Charge up front. (Patreon)

Hello. This post is not about the game itself but about changes at our Patreon page. We have joined the beta test of the Patreon's new function: "charge up front." 

The main question is: "why do we need it?"

As you know, we have access to the Patron-only posts as one of the rewards. Well, there are few people who subscribed to our page, got all the access and then immediately unsubscribed. Basically, they had access to all the goodies without donating anything. 

The new system allows to prevent such behaviour by charging the pledged amount of money before giving access to all the benefits instead of waiting till the end of the month.

This is not about greed. We won't get any money from these people because they do not want to donate it in the first place. They just won't get free access to Patron rewards. We want these rewards to be a sign of gratitude to those who actually want to support the project. It is our way of saying "Thank you."

In short about the changes:

• If you already subscribed, you won't see any difference. The payment will be processed as usual and you won't be charged twice. 
• If you decide to subscribe after the 1st of November, you'll have the amount you've pledged to be immediately deducted from your account. The next payment will be processed at the 1st day of each month.
• If you decide to increase the amount of money you want to donate, you'll be immediately charged the difference. A $1 patron who becomes a $10 patron will be instantly charged $9 (and get access to all the content of that tier) on the day of the edit and then 10$ at the 1st day of the month. So, it may be better to wait until the month rolls over before increasing your pledge.
  

What this change means for us:

• We'll start working on the "character" rewards (10$ and 50$ tiers) much earlier because we won't need to wait until the end of the month to confirm your donation.
• There won't be any "free trials" of Patron-only content.
• We can improve the Patron-only content because we'll know there won't be any fake Patrons.
  

You can read the full list of changes here: https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/210291283-What-is-charge-up-front-How-do-I-get-it-

P/s We still playing the "find and fix the bugs" with the next build of the game.

Best regards
Shadow Portal Team.