v0.16 Incoming + Billing Changes (Important) (Patreon)

Hey all,

Two quick things, one of which is really important to me that I disclose but I'll drop info on the update first because it's quicker. 

v0.16 Update

Currently I am uploading the v0.16 update now and I'm working on the crunched versions at the same time. While it's going into the evening here, the update should drop tonight sometime as soon as it's uploaded! I don't have the best upload speed and the full game version is over 6 gig this time so it's a monster. Stay tuned for the update, though!

Billing Changes

So I launched this Patreon account back in October 2017 by myself. When you first start a Patreon, you only have a few billing options, the current billing option allows people to pledge money at any point but not be billed until the 1st of the following month. Given that my vision of the game was always to keep it donation-based, I felt this billing was fair. Over the past 19 months of development, many people have taken advantage of that system, in particular they will pledge when an update drops, download it, then quickly unpledge before being charged. While I've never been a greedy person, the toll and scope of this game development is staggering and costs me thousands in terms of computer hardware upgrades, assets, file hosting, and I typically spend over 50 hours a week on it. We also have multiple team members now who are using their personal time to spend writing, developing, creating, generating ideas, communicating, and editing a litany of aspects to this game on top of my own work. This no longer affects just me, folks. I have people at my side that I legitimately care about and I want to pay them for their time and dedication despite them all being more than willing to donate their time. 

When I was alone, these decisions were mine alone and only impacted me. Now that the team has expanded and includes others, now that the quality of the game has slowly increased with each update, the financial stability of the game becomes an issue that I can't ignore. Are we financially doing ok over here? Yep. We're fine. The game isn't going anywhere; however, I want to announce that the billing options have changed and I have moved the billing to be in-line with most other creators and has now been changed to Charge Upfront. 

What this basically means is that new patron supporters will have to pay immediately upon becoming a patron rather than waiting until the next billing cycle. So if you're a new supporter and you wish to download the update, you'd have to make the necessary donation immediately or wait for the free version. This also means that anyone who wishes to change their pledge mid-month to a higher tier will now be immediately charged to mitigate people taking advantage of those. This is only fair since you get access to the content immediately and there's plenty of previous back content to go through. The selfie series is something that I will talk more about in a future update soon but I'll briefly say that people taking advantage of that billing sequence will not just harm me anymore--helping to fuel the decision to change the billing.

I'm going to include a link here to the Patreon explanation of Charge Upfront for anyone with questions. There's no reason for me to make a lengthy explanation here when the site gives pretty good examples:

 https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/210291283-What-is-charge-up-front- 

Given that the update will hopefully drop tonight, Charge Upfront has already been enabled. This is not me being sneaky, I simply needed to make the change before the announcement to mitigate all the cheaters from trying to subscribe before it changes.  

For those existing patron supporters who do not change their pledges, nothing will change for your billing at this time. You will be billed on the same schedule you always have, 1st of the month. But if you change your pledge mid-month, you have to pay the difference immediately. Mostly because this unlocks all the previous content. If you do suffer charges that you feel are in error, don't hesitate to contact me through here or on the Discord and we'll take a look at things. If you have questions, post them below and I'll handle them as they roll in. 

Thanks for the support and stay tuned for the update!

-Aaryn