Some bad news to kill the mood (Pixiv Fanbox)

Hello everyone,

In case some of you didn't know about it, I've been making games since 2013. When I released the first SoV in August 2015, it was a great time to be an H game creator. Anyone wanting to work on adult content could simply have a Patreon account and have people fund their games (or whatever).

2017 was the beginning of the end, though. The first Patreon shitstorm that kicked out some of the most important adult creators arrived and since then, it has ALWAYS been a hide-and-seek game where losing can impact your life.

As you know I managed to stay under the radar for 3 years until January 2021 and the release of the first version of SoV3 that got me banned from Patreon. Since then, I've never been really at peace. Ci-en, Fantia, Enty... No Japanese site would allow me to work on uncensored content, and on the western side, all alternatives to Patreon were forbidding adult content (and if they didn't, they would do it soon enough.) Some of you might remember of that platform called "Kimochi" that was meant for creators to sell their H games on their own against a fee for each purchase. When it was bought by Nutaku a couple of years later I ALSO got banned from there. Today, Fanbox and SubscribeStar are literally my only source of income. At least when it comes to crowdfunding.

Since 2019, I've been using Gumroad as a way to sell my content as well. Their policy on adult content was a bit blurry but since you need to have your content checked by real people, the fact I was allowed to sell SoV2 back then was proof they were okay with my content. When I created Blue Axolotl Editions, it was the perfect place to sell my doujins and even if I haven't earned a single euro from BAE yet (I send you back to the post from a couple of months ago where I explain that after calculation, I'm at -1000 Euros in terms of revenus from the BAE adventure) I was really happy to be able to propose to the people interested something that regular editors would look down upon.

But yesterday, everything collapsed and now Gumroad simply forbids the selling of adult content. Thankfully, they're generous enough to tell us they're doing it under Paypal and Stripe pressure (so Visa & Mastercards) the ones already at the origin of basically EVERYTHING to kill creators like me. The consequences are pretty dramatic for me.

1) The most obvious one is that as of today, I have literally no place to sell the doujins I'm selling anymore. That puts all further release from BAE to a stop. I don't know how the Japanese artist I'm working with is going to react to the news, but that's quite terrible.

2) The other problem is that Gumroad was also the only place where I could sell my games uncensored. So right now, I won't even be able to sell them uncensored somewhere on the internet.

You have to understand that Gumroad was really perfect for me. They take a much lesser fee than DLsite (I remind you that DLsite takes 60% of the total price. If you've ever wondered why my games were so high-priced there, now you know it.) Thanks to that, I was able to sell my games for a reasonable price (it's not comparable anymore because of the yen crash but back in the days, the prices on Gumroad were lower than on DLsite.)

I've already browsed sites like Gumroad in the past (there's a shittons of them). They ALL forbid adult content to be sold. The witch hunt will never end...

So let's recap. As of today, Blue Axolotl Editions can't sell anything anymore, can't release anymore, I don't even know if we'll be able to keep working with Chiba Tetsutarou. Blue Axolotl can only sell their games on Japanese sites (so censored) with a fee that makes Google Play or AppStore look like paradises.

I've always wondered why some creators never totally finished their games... In 2016 they were frauds alright. But now, in 2024? What's the point of finishing a game if you're going to earn almost nothing from it (provided you manage to sell it somewhere.) I'm starting to understand the logic... After all, if tomorrow Summertime Saga was "finished" and sold, considering the amount of people who played the whole game already or got it on Patreon, I'm not even sure the global amount of sale would reach what they earn in a single month...

Don't worry, I'm not saying that I'll intentionally lenghten development time for the sake of raking money up. But I can understand some people doing it because of the current context. You have to realize that I have so few places to go that if tomorrow SubscribeStar or Fanbox disappear I won't even have the funds to keep on working on ANY 2D project and I'll be bound to work on TH2 only whether you or me like it or not.

If you want a good example of the situation I'm in, there are currently two people among those I'm working with that I've asked for a payment delay because I can't pay them all in one go. It's the first time since 2015 that it's happening to me. And that is considering the fact that I'm not paying myself at all for this month. So yes, circumstances are bit particular (for example, I need to pay a HUGE amount of money for the pixel artist because I needed everything in one go and probably won't pay much for these for the rest of the year). But still. Even exceptionally huge invoices, I had no problem paying them in the past.

I'm torn between lots of emotions right now. Jadedness, sadness, anger, fear... I hate the fact that people like us (adult content creators) are the victims of a witch hunt decided by some mofos because it fits their political diary. But I hate even more the bitterness I feel knowing that things will only get worse as the time goes by and at some point either I will become to sick of it and quit everything or just will be forced to quit because there's simply no ways to get my projects funded anymore.

If any of you know of a possible alternative, feel free to tell me (please, don't propose me sites without reading their ToS, and keep in mind I've checked the most famous ones (roughly 15)). Also, please don't tell me to set up my own online shop as well. I'm a game creator first. Even in the chance I COULD set it up, it would take a lot of time and effort, time I wouldn't spend working on my games. And for now, I'd rather work on my games (while I still can.)

So yeah, I guess there's one positive element in all that swarm of shit: technically, it doesn't (shouldn't) impact the development of Slice of Venture Remake. As long as SubscribeStar and Fanbox are alive and accepting me, I can keep on.

I'll see you in a few days for the next SoVR post. Cause things need to move on.

See ya...