Patreon is Changing to Monthly-Only
Recently, I was given a notification from Patreon that “per creation” funding would no longer be an option in 2025. This was said to be due to Apple changing to a requirement to use “Apple Pay” for subscriptions made through the iOS app. I don’t use Apple devices myself, and so I don’t know any further details about the reasons for this change (I recommend checking the post from Patreon if you want to know more about that).
After 2025, I will be able to continue “Lunatics!” on Patreon as a monthly subscription, and I’m not particularly attached to the “per creation” model. So this isn’t really that terrible.
In fact, I have wanted to switch to monthly subscriptions for some time. This has become the popular understanding of how Patreon works, to the point that most users seem to be surprised that there is any other model in use.
In fact, one patron who discontinued supporting the project gave as a reason that they couldn’t afford the “monthly” payments anymore. It seems they had not realized that they weren’t actually paying anything monthly for the “Lunatics!” subscription.
After some thought, I had come to the conclusion that the “proper” way to do this switch is to wait until the first episode is released, which will mean patrons will be charged for the release as they expect, and then notify them of the change in the release post. This would then allow everyone a chance to make adjustments to their pledges as they prefer.
Rationale
My original idea behind choosing the per-creation model is that it eliminates the production/delivery risk: if the episode took a much longer time than I predicted, you wouldn’t be raking up charges to pay for it. In one sense, this is lower risk — and from my perspective, lower pressure.
On the other hand, I’m putting in effort on this project pretty steadily, although it involves a lot of different types of work. And over time, the emphasis has shifted a bit from putting out the animated episodes to publishing about process and technique. It’s really been more of a research and documentation project.
Also, while the per-creation approach reduces the risk of paying more than expected for an episode, it increases the risk of unexpected charges. It’s like having written a check that doesn’t get cashed — until maybe the worst time, when you’ve forgotten about it and your bank balance is low. Also, had we actually managed to deliver the “18 episodes a year” we once hoped for, that would obviously mean double charges for some months. In other words, it’s harder to budget for.
I thought about that quite a bit as a patron myself — I noticed I preferred the predictable monthly charge to projects that charged unevenly.
So I’ve reached the conclusion that monthly is really the better option.
Changeover & Episode 1
The problem is then how to change over, in the least disruptive and most ethical way. For some patrons who’ve only committed a few dollars this is probably a non-issue. For the few who’ve made larger pledges it might be — and I haven’t heard from some of them, so I think maybe they have notifications turned off. Thus, simply making an announcement might not get to them all.
So, I want to stick to the original plan: produce episode one, charge for it as planned, and make the announcement about the change in that post.
This creates a December 31, 2024 deadline for releasing the episode on Patreon.
That really shouldn’t be a problem. I had already intended to get it finished this year.
Setting a hard deadline may mean that I have to cut corners on the production and deliver something less than what I had originally envisioned. But I’m also thinking that having a finished work is more important now.
So this is the plan: either I finish as planned or I put together a best-effort “safety edit” of the episode, using the best available material, and release that before the end of the year. Either way, the changeover will occur with that released episode.
If it does wind up falling short of my original vision, I may produce a “special edition” later, or something along those lines.
But also, I’ll start work on episode 2 by 2025. That does feel good — there’s already some material for it: Blender models, storyboards, even a few rendered shots.
Alternatives to Patreon
Obviously, I have no hard feelings for anyone who’s not happy with the new monthly-subscription model on Patreon, and I have no particular loyalty to Patreon, though I’ve not been unhappy with the platform. We do have alternative means to support the project.
Gumroad
In addition to merchandise, the Anansi Spacework Gumroad storefront includes “episode sponsorships” at both individual and business levels (there’s no enforcement of the distinction — just different kinds of sponsorship offers). The individual sponsorships correspond in both price and perks to the current Patreon per-creation levels: “Patron” ($20), “Silver” ($50), and “Gold” ($100).
The differences are:
- Payment is immediate, not on publication of the episode.
- They are not recurring. It’s just for the upcoming episode.
Otherwise, they are equivalent to the current Patreon levels. After 2025, this will be the nearest option to the existing arrangement on Patreon. If you have more money to spend and want to feature bigger in the episode titles, there are also Commercial Sponsorships (which allow for company logo graphics). Note that the sponsorship levels have minimum prices (the +), since Gumroad supports “pay what you want”.
I do plan to offer a monthly subscription on Gumroad as well, although that is not up, and when I am certain of the release date, there will be an “Episode DVD Pre-Order” and an “Episode Download Package Pre-Order” available. The DVD will be mailed from the USA and include shipping charges, while the download package will use digital delivery (so no shipping charges).
Ko-Fi
We do also have a Ko-Fi account which allows for both subscription and one-time payments.
I do not publish regular updates to the Ko-Fi account. Instead, I simply link to our self-hosted Production Log.
Liberapay
Liberapay is based on a weekly payment amount system, but allows you to pay into in various ways. It does not allow for sales or “perks” — everything is treated as a donation to support the project.
Distribution
For both the Liberapay and Ko-Fi accounts, money received goes first to basic operating expenses, up to about $200/month. This pays for web hosting cloud VPS, platform charges, object storage, domain registry, co-located server maintenance, computer hardware maintenance and upgrades, and so on. These are the expenses I otherwise pay out of pocket.
It doesn’t seem likely to be an issue yet, but if these accounts (combined) ever exceed the operating expenses, then the remainder will go into the coffer for the currently in-production episode, to be paid out along with other income received for that episode.
By contrast, the Gumroad and Patreon per-episode funds will be regarded essentially as “sales”, and so they follow the breakdown for sales and merch income: 20% overhead fee to Anansi Spaceworks (which contributes to overhead expenses and investments in new episodes, including advances and operating expenses), 80% going to contributing artists. I still don’t have a complete breakdown, but there will be one before the episode comes out, in the form of a LibreOffice spreadsheet, showing breakdowns to departments and individual contributions. For clarity: yes, I am one of the contributing artists and as producer, I get about a 7% share).
Thank You!
Once again: I am extremely grateful for any contributions to this project, no matter how small! It’s the sincerest form of applause, and if enough people contribute, it will make further production much easier for me and provide a source of funds to attract more talent to the project.
