10 years on patreon

today i'm going to talk about my history on this platform and how i feel about it now. kind of a nostalgia trip of a post--should be fun for both new fans and old ones who were around for all the stuff that's happened up to now :)

after this month, i'm gonna be making some changes to my patreon campaign. so you can read about those at the end OR stay tuned for next week's post where i'll just outline the changes without all this extra context haha. this post is public so that new people can read before they decide to join if they want.

early days on patreon

when i first started making original games in 2014, i had recently dropped out of college and was doing contract work for a game studio. in that first year or so of making VNs, i released two short games, and i was earning around $100/month. i treated patreon like a tip jar since i wasn't on itchio yet and the games were entirely free. actually, i put tunnel vision on gumroad where it earned a little bit being pay-what-you-want, but most of my income came from doing contract work and commissions. i was living with my parents for most of this period since i wouldn't have been able to afford rent/living expenses otherwise.

2015 was a little better for me! my patreon income went up to between $200-300/month, even though i still wasn't posting here actively. syrup and the ultimate sweet came out that october--it was the first game i released on itchio! a popular youtuber played it and a lot of their audience very kindly dropped by the itchio page to leave tips. i was doing a lot more contract work for lab zero since they were running the crowdfunding campaign for indivisible that year too. my income was steady enough to move out of my parents' house to live with friends in another state... it must've been january 2016, because i remember drawing mochi's sprites with my computer set up on their living room floor.

this is around when i switched my patreon to being "per project" rather than monthly payouts. i don't have a record of why i decided to do this, but i imagine it was because indivisible got funded and i expected to have a lot more work coming--enough that i wouldn't feel right collecting payouts while i was only working on my games on the side. it made more sense to only charge people when i released something new... and i had a lot of small games i put out that year! the first 3 chapters of lonely wolf treat, her tears were my light, KAIMA, and spooky soiree. i remember feeling pressured to release a game each month to ensure i'd have enough to make rent--i was still only getting ~$300 from patreon, but that was a significant amount to me at the time. i didn't have anything in savings.

by that summer, i was offered a salaried position at lab zero. 40k/year! wow! i felt extremely lucky at the time, because that was an insane amount of money to me. a lot more than i could make from the mix of patreon, commissions, and itchio tips i was earning up until then. if it wasn't obvious by now, i come from a pretty low income family. my dad became disabled when i was in elementary school, and my mom mostly worked at daycares. i don't want to say i grew up poor, because we always had food to eat and a nice place to sleep, but i was lucky that i got to go to college at all and that my parents always supported me being an artist. most of my student loans were taken out in my dad's name, and there was a loan forgiveness program he was able to get into because of his disability... sorry, i probably should've mentioned this post was gonna be a lot about my dad. i love my dad, i'm really grateful for everything he's done for me.

anyway, back to patreon

i really like the per-project model of payouts. you might've heard about this, but patreon is actually phasing out the option to do this. i spent 2016-2021 in per-project payout mode, because i had a day job until then. there isn't even much to say about those years, because i was just happily releasing games whenever i was able to finish them. many patrons joined over the years, and my income per release climbed up to ~$1500 by 2021. i was nowhere near releasing a game a month anymore due to my job, but it was nice to have a guaranteed chunk of income for all the time i was putting into each new game.

this is a sidenote, but in 2020, i got syrup ported to consoles. it was my first commercial game! i was able to pay off the rest of my student loans thanks to the income from that... it was the first time i started thinking i could actually make a living on my games instead of continuing to work for a game studio. but i liked my coworkers, and felt like i shouldn't leave them behind. we started our own company together after lab zero fell apart, and it seemed like there was going to be room there for me to lead a small project if i worked hard enough. that was my dream--to turn my day job into what i was already doing on the side.

i think probably everyone knows what happened in 2022. my post about it is still up, actually. because i lost my job, and because i figured there was no way another company would ever want to hire me, it seemed like the only path left for me was to just make my own games fulltime. which really i would've done either way, because LWT and syrup 2 weren't finished yet and i wasn't about to give up and abandon them after so many years. plus, BAD END THEATER had just come out the previous october, and it was selling a lot even before markiplier played it. suddenly it was feasible to make a living on my games, enough to comfortably support me and my partner.

i finished astra's garden that may, and went fulltime doing patreon. weekly posts and lots of bonus stuff, as you guys have likely been around for. i was fully off social media, so it was nice to have a place to post my art still. a closed space where i was sure everyone who was here actually wanted to be here and didn't mind seeing my art (which i was worried about for a long time, even though i don't have any control over who sees my art/games anymore). even when i started posting publicly again, it's still been nice to have a more closed community and regularly scheduled content to share here. i like getting to talk about spoilers and the more in-depth parts of development, and it's fun to show off stuff that won't be released publicly for many months.

having a schedule is kind of a double-edge sword for me though... in the past i always struggled with feeling guilty for not finishing games faster, or being unable to get myself to work on things due to stress/anxiety. it's hard for me to pick a project and stick to it until it's done, unless that project is smaller than a month or two of work. i felt like i was going strong for a while, having consistent updates here and a steady flow of new games--at least for 2023. but most of 2024 has been a struggle, and i've only just recently gotten back into the swing of things. but it's all been syrup 2 (instead of LWT like i promised...) so it seems like i'm only able to work on things when there's no expectations attached to them. it's probably why i love doing game jams--there's no chance for my anxiety to build up because everything happens too fast haha.

so, lately i'm starting to think that going this hard on my patreon isn't really sustainable for me. i've had a lot of fun doing this for the past 2 years, and i'm really grateful to everyone who's supported me here! but i think this model of 5+ updates/month isn't right for me anymore... and here's where i talk about my dad again.

my dad's almost 70 now. he's been in and out of the hospital a few times this year. nothing TOO serious--he's managed to dodge death many many times over the past two decades... but he's getting weaker, and can't really walk anymore. he's not about to die or anything, it's more like... i'm incredibly conscious of the fact that his time is limited. and i've spent all my time working. i do it because i love making games, but i think at this point i should slow down and spend more time with my family.

what's next

WELL... i wanted to go back to per-project payouts, so i could just post whenever i have something substantial to release. but patreon is removing that feature! so i can't. if i fully took down my campaign, i'm pretty sure everyone would lose access to the content they already paid for... so that's not a good option either! AND they don't let you pause your campaign for an indeterminate amount of time anymore, as i found out earlier this year when i went on vacation and had to log back in each month to make sure it didn't charge people while i was gone.

HMM. patreon sure has lost a lot of features over the years. i've gotten more and more frustrated with it as a platform the more i've been actively using it... which is another part of why i'd like to not keep pouring all this energy into posting here. the thing is, i wrote most of this post before cohost announced it was shutting down. so i feel even worse about saying "actually i'm gonna post even LESS now!!!" but... this has been a long time coming.

i don't want to take people's support for granted, and i don't want anyone to end up feeling like they're wasting their money. so if your main reason for subscribing was to see my weekly updates, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE cancel your sub if it's no longer worth it to you. i don't show the amount i make on my page anymore because they changed the display to say "$1.71k" instead of just "$1710" (as of writing this). seriously, it looks so misleading. who writes a four-digit number abbreviated like that... sorry, it's been bothering me for so long, i get annoyed about it every time i open my page. my point is, i'm making more than enough especially because i can rely on game sales--i'm not ever going to have to stop making games due to lack of funding at this point, so don't worry about that at all!

mainly i'm just really sorry that this is coming at the same time cohost is about to shut down. i was going back and forth about posting this today, but i really have nothing else to share this week and i don't want to keep putting this off...and obviously this doesn't mean i'm never posting again. i'll just be posting whenever i have something good to share. monthly art posts will continue as normal, and the other rewards will be unaffected (since they still depend on me releasing a game lol). it's JUST the weekly posts that i'll be dropping from my responsibilities.

new things to look forward to

i'm still planning on releasing a syrup 2 WIP build soon. HOPEFULLY by the end of the month, but i might have to delay a bit... (this month is going by real fast......) after syrup 2, i'll be focusing on treat again. i promised the next part would be ready by the end of the year, and i still want to try to reach that goal. i'm notoriously bad at keeping my deadlines with treat though, so we'll see how it goes...

one thing i've been hearing from fans on cohost is that they'll really miss having an askbox to send me questions. i've been thinking about ways to integrate one into my website, but i also don't want to have a constantly-open anonymous askbox since that can be a vector for harassment. previously on cohost, i would just open asks for a few days to a week every month or so... which made me think, is this actually something i should just offer to patrons?

i know a lot of other creators do patron Q&A, but i never considered it before myself because i assumed if someone had a question they would just go ahead and ask me. but it does sound nice to have a more formalized system! i wouldn't mind doing posts like that every month. let me know what you guys think and i can work it into the changes i'm planning.

sorry for the ultra long post, i know there's a lot going on here. i'm out of things to say now, so please leave a comment if you have feedback you'd like to share!

<3 nami