The Piracy Poll, Distribution of the Game & New Payment Scheme (Patreon)

Hello Kits, Kitsunes and Regal Kitsunes, I hope you are all doing well.

I have has the unfortunate fact brought to my attention that someone has pirated a copy of my game, namely a Patreon exclusive version of it and uploaded it on a pirating website.

Thanks to Belgaesh and others for bringing this to my attention.

The has me conflicted on a few levels. 

Obviously someone has seen that my game is worth pirating, but what has annoyed me is that older builds of TLotK are free for people to download, just not Patreon versions.

If it isn't clear for people you should never redistribute copies of a game without the developers permission. There is no excuse for it. 

I shall now say as a rule that older versions posted on TFGames are allowed to be distributed, but not the versions only available here on Patreon. You can upload playthroughs if you so wish, just not the game.

I won't lie, I'm no saint and I've waved the 'black flag' in the past, if I have liked the game I usually  purchase it. 

But the fact that this is practically my main source of income and that I am not a multi-million dollar company and just a one-person team really stings me financially and makes me lose faith in humanity. I am not so naïve to think that this wouldn't happen but... well read on.

Now onto the other part of this post and the other side of the 'individual' who did this.

I am seriously considering changing the system in which I get paid, but I am putting it to the vote.

I contacted the person who did the act of piracy and gave him an opportunity to take the post down. This did not happen and he then cancelled the Patreon pledge he put up the day before I was to receive his payment.

So tl:dr he stole a Patreon copy of the game, uploaded it to a piracy website and then shafted me on the payment. 

What has come to my attention is that Patreons are doing this more and more as time is going by. Last month and the month before I lost out on roughly $80 each month as people decided that they enjoyed the game but didn't want to pay their $5 pledge at the end of the month. 

This is theft as far as I'm concerned, I spend hours and hours daily, weekly and monthly looking for assets, programming and writing up the plot (among other things) for the price of a cup of coffee a month and people are still unwilling to honour their pledges.

Don't misunderstand, these people are in the minority of supporters but are becoming a wider percentage of 'supporters' as time is going on.

I'm also not attacking people who have pledged money and left for one reason or another, this is aimed at the 'serial payment cancellers' who are doing this every month, or those who see that a new version is up, pledge and then cancel the payment after they have the content that they want.

Another aspect of this which has annoyed me is that it is unfair for the Patreons who honour their pledges, people are getting a 'free ride' from your generosity and it just disgusts me that people who enjoy the game and want to help it's development are getting a raw deal.

So what do we do?

The only avenue available to me is to change the payment system so I get an initial payment from supporters on the day of their pledge and then regular payments on the 1st of every month until they decide that they don't wish to support production anymore. This does not affect current Patreons, only new or returning supporters.

This has the various drawbacks to it, the main issue being that if a supporter pledges on the 26th of the month they shall also be charged on the 1st of the next month, and then be charged on the 1st of the next month regularly like the current system. So within the space of a few days they may be charged twice.

Another problem is that development 'niggles' can happen, bugs or new systems being developed and implemented can slow development (as has happened in v0.04), and being able to duck out and duck into supporting the game is good for people who want to attach value for what they deem is worth supporting, or, if people are tight on cash it allows them an 'easy out' that month without having to worry about an immediate charge if they come back.

If I change the payment system I cannot reverse the decision either, it locks my account to the new payment process.

The pros of this would likely mean less piracy as people would not get access to any posts or content until money is withdrawn from their account, so people making throwaway accounts just to get access to content without paying would actually need to pay to see/receive any content. This also gives me peace of mind that I won't lose nearly $100 in pledges per month and that all actual supporters aren't getting affected, as this theft doesn't just affect me but all of you too, especially as I want to start up stretch goals soon for things like art.

Onto more light-hearted news, I have been playing with a new system to make the maps look more beautiful. It has been time-consuming and has taken the past week or so to do (and I'm still not done!) but shall lay out a repository of images to use to make maps look incredible. (Hopefully!)

So the question of this is 'Shall I Implement the New Payment System or Not'?

NOTE THAT IF I CHANGE IT I CAN NEVER CHANGE IT BACK!

Happy Voting!

Edit:

Thanks for all the kind words, it looks like the payment system shall be changing at the end of the month!