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Patreon for small independent studios

StaticSpine

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 14, 2013
Messages
3,232
Location
Moscow
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I've been thinking why don't smaller studios with existing core audience open Patreon pages to (at least partially) finance their future games?

Major players kinda went this way with subscriptions (Origin Access, Uplay+ etc).

For example I've spent ~$20 or $25 on Iron Tower's games in how many... five years? I'd gladly support them every month with my $5-10. And I'd do the same for ZA/UM, The Brotherhood, and some other guys.

I don't get why this isn't a thing if right now people can support the creation of any content directly. Am I missing something here?

I'd be glad to have the opinion of
Vault Dweller Kasparov Pyke

List of relevant game developer Patreon pages:
Call of Saregnar
Trese Brothers (Templar Battleforce, Star traders)
Dwarf Fortress
 
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Bester

⚰️☠️⚱️
Patron
Vatnik
Joined
Sep 28, 2014
Messages
11,003
Location
USSR
Porn indies have that, and it takes them 1-2 years to get to ~4k/month.

Normal indies don't, cause nobody but you would pay.
 

Wyatt_Derp

Arcane
Joined
May 19, 2019
Messages
3,062
Location
Okie Land
Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle. Same goes for money as it does game content. There's only so many drops of money in the oceans to go around.
 

Morkar Left

Guest
Trese Brothers have one. I think the problem is that you actually have to provide some content. Especially as a small indie studio it's hard to come up with something usefull every month (or more weekly) to justify a pricetag.
 

Morkar Left

Guest
I think the problem is that you actually have to provide some content porn.

Nah, you can have porn for free too. But you have no beta boys to support you. But getting medical bills paid seems tohave a high success rate, too.

Besides there are plenty of non-porn / beauty-centric or scam patreon pages which are successfull. It's just timeconsuming when you are actually in full development for one to two video games at the same time.
 

Anthedon

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 1, 2015
Messages
4,499
Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Financing years of work by a monthly subscription paid by the fickle consumer beast sounds like a terrible idea. Even Kickstarter makes sense compared to that, at least there you get a good chunk of money upfront (and can bail out with it).
 

Bester

⚰️☠️⚱️
Patron
Vatnik
Joined
Sep 28, 2014
Messages
11,003
Location
USSR
Not interesting enough for me to give them money monthly. They can't compete with people like the guy building underwater hamster habitats.
https://www.patreon.com/hampture
Jesus fucking christ. Hamsters need big cages of about 1 cubic meter or larger.

What they're building is torture chambers.

https://youtu.be/SkFDhzSHg1U?t=71
8a7fbbaf7fc131243e2affbc10153f51.png
 

Morkar Left

Guest

Tyranicon

A Memory of Eternity
Developer
Joined
Oct 7, 2019
Messages
5,875
I've been thinking why don't smaller studios with existing core audience open Patreon pages to (at least partially) finance their future games?

Major players kinda went this way with subscriptions (Origin Access, Uplay+ etc).

For example I've spent ~$20 or $25 on Iron Tower's games in how many... five years? I'd gladly support them every month with my $5-10. And I'd do the same for ZA/UM, The Brotherhood, and some other guys.

I don't get why this isn't a thing if right now people can support the creation of any content directly. Am I missing something here?

I'd be glad to have the opinion of
Vault Dweller Kasparov Pyke

I'm considering a Patreon.

Then again, I'm making adult content games, which are popular on that platform.
 

Pyke

The Brotherhood
Developer
Joined
Nov 29, 2011
Messages
1,196
Location
South Africa
I've been thinking why don't smaller studios with existing core audience open Patreon pages to (at least partially) finance their future games?

Major players kinda went this way with subscriptions (Origin Access, Uplay+ etc).

For example I've spent ~$20 or $25 on Iron Tower's games in how many... five years? I'd gladly support them every month with my $5-10. And I'd do the same for ZA/UM, The Brotherhood, and some other guys.

I don't get why this isn't a thing if right now people can support the creation of any content directly. Am I missing something here?

I'd be glad to have the opinion of
Vault Dweller Kasparov Pyke

I've thought about it. I think that for a Patreon to be successful you have to generate a lot of consistent content. and generating content like that is hard. If I were ever to do it I would probably go for something like Handmade Hero and have a completely open development process using livestreams and such. BUT most of game development is super boring. Its basically a desk job, so taking all that content and editing it together into something that people would be interested in would be cool challenge.

If I was ever gonna go this route I would probably just test the waters and do the stuff for free, and then see about opening it up to Patreon or something. So... maybe?
 

deama

Prophet
Joined
May 13, 2013
Messages
4,352
Location
UK
Would a patreon for upscaling videos work? Like for example old anime? And let's say the upscaling was good, much better than lancoz.
I pondered on creating such a patreon, but right now I don't have the computer processing power for that stuff, you'd need a pretty beefy GPU, even then you'd still need to run it 24/7 for several days for just a 20 minute video.
 

Spectacle

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 25, 2006
Messages
8,363
Would a patreon for upscaling videos work? Like for example old anime? And let's say the upscaling was good, much better than lancoz.
I pondered on creating such a patreon, but right now I don't have the computer processing power for that stuff, you'd need a pretty beefy GPU, even then you'd still need to run it 24/7 for several days for just a 20 minute video.
Unless you could actually get distribution licenses for those videos, this would be copyright infringement, and I bet patreon bans that. You could maybe stay under the radar for a while, but if you get successful you'd be shut down quickly.
 

Palikka

Arcane
Joined
Nov 12, 2006
Messages
750
Location
SubSpace
https://www.patreon.com/rhuantavan
My name is Damjan Mozetič and I’ve been itching to make an RPG for many years now. Games like Betrayal at Krondor, TES: Daggerfall and Realms of Arkania (Star Trail) are the games I grew up playing, so it is only natural for me that Call of Saregnar is a game inspired by those role-playing classics. If you would like to support me developing this game, and have insight into the development process, I kindly invite you to pick a tier and contribute to my Patreon.
 

Reinhardt

Arcane
Joined
Sep 4, 2015
Messages
29,239
If you look at porn games, after some time, when there is steady income, they stop making new stuff and just milking money. Sorry, but no finished product - no money from me. I'm too old for this shit.
 

StaticSpine

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 14, 2013
Messages
3,232
Location
Moscow
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I've thought about it. I think that for a Patreon to be successful you have to generate a lot of consistent content. and generating content like that is hard. If I were ever to do it I would probably go for something like Handmade Hero and have a completely open development process using livestreams and such. BUT most of game development is super boring. Its basically a desk job, so taking all that content and editing it together into something that people would be interested in would be cool challenge.

If I was ever gonna go this route I would probably just test the waters and do the stuff for free, and then see about opening it up to Patreon or something. So... maybe?
I'm not sure the core audience really needs anything more than monthly updates and maybe some alpha/beta builds for top-tier backers. It's not about getting content it's about supporting the people who already got your trust to finish whatever they are working on.
 

StaticSpine

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 14, 2013
Messages
3,232
Location
Moscow
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
https://www.patreon.com/rhuantavan
My name is Damjan Mozetič and I’ve been itching to make an RPG for many years now. Games like Betrayal at Krondor, TES: Daggerfall and Realms of Arkania (Star Trail) are the games I grew up playing, so it is only natural for me that Call of Saregnar is a game inspired by those role-playing classics. If you would like to support me developing this game, and have insight into the development process, I kindly invite you to pick a tier and contribute to my Patreon.
Like that, but this is just some unknown guy and I'm talking about studios with existing core audiences.
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
Nobody said the world is fair... But to be honest Trese Brothers make money by selling their product and not by provising patreon content.

I think it's astonishing, that they manage to live from what they are doing. They sell their games to a niche for a rather low one-off price and support them for many years with new content. In that case, Patreon as a way for dedicated fans with a high willingness to pay seems an alternative to selling DLC.
 

Tyranicon

A Memory of Eternity
Developer
Joined
Oct 7, 2019
Messages
5,875
Nobody said the world is fair... But to be honest Trese Brothers make money by selling their product and not by provising patreon content.

I think it's astonishing, that they manage to live from what they are doing. They sell their games to a niche for a rather low one-off price and support them for many years with new content. In that case, Patreon as a way for dedicated fans with a high willingness to pay seems an alternative to selling DLC.


Really low margins and growing a dedicated fanbase is the name of the game for niche gamedevs. It's also about long tail sales, since games you put into market years ago still give you a small income if they're popular enough.
 
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