Am I the only with WITHOUT a patreon?

[Motoyo]

Man everyone and their brother is now making a $2-$5 patreon..haha.
Sure there is a lot of free content, and I appreciate it. I am also a patreon of a few good creators. But its getting ridiculous.

I see patreons with 4-5 looks on them, some of them worse than the free content. Or someone made one good free one that got lots of downloads, so they think "I will make a patreon!" and go to their page to see the blurred images and offer to sign up. Figure sure why not I liked that one they made...to realize it was the ONLY good one they made of the sparse 5-10 they got on it.

Not a complaint, or asking for a solution..as much as just a mini rant.

 

[No1]

Totally agree with you!

 

[VRCube]

Yeah, then you look at Skyrim modding scene or Illusion modding and absolutely no one is asking for money.

 

[Williamwow123]

Almost as bad as subbing to a married OnlyFans girl when you can just Google porn for free right!

 

[PhantasyStarfan]

Yeah, then you look at Skyrim modding scene or Illusion modding and absolutely no one is asking for money.

Technically false. Skyrim did attempt payed mods, with huge kickback on Steam. Then reintroduced it on their service where they basically got away it. You can still get free stuff on Nexus and such. But yes, they absolutely do sell mods.

Valve has been doing this for years, all the way back to Counterstrike and Team Fortress Classic.

Personally, I don't begrudge people, if the quality is good, and they've spend what? Hundreds of hours on something, yea, think they do have the right to earn some bread.

If the quality is poor and people are just charging for the sake of it, yea, I get that too.

At the end of the day, it's up to you if you want to support it. If someone wants to pay, not gonna begrudge them either, it's their money.

 

[enigma]

it really doesnt bug me. there are even some free things here that I would pay for. if it helps creators create better things for the community, why not? the hub was well designed and you dont even have to look at it, so is it a problem, really?

 

[Motoyo]

Its not that I complain or don't want pay items, I do have a half dozen or more I do pay for. It's there is far too many that have them for average content.

My main issue with it is the 'never ending patreon' path you end up going down.
You find one you like, and his scene depends on a shirt, or hair, or morph of some other patreon so you can't even get the scene 'fully'.
One I found I would have need to sign up for FOUR more patreons..just for one scene I wanted. As their scene needed 2 (other) patreon only vars, and those two from other people, need two more from different creators.

 

[djsoapyknuckles]

As someone who started their patreon last October, I can say I totally agree, even though its not in my best interest to do so. Patreon is not the ideal model for this kind of software, where you may just want to buy 1 "thing" but you have to subscribe to somebody's patreon at some tier level just to get the one "thing" only to find out what they are offering needs other "things" to work right. It's also really hard to tell what kind of quality you are getting before you actually get your shiny new "thing" into VaM and load it up. I would MUCH rather just slap a price tag on my "thing" (like 50 cents or whatever) and people could go to the "thing" store and just buy it - without all the baggage that comes along with patreon. Personally, I would be also be MUCH more willing to buy a thing if the investment was only 50 cents or a buck and if it didn't do what I wanted, maybe there's a way to get a refund or something. I get 1000's of views on the assets I put up for free (and also a lot on the paid side), and those are still work to create, there comes a point where the return on the invested time just isn't worth it. So instead of waiting for someone to stumble on my patreon and decide, with great risk, to subscribe at $2 or $3, or $5 or whatever it is - you could basically crowd fund that time investment where if the "thing" you make is worth it to 500 of the 1000 people who see it, and 500 of them decide to buy it for 50 cents, you got $250 for the time you invested in that single "thing". For me, that just makes more sense. But alas, there is no such marketplace (yet) for creators that provides the things we need, which are anonymity of transactions (bitcoin etc.), potential for refund/chargebacks within a certain scope of warranty, and integration with the hub so that purchased assets are tracked/stored/delivered to those who "own" them and can be persistently downloaded from the hub.

 

[MacGruber]

One I found I would have need to sign up for FOUR more patreons..just for one scene I wanted. As their scene needed 2 (other) patreon only vars, and those two from other people, need two more from different creators.

Are you SURE about that? I get quite some number of clicks (and signups!) from old Patreon content that has long been uploaded to the Hub for free. Of course I can't tell whether those people are just thankful or think they have to subscribe. I recommend to check this guide on how to install stuff from Patreon and have VaM find and auto-download any dependencies for you, obviously only works for dependencies uploaded to the Hub: https://hub.virtamate.com/resources/installing-var-packages-from-patreon.4010/

Personally, I would be also be MUCH more willing to buy a thing if the investment was only 50 cents or a buck and if it didn't do what I wanted, maybe there's a way to get a refund or something. I get 1000's of views on the assets I put up for free (and also a lot on the paid side), and those are still work to create, there comes a point where the return on the invested time just isn't worth it. So instead of waiting for someone to stumble on my patreon and decide, with great risk, to subscribe at $2 or $3, or $5 or whatever it is - you could basically crowd fund that time investment where if the "thing" you make is worth it to 500 of the 1000 people who see it, and 500 of them decide to buy it for 50 cents, you got $250 for the time you invested in that single "thing". For me, that just makes more sense.

Well I kind of go that approach:

• I'm using EarlyAccess, so from my previous releases you know what kind of quality to expect. Due to Patreon rules, adult content needs to be behind a paywall. However, screenshots, videos and descriptions are always also freely available on the Hub, with links to it from Discord, Twitter and Reddit. So you can get a very good idea of what you get in advance.
• (Only my "Monthly Reports" and "Work in Progress" are only on Patreon, but these have no actual download content. These are kind of behind the scenes descriptions/info of what I'm working on and why.)
• I'm NOT using Tiers, so your pledge can be the minimum amount Patreon allows, which is 1$/1€/etc.

Essentially its a "pay what it is worth to you". While many indeed just go for 1$, which might simply be because it's the default, still enough give 5 to make it worth it. There is also some people who signup AFTER it became free and they tried it, although its just a few.

Note that "1000's of views" is not really much in this community, despite the community being rather small. My content has a combined 280000 downloads, just here on the hub, yet I have only like 300 patrons. So finding 500 people to actually buy a single of your assets for 50cents may be hard.

 

[ParticlePinnacle]

Look, people prefer buying vs being sold something.

If a creator just puts up content behind a paywall and the only explanation of why the potential paying customer should pay them is "Give me money!" 95% of them are going to run for the hills, you would too.

What creators should be doing is clearly demonstrating the uses of products and dramatizing the use and non-use of their end product to actually give patreons a sense of what they're buying

 

[djsoapyknuckles]

Are you SURE about that? I get quite some number of clicks (and signups!) from old Patreon content that has long been uploaded to the Hub for free. Of course I can't tell whether those people are just thankful or think they have to subscribe. I recommend to check this guide on how to install stuff from Patreon and have VaM find and auto-download any dependencies for you, obviously only works for dependencies uploaded to the Hub: https://hub.virtamate.com/resources/installing-var-packages-from-patreon.4010/


Well I kind of go that approach:

• I'm using EarlyAccess, so from my previous releases you know what kind of quality to expect. Due to Patreon rules, adult content needs to be behind a paywall. However, screenshots, videos and descriptions are always also freely available on the Hub, with links to it from Discord, Twitter and Reddit. So you can get a very good idea of what you get in advance.
• (Only my "Monthly Reports" and "Work in Progress" are only on Patreon, but these have no actual download content. These are kind of behind the scenes descriptions/info of what I'm working on and why.)
• I'm NOT using Tiers, so your pledge can be the minimum amount Patreon allows, which is 1$/1€/etc.

Essentially its a "pay what it is worth to you". While many indeed just go for 1$, which might simply be because it's the default, still enough give 5 to make it worth it. There is also some people who signup AFTER it became free and they tried it, although its just a few.

Note that "1000's of views" is not really much in this community, despite the community being rather small. My content has a combined 280000 downloads, just here on the hub, yet I have only like 300 patrons. So finding 500 people to actually buy a single of your assets for 50cents may be hard.

Yeah, I dont think 1000s of views /downloads is a lot...just an example. I don't put out a lot of content, but try to keep quality as high as possible. I know exactly why I have a very small number of patrons and right now and I'm ok with that. Very small niche in a huge playground, I dont make things that have broad appeal, so it goes with the territory. I'm not advocating for one model or the other, just stating what I believe are some issues with the patreon model. At its core, it's not designed to be a storefront. I've also enjoyed building a small community around what I do, so that aspect of patreon is great.

 

[Motoyo]

Are you SURE about that? I get quite some number of clicks (and signups!) from old Patreon content that has long been uploaded to the Hub for free. Of course I can't tell whether those people are just thankful or think they have to subscribe. I recommend to check this guide on how to install stuff from Patreon and have VaM find and auto-download any dependencies for you, obviously only works for dependencies uploaded to the Hub: https://hub.virtamate.com/resources/installing-var-packages-from-patreon.4010/

Yea unfortunately.
After letting vam try to find them on the hub, then searching vamscenes and reddit, even doing google searches for the artist, then the var name itself. the ONLY place I can find it is the patreon linked in the depend.txt (or the google result that took me to the same place).
I'd say about 1/3 the time if it's not a 'bigger' creator making it, it needs at least 1 other patreon sign up for a random hair, or clothes, or something.
The one I was speaking of in the first post was bad about it.
I signed up for his pateron for a look I liked, got it. And literally everything but one item it needed was in someone else's pateron. Thought "OK maybe its that one look" found another he made that I liked on his patreon, got it. Same thing but worse. Recscan packaged added like 10 things I was missing, find missing showed them all as "not on hub" dig into the depends.txt alll patreon links.. Most of them digging into the json are because he used a single morph out of it, or a hair or hair accessory, or the socks..or something.
Granted I can live without that one morph. And hair and clothes I change most the time anyway. But the amount of errors in the logs each startup of "so and so that X depends on", and hassle of loading a look to see she is bald and 1/2 dressed, right on load, is annoying for something I paid for

 

[djsoapyknuckles]

there's also a difference between making a thing (asset) that doesn't require any other things to work and making a scene or look that is dependent on other people's things to look the way its intended. It would probably help to bundle my things in a scene so people can just download that and have a working setup that demos my "thing". It's hard though, because I dont want to use someone else's work in a scene, where I'm placing a paid asset and potentially run into issues there - that just doesn't seem ethical to potentially benefit from someone else's hard work that they decided to release for free and include it in my scene where my "thing" is behind a paywall.