Charging Up Front (Patreon)

It's one of them big, three posts in a day kind of days today.

 The Point:

Starting now, patrons will need to make an upfront payment to join. This will only effect current patrons if they decide to change their level of support, you can read about the details here. Basically, make changes early in the month. 

If you're thinking of pledging your support, I recommend doing so early in a month, as doing so late in a month means you could be charged twice in quick succession. I will try to make releases with this in mind; that is, releases will come out in the first week or so of each month.

The Explanation

I believe that Patreon's upfront payment option is less consumer-friendly than the alternative. For this reason I have been hesitant in activating this feature. However, since the start of this campaign, I have had several people join, download the patron edition of the game, and leave before making a payment. This is obviously unfair to my actual patrons.

The last thing I want to do is spend my time and effort policing this sort of behavior. I've blocked all the offending accounts that have stolen the patron edition, but there's nothing stopping these people from simply making new accounts and doing this again. And again and again. If you became a patron and quit at any point before your first payment, I've blocked you. I do apologize if anyone innocent was swept up in this.

I recognize that "piracy," which is what this is, technically, is going to be a thing no matter what. But at least if you go snag it off some forum (1) you don't mess around with my metrics and (2) you lose some security, safety, and convenience downloading content from an unofficial source. In addition, having people abuse official channels in an obvious way is a slap in my patrons' face, and extremely disheartening for me personally.

 If you have concerns or questions, please comment on this post or message me.  

Thank you for your understanding.