Patreon users?

[Katy133]

EDIT: Here is a spreadsheet for visual novel-related Patreons.
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I was wondering, I've seen a few visual novel creators using Patreon, and would like to know if you would recommend it to other EVN creators, and what advice you'd give to creators who are considering using it.

Also, if you're a Patreon user and would like to mention yourself, please do; I'd love to check out your Patreon page.

[ArachneJericho]

I'm new to the Patreon thing. I'm just starting out, and expect nothing much even in January 2015 (the release of chapter 1) so I don't have any advice.

Here's my patreon: http://www.patreon.com/lifeislikeabadrpg

[firecat]

i really dont want to ask for money it seems wrong in my eyes. sure i can do it and make the visual novel just like i wanted but the whole thing would just be too easy. you can called me old if you want but hard work and credited to others will always be best for free users that have nothing.

[ArachneJericho]

Um, firecat, I use patreon and paypal as donation options (one with a reward attached). VN is still released for free. Just if people want to support me they can. Not everybody can't, and not everybody doesn't want to.

[Katy133]

i really dont want to ask for money it seems wrong in my eyes. sure i can do it and make the visual novel just like i wanted but the whole thing would just be too easy. you can called me old if you want but hard work and credited to others will always be best for free users that have nothing.

If I could play "the devil's advocate" and counter-argue that--The money assumedly is to help fund future games (to pay additional artists, voice actors, etc). Often, being credited is not enough for a lot of artists. Work takes time, experience, and costs money. Artists also need to afford things like production equipment (microphones, the monthly costs of some software, etc) and food.

I'm an animator, so I was taught to respect other artists by paying for their work and experience. The current general mentality of art not being worth money denies professional artists of being able to make a living out of their work. Yuumi and Stephen Silver made a very good talk on this.

You also say that it would be "too easy": Like any form of crowd funding, getting people to notice your project, and to give money to it, is hard work. A lot of thought has to be put into it to work properly. You can also release the visual novels free. Most post-Kickstarter creators, when asked about their campaign, describe it as exhausting and stressful, no matter how prepared they were.

[ArachneJericho]

Katy133,

You said it far better than I could. Bravo.

Also, drumming up support for a Patreon is hard. I've been looking at other Patreons, and basically the only way it seems that you build up over $1000 a month is if you've been producing for years before hitting the Patreon. The best one I've seen so far is $5000 per month for Gunnerkrigg Court (well-deserved).

[firecat]

no hold on you two, just because people are spending money on your games does not mean there will be fans of your games. no one likes to see money go down the drain and with todays modern technology it has become easier for people to not care about the games but more about how better it will be played. as an example, people want games to be fun so they look for a project to support then they find one. the storyline looks good with the pictures even making them believe that its a new type of game, so they support it. sometime later the project is finished people are ready to play it but find out that the pictures weren't has what they expected thus giving you the developer a bad reputation.

they are not real fans if they only support one project at a time which will ultimately lead to your projects being less supported, less fans, less projects and no support at all. dont think i had forgotten about the artist, its o.k that they want money its a tough economic but that should not be a all day job. in my experience people are trusting too much on one form of job skill and thats not how any of this works in real life. people hire artist for their reputation just like any writer is hired for his writing or a musician for his music. they do not want an artist that feels its art is worth a million bucks nor do they ask for his opinion on what makes a good art, all they want is someone who is hard working.

lastly not all of us are willing going to beg for money because like i said 'its wrong and supporting people is better' and so i will make this crystal clear for you two. supporting people will always be 10x better than hiring a random artist for cash its the way of the future. everyday people copy something is thats why we have cc that copy can lead to huge projects being discovered then that person who had the rights to the cc item might want to really join on future projects. i know of a game that was base around this idea its called Touhou Project the fans liked the game so much that they made an unofficial anime from it after that they made yukkuris which was made from meme pictures and unofficial games as well. the touhou project was done by one man but he allow his work to be shared by fans, so thats why i believe its better to support people so one day you can have a fan base around your hard work.

[ArachneJericho]

firecat,

The question is, why then, if you disagree with the idea of artists getting money at all, are you posting in a thread about artists getting money? It seems like this is only going to cause everybody strife and isn't really worth it.

[firecat]

firecat,

The question is, why then, if you disagree with the idea of artists getting money at all, are you posting in a thread about artists getting money? It seems like this is only going to cause everybody strife and isn't really worth it.

i did not disagree with artist getting money i disagree with people begging for money. its not my place to judge what artist do with their lives nor do i care if any artist wants to sell their art for money, its the begging for money that seems wrong.

[ArachneJericho]

*shrug* What's begging to you is people donating to others.

I myself in better times have given thousands of dollars to people in need, to charities, and, yes, to artists. Because artists should be paid.

And I will note, that in the case of money and artists, only fans will donate.

[truefaiterman]

I'd like to say something on the subject of these crowdfunding campaigns (as far as I've seen, while I have no experience with Patreon, it works similar enough):

People are not donating. They are supporting, which is as similar as it's different.

They don't give you money out of charity, it's not a selfless act or anything like that. In a crowdfunding campaign you're offering a service, being a videogame, a movie, the making of a potato salad, etc. And what's more important, you are offering rewards, so people don't give money for no reason. You, as a creator, are trying to make something, but in order to go ahead you need money, and you go to the Internet and offer your work: "I have this thing, and I convince you that you like it. If you want me to make it, support me and pay my project". And the guy/gal who finds your campaign sees the material and says "woah, this is awesome, I want this to happen SO HARD! So I put my cash so the project gets done... AND I get the game, and the OST, and the strawberry-bear-lava-horn shirt, and..."

You don't get money out of charity, you get the cash to deliver a service (and you better deliver it, or you won't have anymore support. Which means $$$). Of course, there are people who thinks you're doing something different than what you're actually working on, but that relatively normal even within big-budget media (WTF? I wanted to watch a gritty and awesome animated movie about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but all I see is monologue and sad dialogue and Watchmen filosophy and WTF?) (It's the first example I've thought about, nothing personal against that movie's fans).

[daijinahito]

Well, I for one don't use Patron, but I know another VN creator who does! Do check out Taosym's Patron page. He's a wonderful artist:
http://www.patreon.com/Taosym?ty=p

I noticed he gives rewards to those who subscribe. I think it's pretty cool! Even though content takes a long time to be created and released, you're still getting first looks at everything, and maybe some extra goodies.

As far as that argument about begging goes... Creating content in exchange for the money to be able to create something that will be shared with everyone, I personally wouldn't call begging. (commercial projects are another story)

I live in a town filled with beggars. They don't give you anything in exchange for your money. But hey, not all begging is frowned upon. I'm happy to donate to a cure for cancer, any day!

Besides, if you're donating to something like VN creation, it' because you're interested in getting that VN in the future. Most quality artists are not going to extend their hand to a project for free. It's too time consuming to do something without pay if you are a full time freelancer. And honestly, I'm thankful for these websites! It creates jobs for people!

If it's a commercial project they're using the funds for, I don't really agree with this process, but people tend to donate to what they want to see come out, anyway. I'm not gonna throw a hissy fit about it.

[Katy133]

no hold on you two, just because people are spending money on your games does not mean there will be fans of your games.

In my mind, it does. I mean, why else would they be giving money to the project? I support artists and creators I really like by buying their work and merch, so I’m simply speaking from personal experience.

no one likes to see money go down the drain and with todays modern technology it has become easier for people to not care about the games but more about how better it will be played. as an example, people want games to be fun so they look for a project to support then they find one. the storyline looks good with the pictures even making them believe that its a new type of game, so they support it. sometime later the project is finished people are ready to play it but find out that the pictures weren't has what they expected thus giving you the developer a bad reputation.

Exactly! Which is again why crowd funding of any sort is not, as you said earlier, “too easy”. Once money comes into the equation, you are staking other people’s money, as well as your own reputation as a developer, on completing your game properly. And as crowd funders, we have to use common sense and do a bit of research before giving money to a campaign.

they are not real fans if they only support one project at a time which will ultimately lead to your projects being less supported, less fans, less projects and no support at all.

Patreon supporters are not supporting "one project at a time". They are supporting your campaign as a whole. Whether its visual novels, music videos, podcasts, etc.

dont think i had forgotten about the artist, its o.k that they want money its a tough economic but that should not be a all day job. in my experience people are trusting too much on one form of job skill and thats not how any of this works in real life. people hire artist for their reputation just like any writer is hired for his writing or a musician for his music. they do not want an artist that feels its art is worth a million bucks nor do they ask for his opinion on what makes a good art, all they want is someone who is hard working.

As Walt Disney put it:

I don't make pictures just to make money. I make money to make more pictures.

Walt Disney understood the importance of being both a good, hardworking artist and a businessperson. Hard work is important, but that won’t help you if you don’t also know how to put yourself out there, get people to notice you, and find ways of expanding your projects; and money can be used to accomplish some of this, whether it’s by hiring more artists to help you, paying for advertising, getting better equipment, etc.

Think of money as a means to an end. It’s very hard to make money from visual novels as of now (but times are changing--I’m seeing more and more EVNs making it to Steam now), so it may be more business-wise to try and get just enough money to complete your projects, so that each project you complete is an improvement to the last one. That’s a form of investment.

they do not want an artist that feels its art is worth a million bucks nor do they ask for his opinion on what makes a good art, all they want is someone who is hard working.

Well, I for one certainly don’t want an artist to feel that they are worthless (and I have seen that--a lot. Because of the current mentality on this subject). Every time I see an amazing artist’s work, and then realise that they feel like their art isn’t worth buying, that make me feel very, very sad. I actually like artists who feel that their art is worth a lot. And if it’s in the millions--sure! That shows great confidence in themselves and the art form. I can respect that.

Also, I’m actually one of those artists that asks other artists that age-old question , "what makes a good art". Like, all the time.

lastly not all of us are willing going to beg for money because like i said 'its wrong and supporting people is better' and so i will make this crystal clear for you two. supporting people will always be 10x better than hiring a random artist for cash its the way of the future. everyday people copy something is thats why we have cc that copy can lead to huge projects being discovered then that person who had the rights to the cc item might want to really join on future projects. i know of a game that was base around this idea its called Touhou Project the fans liked the game so much that they made an unofficial anime from it after that they made yukkuris which was made from meme pictures and unofficial games as well. the touhou project was done by one man but he allow his work to be shared by fans, so thats why i believe its better to support people so one day you can have a fan base around your hard work.

Again, one can counter-argue that projects supported by crowd funding actually end up being better than if the creator used their own money; you now have a lot of kind people who expect a quality game when you finish it. That's the main reason why there are stretch goals in Kickstarter: After the project has enough money for the project to get completed, additional money can be donated for extra stuff, to make the project even better.

In one of the interviews VNsNow! did, one of the interviewed artists talked about how much extra time an effort they put into their VN due to the VN being crowd funded. It can be found here: http://jpthe3rd.wordpress.com/2014/08/2 ... roductions
- NomnomNami
- DejiNyucu
Other projects:
- Tom Siddell
- Mike Falzone

For people thinking about using Patreon, but haven’t made an account yet, I'd like to ask current Patreon users, once you make up Reward Milestones and Patreon Rewards, can you edit them afterwards? (meaning, can you add/remove milestones/rewards if your plans change?)

Additionally, as Patreon supporters, what would YOU want as good reward milestones and donation amount tiers? I personally like artbooks and behind the scenes-related rewards.

I’d also like to ask Lemmasoft’s forum mods: Is it possible for you to add a Patreon link tab in the Edit Profile page? (similar to how there are tabs for Twitter and Tumblr, where you can type your username and it becomes a public link)

[MaiMai]

Basically, with Patreon I would ask myself if my output would be any different with support than without support?

[ArachneJericho]

Bravo again, katy133.

And thank you for linking to my Patreon!

As for editing milestones and rewards, you can totally do that. You have to add new milestones and rewards at the end of the pages you configure them, but they will always be reordered in order of $$$. You can also ask to be paid per "unit" of art (like per VN chapter) rather than monthly, but most people try for monthly (you need to be prolific to pull this off though).

I'm still pondering milestone goals and rewards. My milestones are very high, and I need to bring them down. I want people to say, yay, we reached a milestone! rather than "omg the next one is so far off."