of that community. Music, writing, film making, cooking, art etc. make up the majority of that community and if patreon soley existed to support game dev's then there could be no defending them for most of the choices they have made towards porn games, the fact is dev's chose patreon as a service and supporters chose to go along with it.
Unless you blame the payment services EA use when they turn out a bad game, you can't blame patreon for "why the western porn game industry is stagnating" if a game is bad or the dev is and people still support it, then the blame is on the people who support it. They are clearly sending the message if one dev / company can get away with it then why not others.

I'm not saying Patreon is sat there, twisting it's mustache and cackling evilly, gleeful that it's actions have caused the porn game industry to be stillborn. As with most cases of corporations causing problem, the problems stem from not giving a shit more than malice. You say there would be no defending them if they set out to be the sole supporter of game devs, the fact of the matter is they did by virtue of

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. Just because they might kind of wish that the creative class didn't include pornographic materials doesn't really help their case.

 

[Joshua Tree]

I'm not gonna justify the people who are deliberately making slow progress/are barley working on the game but rake in huge amounts of money. That's just asshole behavior. But at the end of the day, these "whales" are the ones who give me access to a huge amount of decent adult games, for free. So personally I can't really complain about creators abusing Patreon.

I will say this though, as a potential customer. Paying for Patreon as a paywall always seemed insane to me. I'm fine with delaying a release to non-patreons or exclusive behind the scenes stuff. Charitable donations are one thing, but once you go exclusive content it more or less just becomes a legitimate paywall subscription like Netflix or World of Warcraft. And as a consumer that subscription is such INCREDIBLY bad value. It's a weird psychological effect for me, whenever I see exclusive content my mind automatically goes into "customer mode" rather than "charity mode", and as a customer I would never in my life pay 5-10 bucks a month for a fairly simple porn game. Hell I can't even justify paying for a Netflix subscription.

Do you have solid evidence and proof of creators doing this? Just because a creator end up with success and a lot of people pledge and income go up doesn't necessary mean they get more hours to put into their project. Majority of these creators does it on a hobby basis, not a full time job. People tend to stare themselves blind on a creators income. They get x income so surly they can do more work. That is not how the world work though. If my boss told me he would increase my wages if I worked 100% harder/more, I would still be limited by the number of hours in a day. The pressure to deliver more and faster add to the burn out of creators if they jump into that hamster wheel.

Claiming creators paywall content because it get exclusive to the people who do pledge to them and not free to the ones that pirate their games is insane. If we don't get a "full" free version to download, it just mean piracy failed. For piracy to work you need to obtain a full version to start with. If it have some form of drm, then you need someone to crack that.

Patreon isn't a subscription platform, its a "support platform for creators". You need to see the platform as whole, not just adult games. Creators doesn't get any support, they less inclined to make any content. No people support, no games for you to nut too.

 

[Joshua Tree]

Patreon is a middleman, yes, but they are also the reason why the western porn game industry is stagnating. But people here aren't going to acknowledge that and will defend Patreon to their dying breath because a cock in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Uh, wrong... Steam have porn games. Even a fair number of creators on Patreon have started sell their games there. The "western porn game industry" is a niche. Creators on patreon is at most a "one man marching band", they are not a full game studio. Patreon isn't suitable to fund a full fledge game studio, and since games take time to make, you need funding. For adult games that pritty much leave fund raising like kickstarter or similar. Because people doesn't stand in line to throw out cash to fund a game studio for a year or two before they release a game so they can get their money back.

Or maybe you got the answers in how to secure funding for a small/medium sized game studio making a PORN game for a couple years before they get a product ready to release and hopefully earn enough to pay back the investors and hopefully get a little extra for themselves?

Patreon is a creator platform for a multitude of creations, adult games just a small part of it. So in that regard they would be the middleman of grandma's cooking recipes and "Joe's garage of fixing your own lawn movers", and a fuckton of anything else.

 

[arcaos]

I’m genuinely curious what Western Porn Games industry was supposedly killed/stagnated by patreon. To my knowledge, the pre-patreon western game ecosystem was basically just free flash games from Newgrounds and any Japanese games that could be cracked and uploaded (pre-MTL, most were still 100% Japanese). Was there some boom I missed?

 

[Hagatagar]

People tend to stare themselves blind on a creators income. They get x income so surly they can do more work. That is not how the world work though. If my boss told me he would increase my wages if I worked 100% harder/more, I would still be limited by the number of hours in a day. The pressure to deliver more and faster add to the burn out of creators if they jump into that hamster wheel.

Isn't that the moment when people start demanding from the developer to hire (more) people, just because the dev makes 'enough' money?
At least I've seen this happen to non-porn indie devs.

 

[Joshua Tree]

Isn't that the moment when people start demanding from the developer to hire (more) people, just because the dev makes 'enough' money?
At least I've seen this happen to non-porn indie devs.

Because not everyone want to start hire people, or evolve their hobby project into a bigger business creating a game studio out of it. A creators measure of support and income just reflect their success with their project (whether you hate it or love it). I don't know how it work in your country, but once you start employ people you also take on a lot of responsibility.

 

[Joshua Tree]

I’m genuinely curious what Western Porn Games industry was supposedly killed/stagnated by patreon. To my knowledge, the pre-patreon western game ecosystem was basically just free flash games from Newgrounds and any Japanese games that could be cracked and uploaded (pre-MTL, most were still 100% Japanese). Was there some boom I missed?

The adult/porn industry jumped onto the cd bandwagon fast, with some FMV "games", but afaik that was just bunch of scenes played based on your decisions, scenes they probably taken from porn movies they already made anyways. More a supplement to the movies more than anything in regard of income.

The "father" if any of western adult games would been "Al Lowe" with Sierra's "Leisure Suit Larry" series, but that wasn't really porn, more games for adults with erotic.

 

[Hagatagar]

Because not everyone want to start hire people, or evolve their hobby project into a bigger business creating a game studio out of it. A creators measure of support and income just reflect their success with their project (whether you hate it or love it). I don't know how it work in your country, but once you start employ people you also take on a lot of responsibility.

Oh, I'm not defending those demands, it's just something I noticed. It feels a bit like the typical 'The customer is always right' bullshit.
And in my country you get a buttload of legal responsibility if you hire someone.

 

[Joshua Tree]

Oh, I'm not defending those demands, it's just something I noticed. It feels a bit like the typical 'The customer is always right' bullshit.
And in my country you get a buttload of legal responsibility if you hire someone.

The customers right is to stop support something or take their business elsewhere. It's called vote with your money. When I support a creator, it would be for their creation. If the creator one day decided to hire "Tom, Dick & Harry" to work for him. I'm quite sure that creation would change to something else.

 

[jamdan]

Patreon would gladly allow more types of content on their website if their payment processors would allow it. Do you think they really care about incest? No, of course not. If they did, they'd ban half the games on their platform. Nothing is stopping them from peeking in the code or on websites like this. In fact, some of them probably do. They just ignore it unless it becomes an issue. Haley's Story, a blatant incest game, was patchless for 75% of it's existence before it got reported.

Patreon is a middleman, yes, but they are also the reason why the western porn game industry is stagnating. But people here aren't going to acknowledge that and will defend Patreon to their dying breath because a cock in the hand is worth two in the bush.

I don't agree with the stagnating comment. I mean yeah, games are stagnating but it's not Patreons fault. The most stagnant thing (incest) is technically banned from their site **Read my above comment** . The issue with game stagnation is developers are largely copycats. It takes talent to make something unique, not so much talent to come up with your standard " the dad died and now the son will bone his mom and 2 sisters" game. Or the standard FMC game, which is basically a sexual harassment simulator. ***This also shows Patreon don't care what's on their site as long as it doesn't cause them issues, most FMC games would also be banned if they did***.

 

[GingerSweetGirl]

Patreon would gladly allow more types of content on their website if their payment processors would allow it. Do you think they really care about incest? No, of course not. If they did, they'd ban half the games on their platform. Nothing is stopping them from peeking in the code or on websites like this. In fact, some of them probably do. They just ignore it unless it becomes an issue. Haley's Story, a blatant incest game, was patchless for 75% of it's existence before it got reported.


I don't agree with the stagnating comment. I mean yeah, games are stagnating but it's not Patreons fault. The most stagnant thing (incest) is technically banned from their site **Read my above comment** . The issue with game stagnation is developers are largely copycats. It takes talent to make something unique, not so much talent to come up with your standard " the dad died and now the son will bone his mom and 2 sisters" game. Or the standard FMC game, which is basically a sexual harassment simulator. ***This also shows Patreon don't care what's on their site as long as it doesn't cause them issues, most FMC games would also be banned if they did***.

Like I said earlier, it's only a matter of time before Patreon does crack down on devs who violate the rules. I agree with you that it will be a business decision in the end. If/when Patreon sees potential growth outstripping the loss of devs who violate the rules, they'll begin to clamp down. As long as the two don't interfere with one another, Patreon won't rock the boat. But if push comes to shove and Patreon determines that it isn't worth it to keep putting up with rule violators, the crackdown will commence.

 

[jamdan]

Like I said earlier, it's only a matter of time before Patreon does crack down on devs who violate the rules. I agree with you that it will be a business decision in the end. If/when Patreon sees potential growth outstripping the loss of devs who violate the rules, they'll begin to clamp down. As long as the two don't interfere with one another, Patreon won't rock the boat. But if push comes to shove and Patreon determines that it isn't worth it to keep putting up with rule violators, the crackdown will commence.

I don't think so.

Cracking down on games would also lead to cracking down on the other sexual things. That is a very large base of people they'd lose. And, technically speaking, a game having a patch isn't breaking the rules. They have no way to prove the developer made the patch. Thus no way to prove the developer broke the rules. They can't ban people for content not on their site, especially if they can't actually prove the developer had anything to do with it.

On a semi-related note. I would be interested to see if someone made an "incest roleplay" game. That would be a way to have a game not need a patch. Incest roleplay isn't against the rules. As "roleplay" isn't real.

So, I think the current balance will stay as is. Patreon will be the funding platform. Developers will make games. Patches will be made, if needed. And the base will keep fapping along to landlady game #165390.