Looks like I hit the nail on the head. The majority of that number is free members, not paying subscribers. They replaced "followers" with "free members" this year, so everyone following us (for free) instantly was added to our membership count. Patreon displays to you the full count with no separation between paying vs not paying. Here's a bit more context from Patreon about how this works:
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To be fair it's still quite a few, more than we ever expected, but more reasonably just replaces salary, covers taxes, benefits lost from not working for a corporation, enabled us to upgrade hardware dramatically, and even setup a voice actress from scratch with hardware who we pay for weekly voice recordings. Whatever is left lets us prepare for future projects and cover some business costs without running down to the wire on funds constantly.
We do have a plan for Eula (｡> ‿ ◕｡) It may fit in our plans for the year, we'll see!
Mona x Hu Tao x Slime eventually evolved into the very lengthy Mona x Slime project, but multiple characters x slime are in the cards for the future ٩(｡•`◡´•｡)۶ Perhaps Hu Tao x Mona too if their stories find a fun place to cross over! ❤
Shorter projects have been the plan for around a year now (around the time we did Succubus Hu Tao).
As for hiring people, it sounds great in theory and we'd love to work that out but there are some barriers that keep us from just snapping our fingers and having perfect workers to do our bidding and carry our vision. I'll rehash a bit of what I explained on patreon already:
Getting a professionally trained animator isn't the most likely, as they sacrifice job security, benefits, and certain legal protections just to join in our hobby. This kind of work can't exactly be advertised on a professional portfolio, or worse could get some artists in hot water if employers found out. And we ourselves are no strangers to controversy or death threats. That's the sad reality of adult content. Even payment processors don't like adult content and many will ban accounts transferring or storing funds for it. They would likely make less money than at a professional job too, especially if we hire say 2 or 3 more and divided everything equally.
In a perfect world we find another hobbyist who already knows what they're doing with this sort of work. However that will likely mean some sacrifice in pursuing what they want to make. With that level of skill they likely already have fans and certain types of content they enjoy creating. Content we may not be allowed to make or be interested in ourselves. There can be creative conflict, both between artists and fans of the respective creators.
And the alternative is someone starting out new and building up skills. However we can't dedicate all of our time to training someone from zero for 6 months to a year so they can begin being helpful at a basic level at this stage. We need self motivated persons that throw themselves into it head first, out of their own passion, just as we did. And moreover who want to make the same kinds of content we do. But it's quite rare in our experience. Many feel that fire for a few days or a few weeks, then it's gone. The ones who do pursue it may have their own creative vision and want to create their ideas, not share in ours, especially for things we can't make without losing our platforms.
No matter which of these scenarios though, we need people that have the time, and the passion to put that time into these works. An hour or two a day would make only a small dent. We need people with many hours a day every day to dedicate to this work like we do.
I think it will happen, for the right person(s) at the right time (｡> ‿ ◕｡)
