I can't get it to download but I would like to so I can code against it. I really like making the game. I thinking of migrating it to Unity though because Renpy does not protect the script. Anyone can edit it easily.
While I understand this, you would be wasting your time, people always find a way, and it would be a disservice to current patrons, because you would be doing that instead of creating new content, and the whole move to unity 1. would be aids. 2. would hurt the game. unless you are doing real-time rendering you should pretty much never use unity. renp'y is designed for visual novel type games.
Imo devs should be like cdprojekt red, you don't need to worry about piracy if you make a good game. which so far I believe you have (only just starting playing it). So keep up the good work and you have nothing to worry about. who cares if a few people wanna skip the patreon wall, if someone really likes your game and wants to see it through, they will send some $$ your way. there is a reason games like summertime saga (old one but still valid) get so much money even though they are completely free (and i mean completely, afaik there is nothing in that game locked behind patreon).
So do yourself a favour and don't worry about it, will only cause yourself pain and distress, and isn't worth it. if you put the hard-work and passion in, money will come. Focus on creating loyal fans/followers, and they will buy almost anything, those are the people you want to focus on, not stopping the ones who don't (sometimes can't, people be poor) pay the $1. They ain't worth your time.
Just my 2 cents. O and to provide a proof of story for this, I pirated subnautica, played it for like 30-40+ hours, stopped playing, deleted it and bought it on steam, had the game not of been uploaded to the site I found it on, I would never have bought the game (wasn't interested in it, but when I looked at it on the "yarr" site and viewed some screens decided to give it a go). And I have heard many times of people doing this, hell some people only pirate to see if a game is worth buying. So I do believe if you make a game worth paying for (which you are) people will put money on it.
You have 35 patrons as of me writing this, those are the people that matter, not some guy posting a how to in the thread. And honestly I am surprised you don't have more. I think your problem might be a publicity thing, I myself have taken quite a while to play this game because there are so many. So I am going to give you what I think would be helpful tips.
Tips:
Create or get someone to create some signatures, the images below me. (there are plenty of people on this site that would be happy to help for nothing in return, hell I think there is a thread for requesting them)
Discord (if you don't have one) have public and patreon channels. some people lock the whole discord behind patreon, I think this is silly, if you get them there, they will constantly see the things they don't have access to and are more likely to pay because they want access.
DON'T change the current main photo for this thread, it is a great photo, and is the reason I have been wanting to play this game.
Be more active (creating your own discord is also a part of this, but deserved its own point). On f95discord, talk with other mods, be a bit more known, get to know the people playing your game. etc. (only if you have the time), GuassianFracture did this with simply talking about a game they are working on and their discord has over 3500 members, granted none of them are actually paying for anything, but Guass doesn't actually have any way to be paid, however many have expressed desire to donate, now if they could, I would wager less than 10% of those members would actually donate anything, but some might share your game to someone who would.
A benefit of talking with other likeminded devs, is that they can often be willing o put a shoutout of some sort to your game in theirs, (and in return you should do the same) this can be from a 'movie that comes on' an app of 'friends' on a phone, etc.
Do interviews with people who cover this type of thing, or request them. there are people who get paid to cover porn games, take advantage of that. Guass who I mentioned above recently did an interview with MrXBash, you could hit them up, here is their twitter:
You must be registered to see the links
Talk to the f95zone team about having your game on the homepag scroll banner (no idea how games get there myself, you might have to pay for it)
Prioritise thoughs who are loyal, don't bother the people who 'might' play your game, bother with those who do, there is nothing people hate more than a dev who is rude to players (unless said player deserves it). There be a reason devs like slonique are dilsiked (besides not keeping their word or properly finishing a game and starting another one ditching the previous, the also defend their actions and trash those who call them out, and yes as you may infer if you read my signature I am one of those people XD )
And if you are feeling uninspired, talk to your fans who inspire you to keep going, don't go to this thread or other places where there are those who demotivate you (which is why you should create a place for fans who want to inspire you to go besides patreon, I get more into this further down)
Devblog, this is something other devs and people who teach how to be a dev hammer into others, it helps build publicity and excitement (this can be done through some of the suggest things in the wall of text below)
Link everything/where people can follow you (as in the Robery you not the you you, you should keep your privacy
), so things like newgrounds, hentaifoundry, discord invite, a robery twitter account, anything you might have. Don't go out of your way to create them though. If you have none then create at least one for people to interact with you, while f95zone and patreon can do this, they should be the primary for to do so. If you want to notify people who enjoy and play you game, you should do so in something like discord, not everyone regularly checks patreon or this thread, so create a way they can do so with something they would use everyday (like discord).
And that is about all for know. You probably know a lot of this already, thought I would mention them just in case.
Whatever you do though, don't do anything that takes away from you wanting to make this game (trying to stop people from getting around paywalls can do this because it is very demotivating), if you keep working on it and enjoying what you make, people will notice, maybe not as quickly if you were more vocal online about what you do, but they will notice, and this will compound, just make sure they can follow you somehow (patreon is for donating not following imo).
Sorry for the wall of text, hope you got something useful out of reading this.
