Why do devs on Patreon hide progress behind paywalls?

[Deleted member 44741]

I've been following a few games on this forum. I played the demo, or whatever the first version is called and I like it. So I look at their Patreon page and see many updates since I've last played. But as soon as I look at the updates, I see the message "Join for $5 per month."

Why do this? Maybe I'm on the fence if I want to support a game or not, and the latest update is so good that I'm actually supporting from now on. But I'm not going to pay $5 to take a peek.
Imagine if every game on Steam hides all comments, news, workshop items, guides and the like, unless you pay $5 per game, just to look. Would that make Steam better and more enjoyable for you? I hope not.

Can someone explain to me why developers do this? Do devs have to pay Patreon each time they post a message?
And I'm not talking about downloading their games. I'm just talking about reading a changelog, update and similar things.

 

[HopesGaming]

You can't compare steam with Patreon. Traffic, market, and style are different. What works one way does not necessarily work the other way. ½

There are two fundamental reasons why devs tend to hide development updates and progress.
1. Earnings. Not many devs start to be a dev due to the kindness of their heart. They want to make an earning by doing something they love.

The games can be easily downloaded for free no matter what (as a member of this forum you should know). This means the biggest reason for anyone going after a specific tier is usually information. The other tier rewards are just nice bonuses.
Hence $5 is the optimal tier price range for that. Not low enough that it would make it useless but not high enough that it be ridiclouse.

2. It is incredibly hard to find proper tier rewards. I've done all kinds of it. Polls, wallpapers, requests and you name it. But what I've found to be the most loved is the dev. update posts and hence it is usually those tiers that are the one most used.
Patrons are in the end what makes us be able to do what we are doing. Without people who support- there be no game.
So, of course, we want to give the most 'loved' kind of tier reward to them.

You see a lot of devs going from free/cheap progress posts to having it on the $5 tier. And good for them I say. If their game is loved they deserve it.

 

[Adabelitoo]

I don't understand why someone would need to see that 5$ post first before deciding if they want to support that dev or not. If I would support a dev it would be because the game I already got from this site was good enough to show support, not because what the dev said in his last post.

 

[Delmach]

As far as I know they have to hide most content, especially adult content, behind paywalls now. Although it probably does not have to be 5$, it still has to be a paid subscription. Since thats some kind of age verification, if you can pay you are old enough. I know, it doesnt really make sense but they really dont make a lot of sense in many things nowadays.

There was a time not that long ago when quite many adult content creators got their sites suspended because they shared adult content which was available for everyone.

 

[ParadiseLofts]

As far as I know they have to hide most content, especially adult content, behind paywalls now. Although it probably does not have to be 5$, it still has to be a paid subscription. Since thats some kind of age verification, if you can pay you are old enough. I know, it doesnt really make sense but they really dont make a lot of sense in many things nowadays.

There was a time not that long ago when quite many adult content creators got their sites suspended because they shared adult content which was available for everyone.

Yeah, I discovered this. Gotta keep any nudity off the free/available-for-all tier. Personally, I'd love a marketing course demonstrating the best balance of free and member content, to drive traffic and new patrons. Without the patrons, the projects will die, but I also kinda believe that it takes a huge base of non-paying fans to bring awareness to them, too.

 

[Domiek]

As far as I know they have to hide most content, especially adult content, behind paywalls now. Although it probably does not have to be 5$, it still has to be a paid subscription. Since thats some kind of age verification, if you can pay you are old enough. I know, it doesnt really make sense but they really dont make a lot of sense in many things nowadays.

There was a time not that long ago when quite many adult content creators got their sites suspended because they shared adult content which was available for everyone.

Pretty much this. Patreon is strict not just for nudity, but implied nudity. If you have a topless character with their back facing the camera, it's implied nudity and a no go. So most posts are Patreon only for this reason.

 

[woolsack]

I've been following a few games on this forum. I played the demo, or whatever the first version is called and I like it. So I look at their Patreon page and see many updates since I've last played. But as soon as I look at the updates, I see the message "Join for $5 per month."

Why do this? Maybe I'm on the fence if I want to support a game or not, and the latest update is so good that I'm actually supporting from now on. But I'm not going to pay $5 to take a peek.
Imagine if every game on Steam hides all comments, news, workshop items, guides and the like, unless you pay $5 per game, just to look. Would that make Steam better and more enjoyable for you? I hope not.

Can someone explain to me why developers do this? Do devs have to pay Patreon each time they post a message?
And I'm not talking about downloading their games. I'm just talking about reading a changelog, update and similar things.

greed ... anything wrong with the world is because of 2 things ... stupidity and greed ... mankind in two words

so when something seems of to you about something just think ... stupidity or greed ... and it will answer your question 99.9% of the time

 

[recreation]

I don't understand why someone would need to see that 5$ post first before deciding if they want to support that dev or not. If I would support a dev it would be because the game I already got from this site was good enough to show support, not because what the dev said in his last post.

I totally agree on this. A paywalled game or earlier release, I can understand, even if I don't like it, but news? That's just awfull and makes a dev look greedy in my eyes.

 

[Deleted member 44741]

Thanks for the info. I know Patreon is different than Steam, but I don't know how different.

I don't understand why someone would need to see that 5$ post first before deciding if they want to support that dev or not. If I would support a dev it would be because the game I already got from this site was good enough to show support, not because what the dev said in his last post.

I'm not talking about games I really like, but games I'm not sure about. Things that have potential, but in my opinion aren't there yet. More info helps me make a better decision, which is important when money is involved.
Yes, $5 dollar isn't much, but if I'm considering many games, then this will add up.

Pretty much this. Patreon is strict not just for nudity, but implied nudity. If you have a topless character with their back facing the camera, it's implied nudity and a no go. So most posts are Patreon only for this reason.

What about changelogs? Those are just text.
"Added 2 new chapters, 1 enemy and 1 new location." In example.

 

[Domiek]

Is that what you want? Logs? Never been asked before but it's not a bad idea.

 

[Adabelitoo]

I'm not talking about games I really like, but games I'm not sure about. Things that have potential, but in my opinion aren't there yet. More info helps me make a better decision, which is important when money is involved.
Yes, $5 dollar isn't much, but if I'm considering many games, then this will add up.

What about changelogs? Those are just text.
"Added 2 new chapters, 1 enemy and 1 new location." In example.

My personal opinion is that: no matter what that 5$ message says, if you really aren't sure about it, then you shouldn't support that dev, at least not yet.

Sure. More info helps me make a better decision, I can totally agree with that, but personally I can find places to get even more info than those 5$ messages without paying a single cent, like comments here, reviews, how much in touch he is with his players, how much he takes in between updates, how much he works on fixing his bugs, how he takes good criticis, how he takes bad critics, what plans/fetishes/genres he wants to include, how he sets his patreon account, how he sets his subscribestar account if he has one, etc.

 

[Joraell]

I've been following a few games on this forum. I played the demo, or whatever the first version is called and I like it. So I look at their Patreon page and see many updates since I've last played. But as soon as I look at the updates, I see the message "Join for $5 per month."

Why do this? Maybe I'm on the fence if I want to support a game or not, and the latest update is so good that I'm actually supporting from now on. But I'm not going to pay $5 to take a peek.
Imagine if every game on Steam hides all comments, news, workshop items, guides and the like, unless you pay $5 per game, just to look. Would that make Steam better and more enjoyable for you? I hope not.

Can someone explain to me why developers do this? Do devs have to pay Patreon each time they post a message?
And I'm not talking about downloading their games. I'm just talking about reading a changelog, update and similar things.

Cause all devs are Greedy as fuck Me too.

 

[BozR]

Patrons/followers also tend to comment more freely on private posts. But I share OP's puzzlement over making people pay for learning about one's product.

I personally make 2 posts: 1 public for sharing the good news (progress) with everybody, 1 private for sharing the naughty previews

 

[Droid Productions]

I largely assume that Patreon is a point of sales. Instead of taking the risk of running into an increasingly antagonistic review process I just mark everything as private, and use other channels (like here, Itch.io, discord) to share progress updates.

 

[baneini]

I largely assume that Patreon is a point of sales. Instead of taking the risk of running into an increasingly antagonistic review process I just mark everything as private, and use other channels (like here, Itch.io, discord) to share progress updates.

Forcing the player to jump hoops to find out the latest news about the games progress is frustrating.
I think it's lack of understanding from the devs part. Like youtube creators who use channel intro videos that autoplay.

 

[Droid Productions]

Forcing the player to jump hoops to find out the latest news about the games progress is frustrating.
I think it's lack of understanding from the devs part. Like youtube creators who use channel intro videos that autoplay.

Possibly. But Patreon doesn't allow any viral surfacing of adult creators pages. The only way you got there was by clicking on a link, either from google or from a place like here (or from in-game). So you've already jumped the hoop, now your only question is if the 'patreon content' is good enough. But you're not really ever going to find that out, since anything showing more than an ankle has to be locked. I honestly view the patreon posts as a way to communicate with existing patreons, not as a sales pitch to prospective ones. I may be wrong about that, but that's the path I've taken. It also allows me to not have to self-censor every post in case someone decides to report them.

 

[gunderson]

My goodness but a lot of people seemed to not actually read the OP until halfway through the thread. Honestly, I think a total absence of public news posts is a legitimate reason to be concerned about the viability of a Patreon unless you know they put out a good product.

In my experience, there are generally three main reasons for Patreons to paywall their changelogs/progress.

Reason 1: They paywall fucking everything. Sometimes this is to cover their ass because they've been reviewed or just spooked before, but some people seem to resent the idea of ever giving anybody anything for free even if it helps advertise their product. None of those situations are particularly great (a text-only changelog/news post without explicit content is pretty much always good for business, even if only once a month), but you'll see 'em.

Reason 2: They like to send out noods with their progress, and a benefit of joining is more frequent progress reports than the changelogs with each release. Personally, I find this to be the best reason to paywall progress. For your average player who's considering joining a Patreon, a monthly public changelog with the release is probably good enough (and often these Patreons have those posts too), but for people who want more under the hood info, this lets them have a better sense of how things are going.

Reason 3: the dev spent the whole month jerking off and barely made any progress on the game (or their life legitimately exploded, or the game isn't making them enough to merit spending much of their time on, etc.), and their paywalled posts are basically just apologies. And to be real for a second, sometimes shit happens. Every project has a bad month or even a few. But usually if you go back far enough in their history, you start seeing a pattern. That should tell you whether this is a fluke or business as usual.