A delicate matter (Patreon)

Today's post will be about a delicate matter regarding my current campaign and the business model. To cut the story short, I'd like to add a delay to Glassix latest release and add the latest release in the 10$ reward. I'm already aware it will outrage many of you but I'm afraid it's a necessity for me for several reasons.

First, my personal situation has changed. Having a kid now changes a lot of things and an important part of this is the daily expenses as well as the future expenses I need to prepare for him. Being a foreigner in a foreign land, I have no social security nor retirement plan at the moment and as long as I was on my own, it didn't really matter to me. But having a family to support is another thing and I have to be more responsible about it now and unfortunately the only way I see it is to earn more from the time I spend on the games.

Second, besides my personal expenses, my plan to migrate to full 3D with Lust Complex increases a lot my professional expenses. Buying 3D model costs about 100$ the model and I also have to buy licences to use them in full 3D game which can cost 500$. And that's not including the cost for new hair styles or outfits which are also super important in an adult game. Even Glassix had some expenses for the backgrounds. 

Third, the reason I released Glassix for free was to avoid troubles since I was using SBPR Studio. However, as I was checking other Patreon creators pages to see what was new, I stumble upon Mr.C campaign and noticed he used a studio similar to mine while releasing a beta reward for his patrons. That got me thinking, why not apply it myself ? And to be completely honest, seeing his campaign started this year only yet he already earns almost double compared to me did hurt my pride a little...

So if you're still reading that far, I hope those arguments make sense and do not appear as pure greed, even though more money is always welcome, but mainly as a necessity for me. 

Now here is what I had in mind for the concrete changes in my campaign. Again, I'm open to suggestions if you think something doesn't make sense or could be handled better, but something has to change there.

Glassix would be split in 3 versions : BETA, STABLE and PUBLIC. My other games would only have a BETA and STABLE versions, no PUBLIC.

• BETA will be available at the end of each month like it is already done
• STABLE will be able available 1 month after that with all bugs removed from the BETA
• PUBLIC will come 1 month after the  STABLE release and is released for FREE

Having a month between each release gives me time to correct bugs and work on 2 different games. I'm still planning a monthly release for Glassix since Lust Complex will take a few months to get a working demo. This means the rewards for my campaign have to change. Here is what I was thinking about inspired by what other creators already do :

• 1$ pledge : Access to the Patreon feeds
• 2$ pledge : Access to vote on polls (even Glassix polls now)
• 5$ pledge : Access to the STABLE version of my games
• 10$ pledge : Access to the BETA version of my games plus a copy of the final version once released
• (15$ pledge : Access to walkthrough - This one will be added later for Lust Complex. Glassix walkthrough will remain free)
• 20$ pledge : Your name in the credits

My goals for this campaign would also change to reflect those new needs :

• 1500$ : Half time on the game
• 2000$ : Extra help & Assets for the games - I'd be able to pay the translators for the game who are currently working for free as well as buying new assets each month
• 3000$ : New computer - I'm currently working on an old laptop. For 2D games, it was ok but with 3D, let's say it's like playing a game in 10FPS...

You might wonder where the full time goal went. Well even though the adult business is lucrative, you never know what might happen and since my situation evolved, so did my point of view on my personal goals. Which is why, instead of going full time porn like I wanted last year, I'd like to keep my current work time split into 3 main domains :

• Adult games, 1/2 time
• Normal games, 1/4 time
• Website developer, 1/4 time

If one of the business crashes, it would mean I can still rely on the others. Plus the usual question teachers would ask my kids, "what does you father do in life ?", then he'd be able to pick whatever he prefers :p I would spend more time on the adult business to keep my schedule of one release per month as planned.

So there, you have it. I don't want to pass as a greedy money grabber. I released Glassix's roadmap so you know where the game is going so you can't feel tricked and I'm detailing all my goals here to be as transparent as possible so you can decide if the way I'm handling things is fair. I know some of you might not have money to pledge and I'm sorry to do that to you but I do have to be a little selfish here. Glassix will remain free anyway, only delayed. If you think this is outrageous, please do tell me how you'd have handled such a business yourselves if you were in my situation, it might actually give me some alternatives. And for those of you who decide to leave, no hard feelings and thank you for your support so far.

I'm going to update my campaign in the next few days to reflect what's detailed here but again, I'm open to discussion and advises, maybe there would be better ways to handle such a change.

In any case, I'd like to thank you all for your time and support !