Patreon Benefits Update & Future Plans

Hey friends, I want to give you all a quick update on some plans I have for the Patreon tiers and content that goes out to benefactors. I'll give you the headlines at a glance in case you just want to know the changes without the explanations.

1: Benefactors will receive a special version of all videos that remains ad-free forever, not just until it is published to live.

Typically when I release a video, it goes up ad-free here to benefactors while in early access, and then ads are turned on when the video is published to the public. However, not everyone always gets to enjoy this benefit before I push the video to live, and so I'll be making a change to how videos are published to the Patreon feed versus the live feed. Starting with the Omori & Stray series, I'll be uploading a separate Benefactor Version of new videos that remains ad-free FOREVER to subscribers, and then a regular video that goes live to everyone else. This also means that the Benefactor version will have its own private comment section & viewership, which since there will be far less volume of comments, I may be able to respond more to them on that version of the video. So if you'd like to ask for more of my thoughts or something, I'll try to engage an extra bit more on that version of the upload with you all!

2: Pricing will increase in the future, but anyone who is subscribed beforehand will keep their current sub price, so the change will only affect future subscribers.

This is just a heads up for now, so no current change for the moment. I haven't changed the pricing of any tiers since the beginning of the Patreon, when the channel was very different to what it is today. The Patreon was created when all I was doing was reuploading anime reaction live streams on the YT channel and would publish them here earlier. Today, most of my content is produced offline, where I can take a lot more time crafting the analysis I want, as well as get creative with editing to tell meta-narratives and dramatize my experience of the playthrough. I've greatly enjoyed the additional creative freedom this gives me to experiment and bring something unique to these series. It does also mean that the time investment has increased significantly, and I only plan to improve the quality of these elements of the videos going forward.

Right now, content creation is not my full-time career, and it won't be for a few more years yet. But that is something I want to work towards eventually, and to me that means starting to treat this project as more than just the side-hobby it was when I first opened the Patreon. It's much more of a second job now, and so I want to take it more seriously while also making sure that if I am saying it has more value to ME, then I want to make it have more value to YOU as well for supporting it. So at some point in the future (it will be announced ahead of time), I'll be increasing the pricing of the Patreon tiers, and may offer some additional tiers as well. I only plan to do this when I feel like the value is actually there, however, and so before that happens, I'll be looking for additional ways to offer value to your support. I've started this with trying out some exclusive series like the Expedition 33 LetsPlay being published only to benefactors (may be released to all once the series is complete, but will remain exclusive until then & ad-free forever) and today's change with keeping content ad-free forever for supporters. I have some of ideas for other changes, like additional Patreon-only streams and other exclusive content. So these changes will be coming, but I'll need to feel like the value and consistency is there first, which I am working towards with some of these additions.

As mentioned in the headline, any pricing change will only effect NEW subscribers after the point that the pricing changes. If you are actively subscribed at the time of the change, you will lock in that price for as long as you are subscribed. So if you are a long-term supporter, and plan to continue being so, you will receive all of these future benefits at no additional cost! I am immensely grateful to those who have been supporting this project thus far, and want to honor that by giving much more to you without anything further in return. I am also looking into activating annual memberships which will allow for discounts if you have a LOT of faith in me (and the world) to still be here for the long-term, which I have every intention of doing so :3

So those are some of the updates I wanted to share! I'll keep you posted as new benefits come online and when the tiers/pricing change will happen. Thank you for all of your support and for bringing me a step closer to my dream of having creative and financial freedom while promoting positive mental health to the world!

See you soon,

Brady