What's up with the Patreon thing and devs?

[Mistress Nova]

Is patreon not allowing taboo subject matter as far as game devs taking sub donations for it?
I read a few other devs patreons and it seems like they are hinting at them not allowing it? How are they circumventing this because I would hate to go back and re-write dialogue

 

[Gomly1980]

Patreon has banned incest, rape, mind control and a few other things.

Some devs have worked around it others have given up.

 

[Mistress Nova]

EEK! Mind control?! That's such a slippery slope. Are they just doing the "not related" thing? Adopted. blah blah blah? I don't even see a way around mind control. Sheesh. My heart goes out to that end of the BDSM spectrum.
Wouldn't you be able to offer sub another version of the game if they are supporters? Sorry, I'm a little green in the adult scene. I have so many questions. I'm a former google play developer. I'm rather sick of the "rules" impeding on art of any kind.

Is it ok to post a demo including those types of taboos here? Is there safe harbor anywhere?

 

[Fasder]

EEK! Mind control?! That's such a slippery slope.

As far as I know this falls under non-consensual, meaning it's basically rape.

Are they just doing the "not related" thing?

Most people who have been under review have either patched their game to change roles, sisters becoming roomates, mom's becoming landlords etc. Or they have removed any trace of the previous roles.
They cannot be related in any stretch of the imagination which means step relations and adoption also need to be removed. I know I read somewhere that if they call eachother by family names E.G. sister/brother/mother/father it breaks the rules.

I don't even see a way around mind control.

Like I said it would be in a sexual position. If the mind control were in no way used for sexual exploitation this would probably be okay(don't take my word on it).

Wouldn't you be able to offer sub another version of the game if they are supporters?

You are no allowed to talk about any other version than one that doesn't break the rules on Patreon. You can however make a "directors cut" and publish it elsewhere, or have a patch that is obtainable in other places. You just can't tall your patrons about how to use it or where they can find it. I also think it would be advisable to do this anonymously. I don't think Patreon would be very supportive of you doing so.

Sorry, I'm a little green in the adult scene. I have so many questions.

There are plenty of threads on this forum which have covered this topic as much as possible since they changed the ToS.

I'm a former google play developer. I'm rather sick of the "rules" impeding on art of any kind.

It's unfortunate and bad that people who create fiction is held under the same standard as someone who practice these things in real life. There's a lot of similarities between how this industry is being ridiculed and brushed away to the industry that boomed only 30 or so years ago when violent video games first became popular.

Is it ok to post a demo including those types of taboos here? Is there safe harbor anywhere?

The only thing I know is not okay here is loli and or shota content(might be more, don't take my word for it).

Good luck!

 

[Papa Ernie]

Is patreon not allowing taboo subject matter as far as game devs taking sub donations for it?
I read a few other devs patreons and it seems like they are hinting at them not allowing it? How are they circumventing this because I would hate to go back and re-write dialogue

Reading is fun!

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[anne O'nymous]

EEK! Mind control?!

If you control/alter the mind of your partner, then it's not consensual sex. It's not more complicated than this.

Wouldn't you be able to offer sub another version of the game if they are supporters?

You can't use Patreon to fund a game with banned content, whatever the place the game is available. To keep going with Dating My Daughter, Mr.Dots had had to create another game, and remove any reference to DmD from his Patreon page. Technically the page fund the second game and DmD is unfunded.

Is it ok to post a demo including those types of taboos here? Is there safe harbor anywhere?

Minus the possible rules incompatibilities (see @jerricho13 post), it's ok. But as said above, it's against Patreon rules to fund the game, even if it's only available here.
This said, a lot of creators don't care (probably don't even know). But it's playing Russian roulette. As long as you stay under Patreon radar you'll be safe, but once they found you, there's risk that they simply kick you out of their site.

Take a look around, there's now at least two working alternatives to Patreon, it can be part of the solution.

 

[Mistress Nova]

Oh wow thanks for such detailed replies. I very much appreciate the time saved.
Just a word on the Mind control bit, in case there are some people that are not aware... It can be consensual.
People pay for it, I call that consent. Plain. Simple. If it's something you might be into, many Doms/ Dominas offer it both online and off. That' why I say it's a slippery slope and as far as patreons rules go, it's simply not covered. But the "under the radar" advice did not fall on deaf ears. Thanks a lot everyone. I appreciate it a lot. I have a few games on my table and I didn't exactly do my homework on how to fund them once I hit a certain point. Once I found a way, I hit the same wall I hit with google play. Commence hair tearing out.

 

[redknight00]

Oh wow thanks for such detailed replies. I very much appreciate the time saved.
Just a word on the Mind control bit, in case there are some people that are not aware... It can be consensual.
People pay for it, I call that consent. Plain. Simple. If it's something you might be into, many Doms/ Dominas offer it both online and off. That' why I say it's a slippery slope and as far as patreons rules go, it's simply not covered. But the "under the radar" advice did not fall on deaf ears. Thanks a lot everyone. I appreciate it a lot. I have a few games on my table and I didn't exactly do my homework on how to fund them once I hit a certain point. Once I found a way, I hit the same wall I hit with google play. Commence hair tearing out.

It's a matter of perception (Patreon's) they've been known to leave some creators alone as long as the content is justified, like in the case of mind control in Glassix that is low in the non-con spectrum. The main question is worth x risk and the fact that games that are 100% about banned content (like BB and DmD) will most likely get in their cross hairs sooner rather than later.

 

[Delmach]

Just thought I chip in, so far (to my personal experience) there has not been any bans on mind control like content yet, which nowadays does not mean a lot as said before, its all about what the team reviewing the content thinks.

The best (which is really not a good one at all) indicator would be the sentence in their own guidelines:

We also do not allow other fringe sexual fetish content, such as incest, necrophilia, or fetish content that is hard to distinguish from non-consensual sex.

It can as nearly everything be read in many possible ways, but so far there were indeed cases of games passing that had "non-consensual sex" as said above. A mostly safe bet would be that if violence is involved, characters get hurt, or are screaming, then that would be not ok with them when it comes to a review.

It's unfortunate and bad that people who create fiction is held under the same standard as someone who practice these things in real life. There's a lot of similarities between how this industry is being ridiculed and brushed away to the industry that boomed only 30 or so years ago when violent video games first became popular.

I agree with that statement, it is to a high degree the same witch hunt by people that even nowadays want to put more restrictions/outright ban violent video games. But with the adult aspect behind it its also how repressed the societys view on sex still is, and when you think about it it makes sense. If regular sex is still kinda taboo, how taboo is content beyond that, and then add some of the judgemental spirit that most humans have (coming from the human nature).

Also, while some of the gamers that had/have to protect their fiction are more open about other fiction, I still see some of the same thinking in them when it comes to adult fiction, or its of course possible that they just lie to not have to be ashamed, which adds even more human bullshit we are capable of that in the end, just does more harm than good.

 

[Mistress Nova]

I've now hit the giant list of posts pertaining to this and other things. I actually have my own sites, I posted one in the dev forums. I own mistressnova.com (isn't finished) and

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which I plan to allow other dev to use as a host. I see a lot of people saying "why npot host your game yourself and use a payment processor" but I think the problem is paypal. I'm looking into way to get around that. I think subscription and donation buttons are the way to go here.

 

[OhWee]

So, this seems like as good a thread as any for this opinion...

One thing that I've noticed since October when this whole Patreon thing came to a head, is that a number of games have significantly lowered the tempo of their releases. Sure, I expected a one month 'hiccup' where devs scrambled to adjust their content to meet the stricter guidelines, but this has been more than that. It's been six months since that all started...

4-5 weeks for the major titles seemed 'normal' before, but now I'm seeing several of those games falling back to 6-8 weeks, or even more if the developer has chosen to refocus their efforts on a more 'Patreon friendly' project.

And, of course, some games have simply been abandoned, either temporarily or permanently. This happens anyways, but yeah, when someone cuts off your revenue stream...

And of course, we always have new developers/titles cropping up. Not sure if this has tapered off much (it feels about the same to me), but how these new developers make out long term, well only time will tell.

I'll be curious to see if the tempo picks back up once solid alternatives to Patreon (that give sufficient exposure to new developers, and that won't go on morality crusades) crop up. But for now, yeah I've noticed the slowdown in tempo in a few cases...

Enough ramblings for now...

 

[Random]

I'll toss in my two cents.. I'd originally intended to go the route of Patreon once the project I was working on got to a point where funding seemed appropriate. Then this whole mess hit, and I decided to reconsider. I've slowed down development, and probably won't be releasing anywhere near as soon as I expected because of it. The game I'm working on would probably be fine on Patreon, but I feel that Patreon has begun a targeted attack on adult content creators and I expect these changes to become more strict, not less. Particularly because they are partnered with Paypal which has a zero tolerance policy for nearly everything, and have been known to steal money from Paypal accounts when they can justify it as suspicious. I've seen it happen to people selling paintings when they suddenly have large orders get processed and Paypal decides it is suspicious.

My personal decision was to wait for sponsorion.com to get up and running, I won't be making any significant moves until then.

 

[Deleted member 134393]

Patreon has banned incest, rape, mind control and a few other things.

Some devs have worked around it others have given up.

damn, not the fucking mind control

 

[Delmach]

There is no definite ban on mind control, they say they dont want "hard to distinguish from non-consensual" content. For example Dreams of Desire went under suspension, had to change the incest part, but still has its whole other premise going, which is of course mind control.

But as it is, hard to distinguish from non-consensual can be interpreted quite differently. And thats the tricky part, it depends on the reviewer. But content where characters appear to be in pain (appear, because they cant, as they are fiction), are screaming or something like that is most likely a problem for most reviewers in their team.

 

[Deleted member 134393]

There is no definite ban on mind control, they say they dont want "hard to distinguish from non-consensual" content. For example Dreams of Desire went under suspension, had to change the incest part, but still has its whole other premise going, which is of course mind control.

But as it is, hard to distinguish from non-consensual can be interpreted quite differently. And thats the tricky part, it depends on the reviewer. But content where characters appear to be in pain (appear, because they cant, as they are fiction), are screaming or something like that is most likely a problem for most reviewers in their team.

I don't much care for incest, despite working on something with a bit of incest in it, but why is that even really a problem? A lot of these games are the adult son and the adult mother, or at least I think they are, I should brush up on my cgi incest games. I see how its a taboo thing irl, but who cares about it in fiction, it's never depicted as rape by what I can tell, it's always lonely divorced mother seduced by strapping young cock-, I mean son.

You know, I was wondering about a day ago, but i wont be testing any time soon, I wonder if they would shut your patreon down even if there is no trace of porn content on it, say if you had one that said "oh this is to support x because x is a great guy, and if you support x, you get to hang out in his discord.", if they would still terminate the patreon even if you claimed it had nothing to do with say.... the porn game you just happen to be working on in your spare time.

furthermore, does a centaur, a really big breasted futa centaur with a massive horse cock technically count as bestiality, its half human, and more than sentient and capable of making its own decisions.

 

[redknight00]

I don't much care for incest, despite working on something with a bit of incest in it, but why is that even really a problem? A lot of these games are the adult son and the adult mother, or at least I think they are, I should brush up on my cgi incest games. I see how its a taboo thing irl, but who cares about it in fiction, it's never depicted as rape by what I can tell, it's always lonely divorced mother seduced by strapping young cock-, I mean son.

You know, I was wondering about a day ago, but i wont be testing any time soon, I wonder if they would shut your patreon down even if there is no trace of porn content on it, say if you had one that said "oh this is to support x because x is a great guy, and if you support x, you get to hang out in his discord.", if they would still terminate the patreon even if you claimed it had nothing to do with say.... the porn game you just happen to be working on in your spare time.

furthermore, does a centaur, a really big breasted futa centaur with a massive horse cock technically count as bestiality, its half human, and more than sentient and capable of making its own decisions.

I'd say no to bestiality, AFAIK the main problem their kind of people have against bestiality is that it's rape-like as the animals cannot consent to such an act.

 

[Deleted member 134393]

I'd say no to bestiality, AFAIK the main problem their kind of people have against bestiality is that it's rape-like as the animals cannot consent to such an act.

ah and all of a sudden it all makes sense. never thought about it like that.

 

[OhWee]

But what if the doggy initiates the sex? He not only consented, he started it!

Yeah, yeah, splitting hairs here, but somehow in this case I don't think doggy is too broken up about boning his female human companion...

Patreon won't go for it anyways. Of course, then comes the grey area, i.e. if it's a troll, orc, catgirl, etc. is that bestiality...

 

[redknight00]

But what if the doggy initiates the sex? He not only consented, he started it!

Yeah, yeah, splitting hairs here, but somehow in this case I don't think doggy is too broken up about boning his female human companion...

Patreon won't go for it anyways. Of course, then comes the grey area, i.e. if it's a troll, orc, catgirl, etc. is that bestiality...

It's a victimless crime at worst imo, but where I come the legal definition of consent involves a person 100% understanding their actions (so drunk sex might be rape).

 

[Delmach]

Doubt they go the route of "they cant consent", their reason is highly likely a very simple one. People, when they finally find NSFW games on the site, could say theres bestiality on there. Then take most of the media today that just jumps on news without any context and you have public outrage, how could they allow that. At that point it doesnt even matter its fiction, if you try to soothe them with that argument they would just say:

1. "Yeah but people dont need fiction like that anyway."
2. "Well I dont like that so others shouldnt neither."
or any other of those "I know whats better for other people" stuff you hear plenty.

Its public opinion, media, publicity, and that all leads to money. And thats the same for every other fetish basically, just some get more attention now and then.

Also I thought the threads about that matter were combined, theres lots more information on the main thread about this whole situation.