Would you contribute monthly if you could? 17
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Honestly, I have never used Patreon. What I mean is I never committed money to anyone over the internet. I usually just buy a game as me doing my part. But since I realized how much Valve actually takes from indie developers, I feel kind of sad for all of those indie developers trying to get somewhere. Honestly if there was a way to help out Red51 I would. I would totally pay monthly for nothing in return. "Nothing in return? But everything has a catch. What's really going on Xalzinor?" Well actually the real catch is the whole reason why I never really wanted to contribute. I really really hate the entire idea of Pay to Win.
I really don't want to bring religion into this, but it's the best analogy I can think of.
Just like tithes, when people do it because they have this feeling that they need to or they simply expect something good to happen, the reasons behind this "contribution" are actually greed. And when a specific church starts guaranteeing worldly benefits, the members start giving more less because they are trying to help others and more because they are trying to help themselves. Then the church sees all this money coming in, and they either don't want it to stop, or they want it to grow, so they cant stop or slow down they "benefits" so they just increase it more and more. Well now, this so called "church" isn't about the idea of a church, its about the idea of money. In the end, those "worldly benefits" aren't really benefits to a true believer. Those "worldy benefits" will die out.
Same should be said for games. Games should be about fun and entertainment. Games shouldn't be about a company getting more money while gamers are getting more virtual benefits. In the end those "virtual benefits" aren't really benefits to a true gamer. Those "virtual benefits" will die out.
Anyways,
It is really easy to just push out a P2W game and make a ton of money off of it. But as we see, that's becoming more and more hated, and less and less popular. Idk about all the other gamers, but I actually like games where grinding is the only way to play.
The real challenge is making a game non P2W, being an Indie Dev, and not giving into temptation of making it P2W just "to get an update out" and on top of that, Valve taking 30% of the money.
Idk fully how to solve this without making Valve lowering that by at least half.
But one way would be to offer a way for players to pay monthly subscriptions but giving them something in return that can in no way be used to benefit them in game. Maybe a tag included in their name either here, in the game, or both. Honestly skins could work too, but every game that went down that road went further down and they eventually became what they strived not being.
Please Red51, I really want to see this game in its final form. It's hard enough that the dev team is so small. But finding out about the budget makes it even harder for me to believe it will even get done by the end of this decade. This is actually the first game I played that I do feel guilty for leaving even though the reasons are the same as other games I abandon. I do come back to this game every once in a while because unlike them, your team isn't a "grab the money and run" kind of devs. I'm sure I'm not the only one willing to pay monthly just for the sole benefit of seeing this game finish faster.
Maybe have 4 different tiers, all have the same benefit of not having any benefit other than knowing the game will be finished faster.
$1 $3 $5 $10
It could also be harmless to have your name somewhere in a seperate page in the main menu of all contributors (no categories, just in alphabetical order.)
