Patreon for small independent studios

[StaticSpine]

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

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

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]

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]

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.

 

[vonAchdorf]

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

Trese Brothers make like 500/month.

This guy makes 60k/month: https://www.patreon.com/sonicether

 

[rusty_shackleford]

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

 

[Morkar Left]

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]

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).

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

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

 

[Eyestabber]

Meanwhile, average looking thots are making big bucks from thirsty cucks AND probably fapping to clown porn in their spare time.

 

[CruduxCruo]

What they're building is torture.

So it's faithful to the BioShock experience.

 

[Morkar Left]

Trese Brothers make like 500/month.

This guy makes 60k/month: https://www.patreon.com/sonicether

Nobody said the world is fair... But to be honest Trese Brothers make money by selling their product and not by provising patreon content.
This guy kinda proves my point about not needing porn / cute faces. But he basically won the lottery. It's nothing you can plan.

fapping to clown porn

Need more input.

 

[Eyestabber]

Need more input.

Remember: you ASKED for it.

 

[Tyranicon]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

 

[StaticSpine]

https://www.patreon.com/bay12games

Dwarf Fortress

 

[deama]

https://www.patreon.com/bay12games

Dwarf Fortress

Holy shit he's getting paid over $7000 a month now! + maybe even donations! Is it still just one guy working on it?