Letter from the Producer 2023 Year End (Patreon)

Seasons Greetings and Happy New Year! I hope you have had a wonderful and safe year. Thank you all for keeping in check with us for the past year or ten, and I look forward to what 2024 brings.

I'm Matt DeWinkeleer, Executive Producer of Titanic: Honor and Glory. The company that is creating THG and all the other content we're putting out is Vintage Digital Revival, LLC.

Titanic: Honor and Glory is going to recreate the entire ship in amazing detail. You will be able to explore and interact with Titanic and learn about the passengers and crew that sailed aboard the vessel on the maiden voyage in 1912.

If you missed the last 3 years, please know that the past plans for Titanic: Honor and Glory were way too wild for us to create, as much as we wished for them. We've had to scale down and focus on the ship and history, sadly abandoning the game storyline, Southampton, and the extended world around the game, including character models. For now, there is also no planned sinking.

Since our fans have been waiting so long to explore the ship, and to help with the final version of Titanic: Honor and Glory, we plan to release Project: 401. This will be like what THG will be, but smaller, about half the ship. Historical features will be included that will give a nice sample of what THG will have, but it will be far less dynamic and interactable than we intend for THG.

Personal Time

Now, before diving into this past six months of Titanic (that's a pun), I just want to talk about myself a bit. I promise it's related to everything!

For the past two years, I have been living in Columbus, Ohio. If you don't know where that is, that's okay. So technically, the company headquarters was out of there. This past November, I moved back home to my small town in Massachusetts (you wouldn't know where that is either.) Thanks to Titanic and, to a larger degree THG, I have been blessed to research and create products related to this amazing ship that are popular enough to support me full-time (please visit titanicdeckplan.com). Now, back in my hometown, I have a small office, which I am happy to say is the headquarters for Titanic: Honor and Glory, Vintage Digital Revival, and Titanic Deck Plan.

I also survived a car crash earlier this month in which my vehicle of ten-plus years was totaled by a drunk driver. One minute and a street away from my house, two weeks after I moved home. Don't drink and drive, kids!

Why am I telling you all this? Now that I am home in my office and not working for some other company for the first time in a long time, I am prepared to focus full-time on THG. I planned on it happening last month, but the little car accident has tossed a wrench in my reciprocating engine. It seems fitting that the person who is now supposedly in charge of THG is dedicating all their time to the project instead of just sinking money (that’s another pun) into it when they can.

Patreon Updates

Let's get down to business. You can see here from Patreon a complete breakdown, but to do the math, the amount we received from Patrons between June and December (still pending) in 2023 was $57,512.72. Patreon's platform fees, followed by payment fees (credit card, PayPal), and then the dreaded merch items and shipping, took out a chunk of the pledges.

You can see a downward trend, which we anticipated. It happened last year; it rises around April and goes down at the end of the year as people tighten their belts.

Team Pay

Let's talk about the team!

Since June, we have been paying our team to continue to work on THG and P401. I have to keep stressing that I wish I could pay everyone more — not to make them work more, but because they often work so long and hard for the tiny bit, we can give back without breaking. The super intuitive researchers, our handful of talented modelers, animators who stay up for hours, the creative team working from the ocean, our lead programmer, and Kyle. This team can snowball like crazy; they just need to be given the right tasks to work on (looking at yourself in the mirror, Matt.)

The cost of paying sixteen of our team members from June to December was $64,919. It includes repaying some people's missed pay from the previous year.

The crux of THG has been needing more staffing to create more Titanic the way we all want faster. "The way we want" has evolved from something we now believe is finally manageable but still quite the undertaking. Yet it requires, of course, more money to allow talented people to dedicate their time to do this. This is why actual jobs in the game development industry exist.

Store Costs

The most considerable expense we were accountable for was the continued refunding of the 3D-printed and hand-painted ships. That disaster we stumbled ourselves into is nearly over. This past year, we constantly emailed everyone who ordered a model ship and refunded everyone who responded from the United States. Unfortunately, there are a handful of European orders still outstanding due to difficulties between us and the European branch of VDR that we split with, but we WILL get those orders sorted.

We continue to repay those we have yet to hear from but still have reliable refund methods to send them to. We are expecting to repay everyone by Titanic's next anniversary in April.

Some orders were not switched to refunds but to grey 3D ships. We are still working on those with Zeno. But if you still have any outstanding issues, don't hesitate to contact us; we will refund you immediately.

The total amount refunded this past year, not six months, was around $36,532 (this number is taken from Stripe.) The primary funding was done through income generated by YouTube (there was a sad boost of income in June, but an enormous boost from our 2023 sinking real-time), money repaid directly from Zeno (remember, most of the sales from these ships went to him, not THG), and other sources such as partnerships and licenses of footage.

Patreon Merch

Without bashing Patreon too much, we have wanted to switch to some other form of merchandise for our patrons for a while. We've stressed this to you guys for a while, but it has been pushed aside with the THG store and other issues. So far, we have added some digital perks to tiers (which are also added on the new Patreon Store, wow!) which are from the THG Plans Store: Titanic, Olympic, and Britannic All Decks Downloads, and the various THG wallpapers. We will add more digital perks and merchandise to go with the multiple tiers and then remove a lot of the Patreon-supplied merchandise that our Patrons gave mixed feedback on.

The Officers will still be getting the most love with their 3D reward perks — the biggest issue with the original Patreon. If you recall, this Patreon was set up back when the pandemic started for Titanic University, when I was 3D printing. I promised 3D-printed merchandise for the highest-level patrons, not expecting many of you to sign up for my little Patreon's highest levels! We never removed that perk once we switched to THG because we could 3D print almost anything, but then we exploded in size and had issues with the 3D print store...

So, team members own 3D printers, and we have models; we have a box of items that have been printed. Of course, we always have to do things a little extra, and I want to finish painting them. I've posted on Patreon capstans, but we have vents, telephones, valves, and even bollards. So, please let me paint these items first.

Before all those get sent out to Officers, I will review the list and send some of the printed 1:350 plans of Titanic!

All will be announced for the Officers, including how and when the new merchandise will occur (how many months you will need to be subbed to get the perk, which other perks are leaving, etc.) If you are subbed and reading this now, it should not affect any Patreon merch they produce. But if you will miss a THG mug, let us know. I have dozens!

And an apology to anyone who subbed and already has the wallpapers or plans, making these perks somewhat irrelevant to you. Removing some physical perks and replacing them with digital products may not be the most fantastic update. Still, we want to ensure we send out things we can finally guarantee (something we could never do before.)

Finally I hope you have been enjoying the latest updates from Kyle. As this one is more behind-the-scenes and about the boring side of what's going on, it isn't as flashy — albeit needed as we continue. I thank you all for the continued patience and support, and we look forward to lots of progress in 2024!