Interest in a DoC Patreon?

[Leoreth]

This is something I have been thinking about in recent weeks.

Many of you probably know that I am working on this mod as a hobby and have (for the time being) a safe and well-paying job, and that I have repeatedly said that no donations or community contributions are needed to support its development, treating any money sent my way as tips and thank yous.

None of this has changed.

However, I have come to the conclusion that creating a DoC patreon might make sense. The purpose of this Patreon would not be to "fund" my life or indirectly compensate me for working on the mod. As I said, that is going to happen regardless, and I do not want to turn this project into an obligation that comes with increased expectations from patreons.

Instead, what I think could be worthwhile is to pool patreon contributions and then use them proactively to commission art assets for the game. It's the area of the mod where I am the least capable and while we were able to get a lot of leverage out of the collective art assets of the community, it's not as if the community is still active enough to produce lots of additional content for us. Instead, we could use that to fill gaps in the art where the mods need it most. This could mean many things, from interface icons to units, buildings and leaderheads. The results would still be made freely available here, so the whole modding community would benefit.

Obviously, a lot remains to be figured out before this can happen. First of all, I would need to set up a way to keep Patreon funds separate from my private money to keep everything accountable. I would also need to find out how to find interested artists who can be commissioned to do this, if they come from the CFC or from outside, and what the price point would even be. I also have no experience with Patreon itself and would need to think of backer privileges that make sense in this context.

But first I would like to know what you think and gauge the level of interest of doing something like this.

 

[BaneFire]

I would be happy to give $1 a month and from the likes it seems other people would.
I don't think you actually need to offer backer priviliges on patreon, I think if you just say "you're supporting me and that's it" that's allowed. I would definitely be against a pay-to-get-early-branch-access.

 

[1SDANi]

Perhaps one of us should post a guide to using Paypal without an attached credit card account. Maybe I'm just a man child who's still in college and lives with his father, but credit card accounts scare me with their fees for having too little money in them and reopening without permission years after being closed and such. It's a quick google to figure out but many people don't realize it's possible.

Also, I'm personally of the mindset that Patreons should have milestone estimations rather than backer rewards. What I mean by that is that the developer should set up lowball estimations of what donors can expect to be implemented by a certain date at different levels of funding, with a clear outline of where funding currently is. For one, this means that the developer doesn't have to put much effort into the Patreon outside updating the estimations and current funding total. Secondly, it instills in the donor a sense of communal investment, rather than a individualistic one. The more they and others donate, the more they can expect to see done, and thus it encourages them to find others to donate too in addition to donating themselves. While this may not end up with as many big donors, it encourages the spread of the product through word of mouth.

TL;DR for the previous paragraph: Instead of donor rewards, maybe you could set lowball milestones for at which amounts of funding we'll get which assets.

 

[Leoreth]

I would be happy to give $1 a month and from the likes it seems other people would.

Great! I haven't talked about backer amounts yet and of course $1 is a totally fine amount. I don't have estimates on the costs yet but they're likely higher than what is put in every month, which is fine because it means it may take some time to accumulate. I also plan to put in some of my own money as well.

I don't think you actually need to offer backer priviliges on patreon, I think if you just say "you're supporting me and that's it" that's allowed. I would definitely be against a pay-to-get-early-branch-access.

That and a mention in the Credits file is a given of course. I would never consider limiting branch access to patreon backers. First of all, that would be way too harsh with how the release cycles of this mod work (or those would have to be released) and probably just kill it. But also, it would be shooting myself in the foot: I definitely need everyone's feedback from the development branch. Helping me bugfix things is hardly a backer privilege.

If there are any benefits for backing that patreon I would connect them to its purpose, funding art asset creation.

Perhaps one of us should post a guide to using Paypal without an attached credit card account. Maybe I'm just a man child who's still in college and lives with his father, but credit card accounts scare me with their fees for having too little money in them and reopening without permission years after being closed and such. It's a quick google to figure out but many people don't realize it's possible.

That is a good point. There are also (free) providers to give you virtual credit cards you can charge with a set amount of money that cannot be overdrawn.

Also, I'm personally of the mindset that Patreons should have milestone estimations rather than backer rewards. What I mean by that is that the developer should set up lowball estimations of what donors can expect to be implemented by a certain date at different levels of funding, with a clear outline of where funding currently is. For one, this means that the developer doesn't have to put much effort into the Patreon outside updating the estimations and current funding total. Secondly, it instills in the donor a sense of communal investment, rather than a individualistic one. The more they and others donate, the more they can expect to see done, and thus it encourages them to find others to donate too in addition to donating themselves. While this may not end up with as many big donors, it encourages the spread of the product through word of mouth.

TL;DR for the previous paragraph: Instead of donor rewards, maybe you could set lowball milestones for at which amounts of funding we'll get which assets.

True, I hadn't considered that. It might also help making things more transparent.

 

[Pedersen]

I would be happy to give a contribution using whatever mechanism is proposed.

I could worry that setting up a milestone plan via patron could take focus away from doing the work (over to "telling about the work"), but I am sure that can be managed

 

[Pedersen]

I would be happy to give a contribution using whatever mechanism is proposed.

I could worry that setting up a milestone plan via patron could take focus away from doing the work (over to "telling about the work"), but I am sure that can be managed

Anyways, just to answer myself, I found out that the ko-fi link under the "welcome to..." thread works ;-)

 

[Leoreth]

Heh, thanks.

 

[tantanmen]

But first I would like to know what you think and gauge the level of interest of doing something like this.

Thank you for this suggestion, Leoreth!

If sprinkling in a little money could renew some enthusiasm for Civ4, I'm ready to smash my piggy bank, kick open the proverbial war chest, and max out all my 0% interest airline credit cards.

Testimonial, Observations, etc. TL;DR:

Spoiler :

In fact, I've been daydreaming about Patreon since the day I first discovered it: Civ4 was going through a dry spell, I was browsing the Civ6 forum, and I had to stop and blink and rub my eyes in revelation of the artist Sukritact. I realized then that I would be more than willing to become a backer for a high-caliber Civ4 LH artist.

Civ4 modders would benefit immensely by recruiting artists from within (or even outside) the larger community. While less active than a decade ago, this forum seems to experience cyclical regrowth with new artists and modders. A little extra incentive might retain them. My guess is that for an artist, receiving a bonafide commission would probably be more flattering than getting the typical 'hey, can you...' request.

I think members will remain active and motivated so long as new content is being created. We each reinforce one another's creative output. At the best of times, simply for love of the game, members can really gel and establish lasting synergy. But this might be a time when the art department could use a boost.

So for me it would be a dream come true if you created a Patreon-based DoC Commission for the Arts

 

[SultanRedSnake]

Shut up and take my money.

 

[raystuttgart]

@Leoreth
Did you ever start your "DOC Patreon"? Could you tell me a little bit about it?
I am just wondering, because there are players of our mod WTP that suggested us to go on Patreon as well.

However I do not really feel comfortable with it for 2 reasons:
1) Our mod uses lots of assets from other modders. So there may be moral issues with it also causing nasty discussions in community.
2) I see potential legal issues with it. Because if I understand the licenses of Firaxis and 2K correctly no modder can make money with a CivBTS/Civ4Col mod.

 

[Leoreth]

Hey, I have not. So I don't really have any advice or experiences to share.

I honestly have not put much thought into the legal dimension of it either.

As for the ethical dimension, my idea was less to use it as an additional source of income (with the implication that I could reduce hours at my regular job and put them into modding). It was more to use funds to commission artists etc for additional art assets etc. while keeping money out of my personal account and being transparent about expenses.

 

[raystuttgart]

while keeping money out of my personal account and being transparent about expenses.

As a fellow modder I fully understand the motivation.
It is simply about "faster progress" for the mod, not about making money yourself.

But still, for me it would leave a taste taking money for modding - or for paying others to mod - even if it is offered voluntarily.
And investing my own money to buy assets or for paying somebody to work for my mod is something I never wanted to do.

-----

Honestly if I ever found out that somebody is using assets from our mod and in any way took money for it, I would really be p****.
Even if he asked for permission, I would most likely deny it because a lot of the stuff in our mod was not even created by ourselves.

So how should our mod then start a Patreon page and not expect other modders to react the same?
It would most likely cause much more anger, trouble and broken friendships with other modders than it could ever be worth.

-----

Thanks for the reply.

 

[Leoreth]

I don't know if you really have to worry about blowback from the community. Maybe it would be different for a large and active current game where there is more of a spirit of competition in the modding scene, but my impression of the Civ4 modding community is that it is pretty close-knit and people think of their mods as mutually supporting each other, both in the sense that they each help keeping the audience alive and in the sense of sharing knowledge and resources.

I think there are two perspectives to consider here. Would your supporters be angry if the assets they contributed to are used by other mods, and would developers of other mods be angry if you used crowdfunding to create more assets. I think both can be headed off with transparency and clarity about the purpose: I would set up any such approach with the explicit declaration that every asset that is produced using crowdfunding would immediately go into the public domain (under a suitable license). This should avoid conflicts on both ends: patreon supporters know about this fact going in, so if they do not like the fact that the result will be freely shared they can decide not to pledge their support. And other projects should welcome the fact that additional assets will be available to them as well.

In any such project I would see my role only as some sort of creative director who decides what should be created and how, although even that could be democratised to some extent using patreon polls etc. The greatest impediment for me to ever get this off the ground was more the fact that I had to idea where to recruit creators with the right skillset for Civ4 content.

Maybe this is also a good approach to structure a crowdfunding approach that would not infringe on copyright or cause other legal conflicts: if the goal of the patreon is not to create a mod (which inherently relies on the existence of the base game that Firaxis holds intellectual property of) but just to create graphical etc. assets which may or may not be used by a Civ4 mod, it seems less infractioning on the game license to me. But again, I am not a lawyer and have not investigated this question properly or consulted anyone.

 

[raystuttgart]

If we are just talking about "assets", that may not really be an issue, because then it could be organized as a "Community Patreon" and not a "Mod XY Patreon".
And if it would then probably most modders would not complain that community sponsors creation of assets for the whole community.

But who should then decide what is going to be created and who should decide how much it is worth?
Would only the big most popular mods profit? Or would small mods just starting with small community also get a voice?

Also that is not really what most of the players are offering.
They are not talking about supporting community they want to support specific mods they like.

----

Also most of the time for our own mod it is not about assets.
It is more about investing effort for solving specific issues.

I give you 2 examples:

A) Something very complex:
In our mod we have OOS-issues in MP games that players complain about since years but we could not yet fix.
Some of our players suggested that we should create some kind of "crowd-funding" to collect money and have a professional programmer fix it.

B) Something very tedious:
In our mod I have added massive amounts of new Terrains and Terrain Features. So now all Maps of our Mod need to be adjusted / redone. But it is lots of tedious and boring effort.
So if I would be able to collect money for that, I would happily spend it to have somebody adjust all these Maps instead of having to do it myself, because I also do not find the time.

----

No other mod would ever benefit from this. The only project that would, would be our own mod WTP.
And in fact several of our players have offered to donate money - e.g. by becoming Patreons - for things like this.

----

Of course the money could be used transparently to solve these specific issues.
But transparency alone will not solve the issue of "the message" this would send.

Once you go down that route:
A) What message do you give to supporters that contribute without expecting money? Or will at some point everybody expect money?
B) What message do you give to modders that have been modding and supporting each other the last 15 years for free?
C) What if you use assets of mods that explicitly stated "Any project using our assets may never take money in any way." ?

Taking money or paying people money for modding would always leave a foul taste.
You would always end up with moral issues and people being enraged - sometimes rightfully, sometimes not.

----

The more I think about it:
It is a "Pandora's Box" I do not want to open. Because once opened it may not be closed again.
(It is tempting to go for the "fast and easy" solution with money ... but probably it is not the best.)

 

[raystuttgart]

By the way:
Sorry for necroing this old thread of yours and starting this discussion.
(I just found your thread when doing a forum search for "Patreon".)

It is simply that I recently got several offers again for donations and "Patreonship" from our community.
I was asking myself how to react to it. Thus I wanted to see how other mods have handled "Patreon".

I kind of answered my question though for myself.
Meaning for now I do not want to open this "Pandora's Box".

 

[Leoreth]

No worries, it's a topic that I keep thinking about from time to time still.

Your concerns are definitely valid and it looks like the problem you are trying to solve does not fit into the Patreon model as easily as what I had in mind. As soon as it becomes work that is directly tied to a specific mod and the problems it is trying to solve, it becomes harder to justify to the community. So I definitely understand why you don't want to go down that route.

 

[xijinping]

would definitely join in if patreon goes live given this mod has been my favorite. plus I dont see why having a patreon may be a potential issue.