🎉CoG v0.6.0🎉 + ❗PATREON PRICING INCREASE ❗

Hello everyone, the next update is finally here! As you can see from the title, I will be increasing the prices of the Patreon tiers, so please make sure to keep reading past the second half of this post for more info.

But first...

The update!

I'm trying a new thing this time, in an attempt to move away from finnicky file hosting sites. You can now get the early release through a secondary itch.io page!

• Early Release Download

• The password to the page is "bignews"

You can let that download in the back while you read through the rest of this post!

Here is some important info regarding this update:

• The Discord Server is now accessible to the rest of you who didn't get an invite during the initial wave. The link is available in-game from the Title Screen!

• Aside from some early build-up story scenes, there are no big content additions in this update: the big focus this time around was a big revamp of the gameplay balance.

• After a week or two of letting the changes sink in and to fix any glaring balancing issues, the update will get ready to be released to the public.

  Until then, please share any thoughts and experiences you have with the new balancing changes in the #gameplay-balance channel in the Discord, here in the comments, or through my e-mail!

Price increase of the Patreon

Now here comes the unfun, but very important part.

I have decided to increase the price of both Patreon tiers by $2, a change which will occur on June 5th 2025, about a week from now on.

Here's what you need to know:

The new pricing

Throw money at me: $1 -> $3

Actual Benefits: $5 -> $7

A quick breakdown of how this process will work:

• The pricing change will occur on June 5th, a bit over a week from now on.

• Existing subscriptions will still renew at the old price until July 6th 2025 (for another month). Afterwards they will start to renew at the new price.

The story behind the change

If you're interested in the actual thought process and story that led to this decision, here's a long and sappy backstory on how the Patreon for CoG got started:

When I first launched the Patreon, it was pretty much just an off-the-cuff decision I made on a whim. At first, there was only one tier: the $1 "Throw money at me" option, which was basically there so that anyone who wanted to support me could have a way to do just that.

Some time later, I decided I wanted to provide something, at the very least. The minimum of an actual benefit to give as a thank you for supporting the project. Eventually this led to the posting of the very first Development Log.

The project then grew and got more popular, and a few months later, I came up with the Patreon Perks idea: an actual in-game menu that offers some perks for supporting the project. From this idea, the "Actual benefits" tier was born, priced at $5.

As you can see, both of the tiers were created pretty much out of nowhere, with very little thought put into them:

"I need at least one tier so that people can just pick for themselves how much they want to give. $1 is the minimum? Sure let's do that, then!"

"Now I need another, more significant tier... 5$? Sure, that's a nice number."

The money talk

However, now that I've had more time familiarize myself with the inner workings of Patreon, I realized there was a caveat: all the various fees surrounding each payment.

This is something that particularly affects the $1 tier. In fact, Patreon actively deters people from setting up a tier that low. This is because, after taking fees into account, I barely get 75 cents off of your support, with the rest going to Patreon and various payment processors.

Back then I figured it'd be best to give people the option anyways, but now I feel like like there are better ways for you to spend your $1. Ways that don't end up with over a quarter of it absorbed by some third-party.

The "threshold" of fee effectiveness is at $3, which is where you lose the least percentage of money to fees on a "cheap tier". And that is why I decided to go with that. The Actual benefits has similar reasoning behind the increase to $7.

Aside from that, there is also the very straightforward issue of... the income is just not enough. It is just enough so that I can pay my rent, bills and afford food, but not enough to save any of it or afford many other amenities.

And to make things worse, last month, the payment processor also increased their fees, further decreasing the income I get from the Patreon, which ultimately means that things have become a bit too tight for comfort. Clearly something had to change.

And that brings us to now

Back then, I had very little interest in creating a ton of different tiers. I dislike how it takes something that should be simple (providing people with a way to give you money), and turns it into an entire hassle.

To liken it to a certain other trend in the gaming industry: if you need an entire chart with checkboxes for which content is included so that people can tell which edition of your game to buy, something went wrong.

I still feel the same to this day. It's why there are only two tiers here. And so I decided that the best step was for me to increase the prices of the current tiers.

If that means that you won't be able to support the project anymore due to your financial situation (and hoo boy there sure are a lot of other factors contributing to that right now), or even just because you feel it's too expensive, that's okay!

I'm still very grateful for your support all the way up to this point, and Cards of Gluttony itself will remain free for everyone, now and forever.

Phew...

And that's the end of the money talk. Hopefully the update has finished downloading by now, so off you go and have fun!

Now it's time for me to sign off. Once again, thank you for reading and for all of your support!