When should you open a Patreon as a VN developer?

[brazilian_hamilton]

Lets say you are starting off a 3d render based visual novel. 3d assets can be very expensive so you can't afford months of production and gameplay to finish the entire game. That's why most of the developers in the genre rely on patreon funding.

But at which point is it best to open a patreon? Do you think it's best to wait until you have a chapter done to display that content or is it better to make it at an earlier stage of the process, like when you have the theme and characters done, as well as a handful of sample renders to display them?

What are your experiences and advices on starting off crowdfunding?

 

[anne O'nymous]

But at which point is it best to open a patreon?

I would say "before the first release is public", not for financial reasons, but for advertising ones.

When doing it this way, the very first release will have a link to your Patreon page, so anyone who found it, by example through some sharing site that never cared to share the updates that came latter, know where to looks for more information regarding the game, and possibly to give you some money.
It was what annoyed me the most before I found F95Zone, all those games more or less interesting, but with no references to a place where I can know if there's updates. You're stuck with a game you like, that is clearly not finished, and you have no possibilities to know what happen next, nor to support the author, because you don't know where to looks for this.

 

[Deleted member 609064]

I would say "before the first release is public", not for financial reasons, but for advertising ones.

1,000x yes!

Patreon isn't only about fundraising. It's about marketing and it is rarely too early to begin marketing a new product with a long development arc.

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I understand the reticence many people have about asking for money early. It is however misplaced. If you need the money to continue or complete the development, you have no choice but to get out there, the sooner the better. Learn how to sell your project so that people will get excited and will support you, with money, with positive energy, and with volunteer labor (play-testing, proof-reading, etc).

 

[Madmanator99]

Man ... I'd take anne O'nymous's advice to the letter. Open it as soon as you start developing, also use other social media stuff if inclined to.

I don't know how old you are, but I hope you know a little bit about marketing as xcrash said. If not it's not a problem, look around, search and read, while rendering, because renders take time, so you better be rendering while searching/looking around/learning on the net for infos/tips etc, meaning if you are serious, you better have a whole series of scenes planed, with a story, characters etc.

Listen, the competition is harsh, you can see the games that are out there in the forums, but if you believe you have something special, go for it. A patreon will not hinder you if you open it too early, it's progress may be slow, but if you keep at it, it will grow, so just open it and go for it.

 

[aenwyn]

I would say "before the first release is public", not for financial reasons, but for advertising ones.

When doing it this way, the very first release will have a link to your Patreon page, so anyone who found it, by example through some sharing site that never cared to share the updates that came latter, know where to looks for more information regarding the game, and possibly to give you some money.

I've been going back and forth on whether to include a Patreon link in the first release, and this makes a lot of sense. Ty.

 

[GNVE]

Yeah I agree. Open it as soon as possible. Sure it might feel as if you are posting to yourself in the beginning but a Patreon with lots of updates shows you've been at it for a while and probably won't quit out of the blue. It inspires confidence in you.
I have a Patreon but I don't really advertise it yet. I'm still too far in preproduction for that. People do follow me and I've had a few supporters even but I am up front about what they can expect if they support me. But when I'm ready to release something I will have a large number of posts showing progress I made over time.